I recently saw this post about putting dev.to on your resume, and I thought it was very helpful! I had put dev on my resume for some positions that were more specific to writing, but now I think I will keep it on there for all jobs. Having top posts on here is definitely one of my greatest/most measurable achievements as a very junior dev.
Before this, I "had dev.to on my LinkedIn" but only as part of my "featured articles," the publications section, and a link to my profile.
So after seeing the resume post, I thought I could go another step in adding to my Experience section. I have the following currently:
But imposter syndrome always has me worried that this is somehow... dishonest. I've always thought the Experience section on LinkedIn was solely for employment where you were paid. But... maybe that's too strict. So I wanted to post this and get general thoughts on it.
Latest comments (28)
sounds interesting,,,, I have just started thinking to post regularly on dev to! your post is inspiring for me. thanks
Thank you for this post. Your work and content is fantastic.
I’ve been writing a post a week for a few months now, but wasn’t quite sure if I could put it on my resume or LinkedIn. This has me rethinking that. 👍🏼
This Kind of Post is a Motivation for Me, as I started to write on the Dev.to but then after writing one or two articles I leave it due to some study and work reasons.
Now looking at this article I am thinking of starting to write new articles as well. I guess I should write at-least one article per week regarding different aspects of the Software Development.
By the Way a Nice way to show interests in reading and writing area in terms of Software Development.
man so cool one article per week
Personally I think if you have 250k rep on stackoverflow, or you have sold thousands of training programs on udemy or courseera, or have 2 million followers on youtube or twitch, it definitely belongs somewhere if you wanted to showcase it.
I'd probably list it under
Accomplishmentsthough, maybe as an "Organization" or "Project"It's definitely something you want to share with potential employers. Your articles and comments are far better indicators of your technical skills than some quick-wit answers you manage to come up with in an uncomfortable chair, in a cramped conference room, and in front of 3 guys staring you down. ;-)
I'm not sure Past Experience is the best place for it though. It might feel "artificial" to some interviewers. Perhaps in your Bio, or the Reference section?
Eh, I'm a little sketched out at the idea simply because of how LinkedIn uses those kinds of experiences across the site. If someone clicks on dev.to, they'll see you as an employee of the company because that's how LinkedIn cross-references the experience section.
On the other hand, though, since LinkedIn added "types" of roles to the experience section, you aren't implying full-time employment. It could instead be something like Self Employed which is more true being a blogger without specific quality metrics. I wouldn't say Freelancer since there's no one judging the merit and worth of your work blogging to the void.
Thank you for this! This is a good point, and I had left that field blank exactly because of what you said, I didn't want to imply that I was a hired employee of the dev.to company. I will change it to self-employed.
I always think it's a bad idea to use metrics like followers and view counts. How many people "liked" your post has very little bearing on how good quality it was. Having a lot of followers on one platform is often the result of bringing them over from another. That sort of thing.
If more people did this, then recruiters (or whatever the audience is) would start measuring one person against another. At that point suddenly it becomes a popularity contest and, by definition, 99% of us will lose.
I think it's good to be proud of what you've done, but to pitch it as a way you've contributed to the tech community at large, and how you have interests that persist after 1730 on a Friday afternoon.
I agree, but sadly, I hear so much that recruiters/employers are only looking at numbers in a resume :/ so I really focus on those things in my bullet points because it's impossible to add any differentiation to my accomplishments, unless I win some kind of additional award I guess? But I also link to my posts in my resume/linkedin, so it's like the numbers of likes/followers is just to catch a recruiter's attention, but hoping they will actually read my posts to assess their quality. I like what you say about how to pitch it though.
LinkedIn is a joke.
Don't take the experience section that serious. The vast majority of profiles makes up titles for positions anyway.
Adding a section about being an author on Dev.To, and sharing the impact you have made on the platform is the furthest from dishonest that you can get. (Unless you are making the numbers up).
Excuse me, sir! My title is totes super cereal!
(specifically written to mock all the taglines stuffed with cringey buzzwords on LinkedIn)
My experience section is legit though. Education and certs too, but I use them to push back against the pointless obsession with them.
I think it's good, that shows how passionate the person is and how she/he involves in the tech community.