Stack Overflow has become one of the greatest resources on the web for programmers. Giving programmers a way to promote the high quality questions and high quality answers allowing the cream to rise to the top. It has a great tagging system and has attracted some of the best programmers around. Imagine, asking a question and having a Joel Spolsky or Jeff Atwood or Wil Shipley answer it.
Recently, at the DevDays Conference, Joel Spolsky announced the Careers functionality being added to Stack Overflow (and the entire Stack Exchange network). For a fee (to remove the Resume spammers) members can create a CV (not a resume, a distinction I’ll get into in a minute). This CV can be uploaded, and then the member can switch their “looking for a job” status as needed. Then an employer can pay a fee to view the programmers that are marked as “looking for a job”. They can then view their CV as well as their account profile. This removes the confusion for the employer reading a resume of not having any real measure of quality of the programmer’s work (by combining the CV and the post history, an employer can get a better feel for the programmer). If this takes off, it means a couple major things.
First, no longer are employees hunting for the best job, but employers can now hunt for the best programmers. This is a major shift and will have far reaching consequences. Cold calls will become much more prevalent, and quite exciting for the programmer. And don’t worry, Joel did mention that a filtering system is in place to prevent current or past employers from seeing that your status is “looking for job” if you elect.
Secondly, your ability to get a job may be relegated by your ability to answer or ask questions on Stack Overflow. This really drives home the importance of managing your on-line identity and puts a significant emphasis on a single site. If this does take off, talented programmers that don’t use Stack Overflow will be at a disadvantage. This, perhaps, may be a little unfair, but also promotes more people to Stack Overflow, helping and asking questions (and thinking about the quality of those questions and answers before posting).
Back to CV. Stack Overflow went with a CV rather than Resume as a Resume is a job finding tool, while a CV is a document listing your life’s accomplishments. They are promoting the CV so programmers will keep it up to date whether they are looking for a job or not. Keeping such a document up to date is something programmers are notoriously bad at. This will help keep everything in order, and keeping up a CV is a bit different than Resume, as you don’t necessarily need to be looking for work to do so.
So, do I think Stack Overflow will be the only place programmers are hired in the future? Of course not, but I do think it will be where a lot of opportunities are found and perhaps the best jobs are located. Places like Fog Creek that put an emphasis on the Best Programmers, Best Equipment, Best Environment, etc, will flock to Stack Overflow.
