The hidden gems of our industry are waiting for you!
Software — is made by people. Products — are made by people. Each person brings a piece of their experience, feelings, and thoughts into life. So why do we choose and filter them so poorly?
In 2018, it is common practice to ask candidates to attach their StackOverflow, Github and Medium profiles to their job applications. Many mark these fields as mandatory, and do not offer candidates an option to skip these fields.
In my opinion, chasing public presence of potential candidates is one of the biggest mistakes a company can make. I am certain that this will cause the company to miss great talents, especially those that are underrepresented in the industry but have a lot to ‘bring to the table’. Here is why.
Coming from a ‘tough’ background, I had access to neither expensive education, nor lectures, teachers, seminars, mentors, or anything of a kind. All of my initial education was from books. Github? StackOverflow ratings? I knew nothing about that. What I did know was how to get things done, create a product from scratch, polish it, publish it and support it. I didn’t focus on just one aspect of coding — I focused on all of them, even if it was using only one programming language. I created windows applications, modded windows XP builds, created mods for games, trainers and more. That being said — I never had any kind of public presence. I focused on learning and improving my professional skillset, not on PR. I was a very fresh junior, playing with things at home, learning something new every day.
After years of independent learning and overcoming various coding challenges from Russian magazines’ complementary CDs, I made it through the many tests and interviews to the Intelligence Corps of the military. The recipe was hard work + luck. That is how my career got its real boost, and that is when I was introduced to good coding practices. Yet, I didn’t have any degrees, public profiles, Github contributions or anything of a kind. Does that mean I was not good enough? Does that mean I had no value, or couldn’t contribute to anything? My career proved that that was not the case.
What happens to people that don’t get that chance? What happens if you are born in a house that can’t send you to university, can’t afford any of the hands-on courses, and can’t pay what is required to get you the education and best practices that the industry expects? You have a high chance of being a lost talent. Working on some other job that pays your rent, and thinking that maybe you are not a fit in the high-tech industry. And why? Only because you didn’t have the pieces of paper proving you had it in you. You were rejected without even being interviewed, and if you were lucky enough to NOT be filtered beforehand — the interviewers would come prejudice, and most likely — fail you because you are not ‘one of them’. This is what my colleagues, friends and myself, coming from such backgrounds, experienced many times.
Throughout my career, I have met a lot of very intelligent, creative and original people who never stood a chance only because of their lack of formal education and memorisation of design patterns. Anyone willing to take them would gain a very valuable asset — an unpolished diamond, that needs just a bit of work and time investment to become a real treasure. But no. No Github profile? Goodbye. No commits with bugfixes in open-source projects? “We decided to pursue other candidates”, without even one phone call, doesn’t matter if the person in front of them created a whole new OS, 6 cross platform games, a rendering engine and 10+ web apps that they couldn’t publish due to licenses and agreements.
And the worst thing is that everybody loses.
Letting some steam off might be healthy on occasions, but let’s talk actions. My goal is to convince companies to change this mindset, help them understand what they are missing if they apply such restricting filters to all incoming CVs, and explain that when they choose to invest in their employees — it is their gain as well.
“What happens if we invest in our employees, and they leave?” asked the CEO.
“What happens if we don’t, and they stay?” — answered the CTO.
People that do not have an easy way into the industry — usually fight harder. They learn more, they spend their weekends reading and practicing, they always feel like they are not “good enough” and that they need to prove their worth every day. This usually makes them resilient, strong and highly professional with in-depth knowledge that others might not have. The low self-esteem drives them to be the best they can and fight any obstacles on their way. That is the kind of people you want in your team; people that fight for their goals, are not afraid of losing and will keep trying until they find their way to success. They will learn hard, work hard, and keep improving themselves all the time. So judging them only by the count of commits on their Github profiles — might give you with the wrong impression.
When I became Engineering Manager, I made it my goal to set this healthy mindset wherever I can, starting with my own employer. I convinced my bosses and our HR department that filtering based on the public presence of a person is wrong. I asked them to let me search for people myself.
And the results? One of our best-performing and most-committed engineers never received any kind of formal education, and got rejected by potential employers for almost a whole year (!!). Today, this engineer is a polished diamond, an extremely valuable asset for the company, leading other engineers, sharing knowledge and running workshops. The time and effort invested into this person’s hands-on training and mentorship- is paying off big time, not only for the employer, but for everyone surrounding that person.
My goal is not to persuade you to hire people without education. My goal is to convince you to not judge a book by its cover. There are many talents hiding in the most under-represented groups in tech. In this crazy industry that invents something new every hour — formal education is usually out-of-date, in addition to being very unaffordable. And yet, that is one of the main factors for companies looking for employees.
‘Shots fired’ is what I want you to think now, after reading the article to this point. But it is important to mention that this criticism is not enough- we must help the lost talent to be found. We must help these people to receive even the most mainstream, corporate jobs. If they deserve a way in- we must help them get it. For them, for their families, for the industry. We, people that made it through the initial filters and managed to get somewhere, must help others to find their way in the industry, even without a university degree, a Github profile, a Medium page.
I am encouraging you to share your knowledge and experience for free. You will be advancing the whole industry by empowering the people. You will also improve your own skills, refresh your knowledge, and become better at speaking/writing/presenting.
I have a pro-bono education program operating in locally (physically) and internationally (online), offering free hands-on education, courses, consulting and mentorship. You can do that too! When we work together — the physical boundaries should not be a limit for us, so please — join the cause. Don’t donate money, donate your knowledge.
Every person reading this has a unique background, a certain set of events that they encountered through their life, which formed them and made them who they are today. All of that has great value — and it doesn’t require much effort to share.
Medium is usually read by people who are already part of the industry, not people trying to get in, and that is why I am writing it here- join the cause in any way you can; as a part of a charity, lecturing in high-schools, hosting lessons or even just writing articles on the right platforms. Anything you do to share your experience and knowledge — helps somebody else in some part of the world to invent the next world-changing company, or even just make the apps you use everyday — much better.
