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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3408 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 12, 2023

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Have any of my fellow early career programmers and programming adjacent professionals like Data Scientists gotten any success in the job search after making a personal website? Or a fancy personal website?

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE writing HTML and CSS, like hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns. Nonetheless, I sucked it up and finally created a personal website because some programmers swear by it so much, going as far as to say the website was the deciding factor of them getting hired or not because they claim that the hiring manager remarked "not everyone is putting in this much effort".

I'm assuming this is only an early career thing? How fancy does the website need to be really?

Nope. All my jobs have come through LinkedIn (except for my first one). I like the idea of personal blogs being the thing that gets you a cool job, but I think it's probably very rare. Maybe it sets you apart in a job with lots of candidates, maybe it disqualifies you for a different position. Programmers like them because they like doing stuff like this and that's it. I would definitely recommend having at least a LinkedIn profile if you're in the US with your experience listed so recruiters can find you.

I'm suspicious at how much you hate HTML and CSS though. I'm not particularly enamored with them myself, but there's a certain immediacy when working with them that's satisfying, and I like knowing how to make a website. It's something people can understand when I talk about what I do.

I've taken my personal site off of Google, or it will be off of Google when they see the new "nofollow, noindex" meta tag, because I've decided that I'd rather use myname.com for strictly personal things like an actually personal blog (i.e., just for me), wiki, jellyfin server, temporary screenshot server, ftp, etc., and I'm really liking that so far.

The best personal website I can think of in brendangregg.com, but what sets him apart is his output, not that his site is so great, or that he has one at all. He's just a really smart guy who any company would want to have on their team. So, instead of focusing on the design of your site, focus on becoming the kind of guy people want to work with.

I'm suspicious at how much you hate HTML and CSS though.

It's just grunt work to the nth degree.

Don't be hatin'

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