Curious about this.
Does hiring manager check out at your website (if exist on resume)? Does it ever get brought up during an interview?
Also do people search your name on Google? I assume that for smaller companies they would do that, how about big companies?
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When I was an engineer, nobody ever checked my github.
As a product manager, nobody has ever looked at my personal website.
Recruiters are reaching out to 100s of candidates, they don’t have time to look at your special site.
There’s a reason Resumes are bullet points and not paragraphs.
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Right, I think recruiters probably won’t, because too many candidates. What I’m curious about are the interviewers and hiring managers the same?
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I have never had an interviewer or hiring manager look at either of the above either
Having been on the other side of interviewing, we’re often swamped with work, and having an hour in our schedule to talk to a potential employee is about all we can give.
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I see. Thanks!
I haven’t been on the other side of the interview so that’s helpful to hear.
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When I hire, it’s a big deal to give an offer, I will check them out on all platforms I can find if they are in the final rounds.
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I’m a hiring manager and I always review candidates’ personal websites if they’re included in the application. I’m not necessarily reading entire essays if they’re long, but I always read case studies and navigate through the site to get a sense of the quality of the overall UX and implementation.
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@NathanEndicott, what would you say a “great” case study looks like, on a personal website?
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- Clear explanation of the brief or assignment. Ideally this includes some business context and KPI’s or success metric
- Documentation and artifacts from every step of the process. I want to see requirements, wireframes, pixels
- Show what part of the project you owned as a PM. If you didn’t do the design or code, prove to me your ownership or responsibilities during the project
- Data and impact- Was the project successful? How do you know? Show some metrics or feedback from users
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Thanks a ton for spelling that out–but what would make it great in a hiring scenario? That they can sort of conform to this template & communicate clearly? Or that 1 or more of the cases they’ve got directly apply to the role you’re hiring for?
I also hope that you’re charitable with candidates who really don’t feel legally protected to share these kinds of details publicly.
I’m really curious about this as a hiring criterion–I could see this being helpful in engineering hiring too.
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I have been on both sides of this question.
As a candidate, I created my little website and did a project about the company I was interviewing for. I made sure the project was highlighted on the portfolio and shared that with the recruiter 4 days before the on-site interview. The hiring manager saw the project and shared it with her whole team to look at my work BEFORE the interview. I knocked every single interview out of the park as I could discuss in detail about the company and already had a good impression with the team.
As a hiring manager, I crave to look at people’s actual work instead of bullet points on resume. It is very hard to trust resumes. People can write whatever they want. Projects or artifacts that show real work give me real insight about the person. It also help me shortlist candidates for on-sites. During on-sites, I ask them about the work in detail. If they can explain what they did in detail, we talk more and move to the next round.
I also maintain a portfolio that showcases my work … just like GitHub for Engineers. IMO, it makes recruiting easier and allows me to track my work and recall it whenever I want.
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That sounds great! Any chance you can share a link to your portfolio?
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Also subscribing to this. Can the OP tag me in their response please?
If you don’t want to share, can you explain what the project was? I’m assuming you wrote an article that had something to do with the company
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Would also love to take a look. I have yet to see an impressive PM portfolio.
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Sure. Here you go - Michael Yoffe
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So, I can only share my approach. And I’m probably going to get downvoted for this approach, but I’m sharing it so you know how many hiring managers approach these kinds of decisions.
My guiding rule is that if it’s on the open web about you, not something someone else wrote, but something obviously you wrote, it’s fair game for me as part of the hiring process. That means your LinkedIn posts, your twitter posts (assuming you didn’t lock down your feed), and whatever else- as long as it’s visible to the public and clearly you I’m allowed to use it in making a hiring decision. Please keep reading for how I use it, because it may not be what you think.
As a HM I’m operating with a very limited set of information for a very high leverage role.
If we get into the interview process post initial screens, I’m going to do the following things:
- If you’ve got a website listed on your resume or CV, I’m looking at it- just generally to see what’s there.
- I’m definitely going to your LinkedIn and I’m going to match up the dates on your resume to what you’ve got on LinkedIn. I’m also glancing for any differences between the two- this whole process takes me maybe 5 minutes, but in the past it’s revealed some pretty big stuff. I’m not afraid to ask a candidate, “Hey it looks like you’ve got XYZ on LinkedIn as a place you spent time, but I didn’t see it on your resume, can you tell me about that?” Often times it’s as simple as they’re trying to go for brevity in their resume and there’s a good reason. At least twice I’ve found they were terminated for cause from those employers. Lots of reasons why people get laid off/fired, and a transparent candidate is usually fine with me, but errors of omission are effectively lies to me and that’s not going to be a good match for how our team operates.
- Speaking of LinkedIn and resumes (we’re far afield from your question, but I think it’s worthwhile to note here), I’m going to spot gaps in your resume and I’m going to ask. Probably not about a 3-month gap, but yearlong gaps I’m going to ask what you did during that time. Caring for a family member, raising a child, exploring the world- all great answers. I have some of those myself. Hiding job stuff, not so awesome.
- OK, now to social media. Really all I care about is that you’re smart enough to be professional in public. Have an opinion I don’t agree with and want to argue on the internets? I genuinely don’t mind as long as you do it professionally. Posting about your all-night drinking and rolling into work hungover in tweets attached to your name? Horrifically bad judgment and social awareness. I will NEVER go looking for something that requires me to do anything deceitful to get the information. I’m not going to fake friend someone or do something like that.
So, you asked, that’s my approach. I am likely in the minority with my approach, but it works for me.
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Seems like some intensive work that you’re doing but definitely seems very helpful. Are you by chance working at a smaller size company, say <100 people?
I can imagine myself putting in a lot of effort for people who will be joining my team. But probably won’t scrutinize too much if the company is big and candidate will end up with another team.
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We are at 225 right now, will be 325 by end of next year. I did this when I was at a place of 1500 as well as a place of 75.
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Your company is lucky to have you.
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I do interviews at FAANG, though I’m not currently part of a Hiring Committee.
- Yes, I do. TBH They rarely move the needle- only if they are especially well done or especially poorly done (or the written content says something offensive).
- Yes, I always do a Google search and look you up on LinkedIn.
There is no rule as to whether or not we do this- and we are supposed to look only at your resume and your interview performance. But I’d be dishonest if I didn’t say that your public persona didn’t influence me at all- similar to how I don’t care about how you look unless you absolutely stink, wear something offensive, etc.
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