Why All Developers Should Blog
growled on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 6:02:26 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
barked at blog swap

Big Bad Recruiting Blog Swap As part of the Big Bad Recruiting Blog Swap, today's post [and the final one of the swap] is brought to you by Steven Kempton of the The Asia Pacific Headhunter. Steven offers an interesting take on developers, blogs, recruiting and how the three should go together. Enjoy!

Look at me! I am writing on Tod's blog. Why so excited? Because Tod is a software developer! So this is pretty cool since I love software and software companies. To me software is the epitome of technology. Offers so much, yet delivers so little. Unless of course you buy the "Missing Manual" ( I have always wondered, if you buy the "Missing Manual" on Amazon.com does it ever actually turn up at your house? And when you call customer service do they say, "You moron, what do you expect, it's a Missing Manual!").

Anyway a lot of hiring managers say the same things about a lot of developers. "Hey, I hired this guy, but I can't work out from what he's doing if he actually really turned up?". My experience is that developers are fun people and extremely tough to screen for recruiters and hiring managers alike. I have recruited my fair share of developers and quite simply, I have decided that from this point on I will only accept applications from developers with blogs (this doesn't preclude from headhunting people of course).

"You must be kidding" are the roars I hear from the crowd. That is exactly the answer I want because in software development, it's the crowds we all seem to be trying to avoid. You see, the developers I have met through blogs are all good. They love their work, they write about it, they can communicate (like Tod). So I am setting it as a new prerequisite, hopefully a bunch of other people in the recruitment industry will take it up and turn it into a standard (named after me). Even better if Tod can "evangelize" the idea within Microsoft for us (easily done since pretty much everyone over there blogs) then I could be on to a real winner and maybe even some "consulting trips" to Redmond to further develop the concept.

Anyway, my major point here is that blogs are awesome devices for developers. If a better marketing tool more open to any developer who wants to market their skills exists, then I have not found it yet.

Steven Kempton

Comments Comments [5]  

Related posts:
My contribution to the Recruiting Blog Swap - Week 8
My contribution to the Recruiting Blog Swap - Week 7
My contribution to the Recruiting Blog Swap - Week 6
Would I hire them again?
Extreme Recruiting
IT Outsourcing in China
 Tracked by:
"Interesting Finds: August 29, 2006" (Jason Haley) [Trackback]
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 6:53:20 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
An interesting idea Steven, but I'm not sure it will really play out in practice.

Regarding your comment "pretty much everyone over there blogs." You're right that, as a company, Microsoft probably has one of the higher percentages of bloggers, but the last count I heard put it at roughly 3,000 out of 70,000+ employees. Not quite everyone. ;-)

With regard to hiring only developers who blog, there is no way I could stick to that rule hard and fast. If a person blogs then I would definitely read through it to get a better idea of the person before hiring [as I even said in my very first blog-swap post], but I could not discount every developer out there that doesn't blog. For instance, my co-worker for the past year is a great developer and awesome to work with, but she doesn't blog. I would hate to think of all the mentoring and enjoyment I could have missed out on if we hadn't hired her simply because she doesn't blog.

I do agree wholeheartedly with your final sentiment...a blog can be an awesome marketing tool. Especially for developers who wish to put code samples out there, discuss the why-fors and how-tos of what they do and the philosophies behind their development strategies. I would hire developers like Phil Haack, Scott Hanselman or Jeff Atwood in a heartbeat based on their blogs.
tod
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 12:08:26 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Good example Tod. I guess the "only hire developers who blog" standard may be a little ahead of it's time. Especially for a large company like Microsoft who have to hire a lot of people. But perhaps for start-ups only hiring developers who blog could be a good way to really get to know a candidate. Plus as a startup you need all the free marketing you can get and hiring a developer/blogger who has a good readership can put you in front of the technology curve as well (wouldn't it?).
Steven Kempton
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 7:58:42 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Steven- Good point regarding a small shop.
tod
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 2:40:49 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I agree with the sentiment (good developers do something extra in their spare time), but perhaps you're being to specific with blogging.

Of the really great developers, designers and infrastructure people I've worked with, almost all have had a "techinically minded" hobby, be it contributing to open source projects, hanging out on a techinical group, designing their own motherboards, doing 3D art or rebuilding a car. Some don't simply because of time constrants, always trying to learn something new, kids or a lack of needing to say 'something' with a blog. But very few (no more than two or three), have or do blog.
Pete
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 5:46:17 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Pete- That is a really good way to put it. Good developers have a passion for technology and it might not be represented in a blog, but they probably do something technical in their spare time...just because they enjoy it. Thanks for the viewpoint!
tod
Comments are closed.