Has anybody heard about someone getting a job by using EL&U or other Stack Exchange Q&A sites?

Question

I was listening to the SitePoint Podcast where they were talking to the founder of GitHub. One thing that really intrigued me was that they were talking about how they would prefer to hire somebody based on quality coding work on GitHub over a resume.

It would be great if quality work on SE sites, where reputation is known and trusted, could lead to something outside of the site itself.

For instance, have you heard of someone getting a job by using one of the SE sites? If not, could you see employers one day using SE sites as part of the hiring process?

Answer 1

Hello — me. Well, actually, a huge majority of Stack Exchange employees earned their position from their work on Stack Overflow.

Have you heard of Careers 2.0? It was created precisely because employers prefer to hire based on demonstrable experience rather the trite bullet points found in most resumes. Everyone can say — and they always do — "I communicate well and mentor others"; but it's another thing entirely to see it in action!

True, the story behind Careers is focused around the programming bent of Stack Overflow, but that's only because of the sheer scale of the site. If the growth of the Stack Exchange network continues unabated, I'd like to see the Careers functionality extended to other sites on the Stack Exchange Network (hint: I ask every few months when we can expect this to happen… not yet).

But don't wait for something like Careers to happen to show what you can do. It would be insane to leave that "I speak English goodly" bullet point when you can say Here is an example of my best work.

Stack Oveflow Careers Success Stories