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I've been contacted for a job offer because the employer thinks I might be good for the job. More specifically, I was found on Stackoverflow and contacted about my work there.

This person would like to know about my actual programming experiences. He's seen what I've done on SO and assumes that I have atleast worked on projects in the past. But the truth is I've never worked on projects (open source or otherwise). I consider myself to be an experienced programmer (4+ years) but I have not done anything "real" with these skills of mine.

I'm interested in getting this job. How do you think I should respond to this person?

Me myself and I
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    How do you claim experience yet also never worked on projects? This seems contradictory to my mind. Either you've done stuff or you haven't. – JB King Mar 19 '14 at 22:10
  • @JBKing I meant I learned how to code but I don't have anything to which I can refer him. – Me myself and I Mar 19 '14 at 22:12
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    Where did you learn to code? How did you overcome various challenges with that? If you want to state that you have 4+ years of experience, there has to be something that happened here unless you want to claim aliens or the NSA abducted you for this time. – JB King Mar 19 '14 at 22:19
  • To be clear he wants a copy of my resume detailing my past experiences. I'm 18 and never made a resume. Do you think I should make one and give it to him - answering the questions you have under "Experience"? Or should I come out and tell him that I have no tanglible, published evidence of my programming literacy (other than on SO) and follow that up by answering said questions instead? – Me myself and I Mar 19 '14 at 22:53
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    How can you claim to have 4 years of experience, if you've never done any projects? Just learning to code isn't "experience" you need to have applied that in some way, and if you haven't done any projects - open-source or otherwise - I'd strongly suggest toning down any talk of how much "experience" you have. –  Mar 19 '14 at 22:58
  • Just say, you are learning programming at the same time helping people around with the knowledge gained through stackoverflow. – Thalaivar Mar 19 '14 at 23:15
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    @MemyselfandI Yes, create a resume. If you do not have any experience in a company then list what programs you HAVE build (have you ever coded a web site for yourself? Have you ever built a script that calculates your damage-per-second in a video game?). Let the person decide if that's enough "experience". – Irwin Mar 19 '14 at 23:22
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    I think it should be noted that his SO account shows 66 questions (many well received ones) and 1 answer (not upvoted). I don't think "helping people around" would be a very valid claim in the light of how SO works. – Jeroen Vannevel Mar 19 '14 at 23:38
  • @JeroenVannevel That's not the SO account I primarily use. This is it. – Me myself and I Mar 20 '14 at 00:59

2 Answers2

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My suggestion is to write up a resume listing your experience though do be careful how you categorize this so that you aren't lying and you won't be killed in an interview if the interviewer asks the following relatively basic questions:

  • What methodology did you use in building this software?
  • What version control systems do you know?
  • What bug tracking system did you use to keep track of issues and resolutions?

After you have the resume, I'd schedule an interview with the person to discuss your background, the job and how well do these fit together. I doubt you were given a job offer directly but rather someone wanted to discuss a possible opportunity so be aware of your language here as some of what you say may well get you into some trouble fast. If you claim to have 4 years experience in a language and stumble on what some people see as basic points in the language, you may come off as someone that doesn't live up to what he says. As an example, if you've used ASP.Net for 4 years and don't know a few events in the page life cycle and just say, "Uh, I don't know. I never had to do anything with that," your chances of getting the job may well go down considerably.

JB King
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So four years of posting questions on Stack Overflow? My advice is put integrity first. Just being honest will take you further than anything you can write on a resume.

Edit added: In comments, you have provided more information about another StackOverflow account (other than the one this is linked to) which seems to have credibility and significant reputation. If true, I suggest you can claim ample experience training or mentoring others via StackOverflow, and I would sell to that strength that while also working to fill the gap by actually building a demonstrable and substantial project. Someone with your skills should find it easy to put a project together in short time. Then when asked, you can say you are young and you are working on something amazing - it's in the works! Good luck.

Bradley Thomas
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