Resumes Fail Developers: Stack Overflow Seeks to Fix It

App developers and the recruiters looking to hire them can agree on two things. One, job hunting is a headache. Two, paper resumes are virtually useless in determining a coder’s relative skill, commitment, and quality of work.

Thankfully, Stack Overflow just came up with a great workaround to the paper resume problem. “Developer Story,” a new feature launched this week, allows developers to create timeline-based “stories” that highlight real-world achievements and accomplishments rather than pedigree, education, and etc. Beyond a more attractive format, a developer-centric platform designed to keep recruiter spam at bay sounds appealing to many techies.

The platform makes a ton of sense for San Diego app developers, considering that tech statistics consistently report that most developers don’t have computer science degrees. More than perhaps any other discipline, app development pulls on a variety of backgrounds, and the relative youth of the industry means that workers who have been on a tech track since a young age are rare. For many of the best developers, education comes directly from online communities like Stack Overflow, GitHub, and the rest. Experience comes from getting their hands dirty building things — not getting “A”s in a lecture hall.

The challenge this varied workforce creates for recruiters is, ultimately, the challenge of picking out the “real thing” from inexperienced beginners. Code is hard to crack, and recruiters often have to rely on job title — which can result in skipping over the best talent, when so many brilliant developers spend their time on unglamorous open-source projects that a non-technical hiring manager might not recognize as important.

App developers are already on Stack Overflow all day anyway, and recruiters that know what they’re doing should be checking profiles of potential hires to see how involved they are in solving actual problems. Developer Story is an encouraging step in the right direction.