There's tremendous talent in the open source community...but before you can capitalize on the potential within it, you have to understand it. This column explains how to access a wealth of information, with respect for the community that makes it available.
Welcome back to the Linux Careers column, which focuses on different aspects of recruiting and certification within Linux. Look here for advice on the different Linux certifications and which ones would be the best for your employees to have, as well as guidelines on recruiting the best candidates. This month the focus is on the importance of privacy and dealing with personal information online within the Linux/open source community.
The issues we are going to focus on are recruiting strategies and what you as an employer need to understand about the Linux/open source community. In my last column I discussed how hiring managers can use participation in open source projects and membership in Linux user groups as a basis for hiring Linux and open source candidates. This allows hiring managers to identify initiative as demonstrated by knowledge gained outside the traditional work environment.
Linux's rapid rise and adoption rate are attributable to the community of developers behind it. They use technology to achieve cooperation with the majority of the Linux kernel mailing members outside the U.S. Developers depend on the technology the Internet provides for communication, and recruiting managers can use it for screening.
At the same time, all this publicly available information could hurt individual open source developers. This concept is relatively new, but it's becoming an issue as open source becomes more mainstream. The corporate world that is now embracing Linux and open source has to understand and respect the information that is accessible.
In my last column I didn't touch on how you, the hiring manager, can access this information. Linux user groups and different open source projects have Web pages where all the information on the project is readily available. Remember, the goal is open development and open communication. You can visit the Web site of an open source project, and in addition to downloading the code you can see the developers' names and their contributions to the project.
Another key piece is the mailing list. You can join the list or almost always search the archives. This is the one area where newcomers to the open source community need to tread lightly. You can search through and see every comment or question that has ever been raised. All the information is publicly viewable, but there are certain rules for participating in these discussions posted on the site. Failure to follow the protocols can result in being banned from the list. These rules are quite specific and need to be followed.
As a recruiter specializing in Linux and open source, I receive résumés daily. Often, some of the best information on a candidate is not on the résumé. Many candidates have personal Web sites - we visit these personal sites, and I'm always amazed at the amount of detail readily available. We encourage individual candidates to realize that employers visit their sites to peruse such information.
Candidates should ask themselves if they would want the CEO of their existing company or a prospective employer visiting their personal site. Often, candidates post résumés or biographical sketches with company names listed. I always wonder if these companies know their names are being displayed with varying degrees of taste. I recommend that candidates maintain separate professional and personal sites. The site listed on the résumé should be an extension of the résumé with additional content and links to pertinent projects. Candidates should use the same degree of professionalism with their professional sites as they do with their résumés.
Open source projects generally have e-mail lists where the discussion of the project takes place. A few have Web-based forums, but most still use e-mail. Anyone is usually allowed to subscribe to these lists. However, if you don't want to get flooded with e-mail, just read the archives. Conversations occur on these lists about specific projects. Different developers post questions and bug fixes, and move the project along its development path. All the e-mail exchanges are saved and archived. You and I can use Google to look up details on the project. Very recently, we at HotLinuxJobs had a long conversation with a senior kernel developer who is very active on a number of different open source projects, including the Linux kernel mailing list (LKML).
This particular candidate mentioned that recently he had been on an interview, and the prospective employer had gone online and searched out his postings on a number of different open source projects and lists. During the interview, the company presented the candidate with these postings. They were concerned about some of the entry-level questions the candidate had posted related to building a kernel. They worried that he had not been truthful with his résumé, specifically as related to experience level. In essence, they had already formed an impression before the interview.
What the company had failed to do was read the postings fully to determine they were reading old postings dating back a number of years. This issue was easily explained but makes the point that hiring managers need to respect these information sources and make sure they are doing the due diligence needed to use them in hiring decisions.
During preparation for an interview with another candidate, I was reviewing her résumé. The candidate stated that she does a lot of open source project work, but all her postings are done with fake names. The candidate resorted to this strategy because at one time her real name was submitted for a position without her permission. It turned out that the hiring manager knew the candidate and did not understand why she was in the job market.
In another case, a candidate described how his comments on certain lists had been misinterpreted by a current employer, and some fast explaining had to be done. When disagreements occur, the discussions on the lists can get very heated. So the candidate had started using false names to achieve some level of privacy. At one point, most of the active people on the lists knew who this individual really was. But as time passed, people reviewing archives lost track of his real identity. Unfortunately, the dilemma is that this Linux expert has to sacrifice public knowledge of his accomplishments for job security. This example illustrates an important point about the need for both hiring managers and current employers to invest the time to learn and understand the subtleties of the Linux/open source community.
I hope these examples can assist hiring managers who are new to the open source community. Before we can capitalize on the recruiting and hiring potential within it, we have to learn it. We need to embrace the processes and accept the responsibility of accessing this wealth of information with minimal disruption.
