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I recently moved to Portland, OR and I've been using Careers both as a portfolio site to send to other folks as well as hoping to get contacts and I'm wondering what to expect in terms of the latter. I've read some of the other posts here and I'm wondering specifically whether there are many recruiters/companies in the area using SO (there aren't too many job postings relative to Dice/craigslist/etc. but don't know if that necessarily means anything about recruiters). I'm getting a decent amount of contact from companies/recruiters outside of the site.

My stats from ~1 month of having my resume up is about (I'm guesstimating here because I had my resume up in another locale prior):

Employer views 9
Search hits 75
Email inquiries from employers 0

Normal?

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    fwiw, careers is a "quality over quantity" kind of site by design.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 19:31
  • I made an edit to reflect that these aren't the counts I'm seeing on the site since it looks like I got pushed an email notification I've already received.
    – dfb
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 19:32
  • @JeffAtwood - No doubt. I'd rather take a few good contacts than 100 junk ones
    – dfb
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 19:33

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Looking at your profile, I think the biggest weakness is your personal statement. Currently it sounds like you'll just take anything and are not particularly interested in what you end up doing. The personal statement is above the fold on every view we show to employers and is really your place to give employers an indication of whether you would be a good fit for their culture. A quick and dirty query shows the average length of a personal statement for active profiles saved by employers is about 700, and the average length of all active profiles not saved by employers is about 440. That's not the most scientific query, but it agrees with my hunch that your personal statement is one of the most important parts of your profile.

Specifically in the personal statement you should mention the type of company you want to work for (team size, working conditions, maybe locations you would like to work in, startup/corp, etc), the types of projects you want to work on (big data, front end, databases, infrastructure, etc) and without being excessively wordy, something else about yourself (how you spend free time, how you approach coding, a big achievement, etc). This kind of information gives a much better picture of who you are and if you would be a good fit for the team employers are looking to hire for. This also helps you weed out employers who might be hiring for something you are qualified for but wouldn't be happy with.

Stats related to the number of employer views and search hits and emails are really kind of red herring. Getting 1 or 2 emails for jobs you would love is significantly better than getting 10+ emails for jobs you are just qualified for. Once you figure out what you want from your job, finding a job you would love doesn't take an excessively long time; there are lots of great jobs out there. I'm not saying you haven't decided what you are looking for, just that the information you are showing employers on your Careers profile doesn't express what you are looking for.

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  • Thanks, this is helpful. Are there any good examples of statements that do this without sounding stand-offish?
    – dfb
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 20:30
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    NP, Don't try to phrase it as "here is what I want", just describe yourself and let the employers decide is they want to talk to you further. I urge you to write your own first so it actually sounds like you, but when you're done, my profile is at careers.stackoverflow.com/nicklarsen for a single example that fits my personality and traits. Yours doesn't need to look like it at all, it just needs to feel right for you.
    – Nick Larsen
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 21:16
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    @dfb for Careers personal statement consider "borrowing" examples and tips for LinkedIn profile summary - there are plenty available online (eg 1, 2, 3), just search the web
    – gnat
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 21:37
  • @gnat - I'd like to write a genuine statement while being professional. I find most profiles on LinkedIn to be disingenuous marketing-speak. This is why I used Careers in the first place - to, insofar is possible - find a position where that isn't valued as much as doing good work because I'm usually not able to make a judgement until I get on-site. I guess there's a fine balance here between getting people's attention and over-selling. Seeing Nick's profile helps because the statement is punchy but then the resume is no-nonsense.
    – dfb
    Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 17:49
  • @dfb I find most profiles on LinkedIn to be disingenuous marketing-speak that's a good catch, I notice that too. Still, to me studying these turned out the most convenient way to find examples of serious professional personal statements, I just had to carefully separate wheat from chaff
    – gnat
    Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 18:58

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