Employers Among Us, Would You Consider A Candidate Active On Biostar?

Question

[Andra Waagmeester]

I have read that through careers.stackoverflow.com potential job candidates can link their stackoverflow profile with their CV. I was wondering if this would also work for biostar. Would linking your biostar profile to your CV, enhance your chances in your career? I would imagine that if this is the case, then it would benefit both the users as the biostar system. Indeed, if there is a direct benefit on being active on Biostar, the quality of the contributions would be higher. But this boils down to the question if employers consider online content in their search for the ideal candidate.

[Neilfws]

Candidate question for community wiki?

[Simon Cockell]

I'm of the opinion that all 'meta' questions should be community wiki (assuming that a person's Biostar reputation should be reflective of his/her ability to help solve Bioinformatics problems, rather than pontificate on the nature of the site).

[Simon Cockell]

I say that as one who has done much pontificating btw.

[Chris Evelo]

I agree that contributions to content should somehow be counted differently from contributions to help thinking about the site, or help develop it. But on the other hand they should both be counted.

[Chris Evelo]

O and please do wikify it... Since we cannot count both at this moment we better count 1 correctly.

[Andra Waagmeester]

I have never completely understood what the rationale is behind the community wiki, except for it being a nice example of a pleonasm, but if it helps I have no prob what soever to wikify it. How do I do that?

[Thaman]

edit and wikify!

[Istvan Albert]

@Andra I am also occasionally stumped at how I am supposed to interact with an answer on a community wiki, edit an existing one, start a new one?

Answer 1

[Chris Evelo]

Yes, I would and in fact already did once (which is the reason I came to Biostar in the first place). I think the usage of modern communication media is important to improve your work, and this could show from high quality questions related to specific research questions. It is also important to have a good insight in specific fields and to be able to express that, which could show from high quality answers. Note that it is more the quality than the quantity. So I would be checking the actual content not just the reputation.

Although I think this should be important for any employer I think it will be more accepted in fields where collaboration with the community at large is really important, like for groups that develop larger open source software projects. There will definitely still be employers that would like their employees to concentrate more on immediate activities and hush about what they do internally. So it is good to consider that before you add you Biostar profile to your CV.

Answer 2

[brentp]

I'm not a potential employer, but I have received 2 offers to interview that mention my profile here on BioStar as well as my github profile. (Though I didn't end up at either of those places, I was immediately more interested because it indicates a level of savvy and interest in a potential future employer if they know of resources like biostar and have taken the time to explore them).

I think that combination (github + biostart), or either of those singly, gives a better representation of my interest and (hopefully) breadth-of-knowledge than a static resume.

[Istvan Albert]

Yes, this cuts both ways, I would most certainly be more likely to go to work for someone that knows what github and Biostar were (not to mention Reddit ;-) )

Answer 3

[Istvan Albert]

An employer needs to establish that the candidate is indeed knowledgeable - what better way than reading what the candidate can actually do? I have recently interviewed dozens of candidates (perhaps I'll write it up one day) and I came away convinced that resumes and CVs don't correlate with actual abilities. This may not be news to some but it was quite eyeopening for me just how many "bioinformatics" candidates have not heard of a GFF file, one did not know what a FASTA file contains(and he was a coauthor of a paper in Science!) - and this is after filtering out the obviously unqualified ones.

I see BioStar as the ultimate way demonstrate one's knowledge. The easiest way to judge one's competence and communication abilities is reading their answers. I would most certainly give far more weight to a good answer on Biostar than to a listing of skills on a resume.

[Andra Waagmeester]

I am wondering how many biostar users now google for GFF ;) In your specific example, I guess it also work the other way around. Going for a job interview, the least you can do is google for your potentially new employer, so that s/he knows what you find important in life.

Answer 4

[Casey Bergman]

Yes, I would use a BioStar (or other forum) profile to judge an applicant, both positively or negatively. But I don't think that it is necessary to link it to your CV though. If an employer knows about BioStar (which may be a positive from a candidate's perspective, see brentp's response) and you are active and have a good reputation, they are already likely aware of you or they can search for you quickly. If an employer does not know about BioStar, putting your BioStar profile on your CV is unlikely to make much a difference. Putting it on your CV may look like you are active on BioStar to enhance your job prospects, rather than contribute your knowledge to a community.

Two additional comments are worth mentioning here in relation to BioStar profiles impacting job decisions, whether or not you put your profile on your CV: 1) If you care about making your BioStar rep count, then you need to make your handle and profile transparent. I know some people prefer to have an anonymous profile for a variety of reasons, but there is no way to validate a person's contributions if they are anonymous. 2) Use of negative, defamatory, aggressive, insulting and hyper-critical language (e.g. use of RTFM and the like) in the pursuit of being 'kewl' and gaining hacker cred looks extremely bad to me an employer, so I'd avoid this kind of answering/commenting at all costs if you don't want your digital footprint to work against you in the long run. As a PI/core facility manager, I'd much prefer to hire a less able programmer/bioinformatician who works well in a team than a superstar who is conflictual and arrogant and causes disruptions because they (think they) know all the answers.

Answer 5

[Pierre Lindenbaum]

I'm going to steal Kadher's answer. AHAHAHAHAHA!

I know he received an offer from his tweets and his activity on Biostar. See:

https://twitter.com/#!/kshameer/status/24602066888

Glad to hear +ve feedback from one person in a group that offered me a job was following me, my tweets and feeds from BioStar Q&A #ftw

EDIT:

See also the questions related to stackoverflow: e.g.

• http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/20407/will-high-reputation-in-stack-overflow-help-to-get-a-good-job
• http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/12070/would-you-put-your-stackoverflow-profile-link-on-your-cv-resume
• http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/9948/how-to-sell-a-high-so-reputation-at-an-interview
• (...)

Answer 6

[Larry_Parnell]

We were a potential employer until the funding suddenly was pulled from us - no US Govt budget and so all unfilled positions will (must) remain so. I did look at BioStar and other places to see what my colleague's candidates had to say.

We are always a potential collaborator - and so Biostar and other such places (eg Github) are places to review the credentials of a potential employee/collaborator. I think that giving the option to link one's BioStar profile to one's CV is not really something that needs to be offered. If a candidate wants to highlight his/her BioStar activities, then mention that in the cover letter or CV. If the employer is curious, then look around. In other words, the onus should be on the particular person (candidate or employer) to be active and go and find this information. Once the option is offered, then those who don't participate will be viewed as not up to date with the latest or lazy or trying to hide something (assumptions here would be dangerous to make).

If I thought each and every question I pose or answer I offer were a small part of a pre-employment exam, I might be less inclined to write. I know all that I post can be used for that, but I'd prefer to make it optional - I tell them about me on BioStar or they have the wherewithal to go find me.