Comments on: Intranet design is career suicide (don’t be invisible)

By: Barbara Saunders

Barbara Saunders — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:48:21 +0000

I believe knowledge workers have something to learn from artists here. If you think of an even moderately successful artist, that person has a unique body of work/voice. For example, a magazine might pay a book author to write a particular article because that writer has just the right spin or approach or audience. A producer chooses to cast one actor over another because that actor brings something specific to the film — which might be in her look, her style, echos of a past role, even her biography.

Talented (and I mean small “t” talented as well as big “T”) people, in my opinion, should not regard themselves as fillers of slots but as unique contributors. Companies will seek out So-and-So because of the particular value he brings to the table.

By: Nathan Bowers

Nathan Bowers — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:33:34 +0000

It may be infrequent because so few developers do anything on their own.

The last time I sought a big corporate job my entrepreneurial experience and open source contributions were at the top of my resume, and that’s what my interviewers wanted to talk about. Even though they were a Java/CVS shop they were more interested in asking me about Rails development and SVN.

In interviews as on store shelves, potential customers are interested in the new and different. Any employer scared by a free thinking or entrepreneurial streak is not a place you want to be anyway.

Of course they still want to see that you’ve got boring long term corporate jobs on your resume, just as a signal that you know how to play according to their rules.

By: JeanHuguesRobert

JeanHuguesRobert — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:33:47 +0000

I wonder how long it will take before a “My own projects” section in a resume becomes something to look for when hiring top software developers?

So far it is relatively infrequent… isn’t it?