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Apparently, I'd need an invitation to create a profile there. That's fine, I've been around stackoverflow, got a bit of score on SF, shouldn't be a problem, right? Moreover, there are career postings for sysadmins all over the site, so the careers site should cater to sysadmins, right? Wrong. They want to know if I'm a real programmer in order to provide an invitation.

Invitations ensure that everyone who has a profile is a real programmer.

So my question is - why? Why only programmers?

EDIT: I can find work on other sites, but the stackexchange network is well known and quite a few programmers I know get headhunted through SE, especially for the more interesting types of positions. And what is more important, they get relevant offers. I mean we all know how tiring it is to repeat over and over to every calling recruiter, that if your resume mentions Windows XP somewhere, it doesn't mean you are interested in junior helpdesk positions. Moreover, it looks like a person with high enough rating on SE, can use that rating, so why not let everyone enjoy well earned ratings and publicity?

Having had to hire some windows admins a while ago, I remember how people with fake resumes came in, showed off a braindump assisted MCSE cert and wasted my time. I know for certain that someone with over 5k points on SF (and relevant activity of course) cannot be a pMCSE, and so do the HR folks.

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    Because Dev outnumbers Ops by orders of magnitude.
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 3:31
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    I don't see why that is relevant. it's careers.stackexchange, not programmer_careers.stackexchange
    – dyasny
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 4:45
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    Well, technically, it's careers.stackoverflow.com...
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 6:01
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    It's biased towards programmers because stack exchange was originally (some would say, still is) biased towards programmers. They're the biggest audience.
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 8:45
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    @RobM maybe :) but maybe it's time to move on - the platform is right there after all
    – dyasny
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 15:46
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    @dyasny I agree, but you asked for why and that's my theory as to why, is all. It is a little annoying but if anything its probably down to the people who have the sysadmin vacancies to fill but who don't advertise on Stack Exchange - I'm sure SE wouldn't turn down their money and wouldn't be adverse to building out a more sysadmin orientated version of careers if they could see it making money... I think that's how they support the site after all.
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 21:21
  • 2
    @RobM sometimes things don't move until someone kicks 'em in the right direction. There is a huge detachment between a sysadmin and the developer worlds, this is, after all, why the devops idea came to be.
    – dyasny
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 21:26

4 Answers 4

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This is really a minor copy issue that we'll find an elegant way to fix.

Careers is for programmers, and it is for sys admins. While the majority of positions on the site and employers using the search product are looking for programmers, we do have specific filters on both products to target the sys admin population on Server Fault.

The only excuse or reasoning I can give for the current language is that it had the biggest success in turning away the users we didn't want signing up for a profile. However, it's not clear to Server Fault users that they are welcome and encouraged to create a profile. We'll make this clear shortly.

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    I'm not sure about this being "minor", considering how pervasive the verbiage is across the site. It's reassuring to hear though. Can you confirm that the automatic invites are keyed to SO activity, and not SF? If so, will this be changing?
    – Andrew B
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 16:24
  • 1
    @andrewb Fair enough. Minor in the context of making sure the SF community knew they were welcome in the CV database. Reading your answer here too, I see your point on the general marketing towards programmers. That is not something we want to address now for several reasons. It's a complicated message to get across to employers, and the current system of working closely with our clients with their hiring needs works really well. If a sys admin position is needed, we help them through the process of searching and posting jobs in the correct way.
    – Will Cole Staff
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 16:45
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    Hope it goes better than the last 2 or 3 times the FAQ/Help system has come up for revision......
    – Magellan
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 17:27
  • It's capital vs. opex all over again.
    – Andrew B
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 20:49
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    Another problem here is that sysadmins may or may not have sufficient reputation on SO, or activity on Github/Codeplex to qualify to sign up. I think some other means of qualifying sysadmins to sign up needs to be found.
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Jan 9, 2014 at 22:09
  • @MichaelHampton, @ WillCole, Are sysadmins and programmers the only targeted audience? What about DBAs, PMs, and QAs?
    – Pacerier
    Commented Aug 21, 2015 at 22:01
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It's easy to think that careers.SO is designed to be monster.SE, but it's not.

I've seen stated multiple times on SF that SE sites exist to drive traffic to the careers site, so I've always taken it for granted that it was meant to be a general purpose career site. Makes sense, so I had no reason to question it further in my one year of being on SF. On second look though, the assumption that it's a careers site for SE in general is incorrect.

If you've been on SF long enough, you've probably gotten one of the invites to the careers site. I've gotten one too. But look at it more carefully: "In recognition of your contributions to Stack Overflow". I wrote that off as auto-mailers that haven't been updated to use the StackExchange verbiage, but on further research I received that within 30 days of answering a question on SF that was migrated to SO.

When you actually look careers.SO though (particularly careers.SO/about), everything about it that is not user submitted content points at the site being marketed directly at programmers. The fact that other professions can get jobs there appears to be a happy coincidence that the SO owners benefit from.

Now, I could be wrong, but before you downvote, please drop a comment linking to something on the careers site that is not marketing it as a site for programmers. Tags, job postings, etc. don't count.

This is a great question, and I think there's more than enough room to grow the marketing for careers.SO in a direction that is more inclusive of system administration, particularly since it's already being used by them. But don't confuse who it's exclusively marketed to, and the people who are finding other uses for it.

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    Here's one thing. The SE dropdown on Christianity, English Language & Usage, Super User, and other sites, highlights the relevant meta site below the current site. The SE dropdown on Stack Overflow and Server Fault only shows the relevant meta site and Careers 2.0. That suggests that Careers is marketed to Server Fault.
    – TRiG
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 13:01
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What's the problem?

Stack Overflow is a big draw for developers. That's what companies want the most right now. Even the systems administrator jobs are in developer-driven or dev-focused firms. There's no lack of systems administration jobs on Careers.SE, though.

I can attest to the appeal of the site for hiring purposes across disciplines. When hiring, I had my organization post here. I've also received at least seven job offers/opportunities here since I established a profile.

My last three full-time positions were found via the site. (no comments about my short tenures...)

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As a sysadmin, it seems like you're looking for the "Careers by ServerFault site" (which I don't believe exists yet), not "Careers by StackOverflow".

The careers.stackoverflow.com logo

StackOverflow, and the associated job search site, are for programming skills only.

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    No. Just no. While there is an obvious emphasis on programming careers on careers.so site, it's not solely for programmers (see careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=sysadmin)... and even if you were correct, the whole point of @dyasny's question is that it shouldn't be solely orientated towards programmers. This answer could hardly be less useful if you rolled your head backwards and forwards on the keyboard and hit submit on whatever that generated.
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Jan 5, 2014 at 10:18
  • @RobM: So some posts on careers.stackoverflow.com are off-topic, how is that a surprise? People post sysadmin questions on SO frequently. They are off-topic and get closed. (Certainly all those who contacted me before I blocked inquiries were horrible fits, my impression is that headhunters don't care about good matches at all) Sysadmin job postings would be appropriate on a site named "careers.stackexchange.com", as your comments and answer seems to assume that it is. But it is not. There still is room for "careers.serverfault.com". It just doesn't exist yet.
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Jan 5, 2014 at 14:04
  • 2
    You don't appear to understand what careers.SO is. It's stack exchange's own version of monster and the like, no more and no less. Stack Exchange users can host profiles there and companies can pay to advertise there. If the Stack Overflow Careers Sales Team accept a job advert, then it is by definition not off topic. You seem to suggest you have a profile on there, so I'm unsure why you don't seem to understand this. "careers.SF" would certainly serve sysadmins better of course, but that doesn't make sysadmin jobs "offtopic" on careers.SO, or the site "for programmers only".
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Jan 5, 2014 at 14:54
  • 4
    It's not "Stack Exchange's version". It's what Stack Exchange built to be StackOverflow's job site. Do the Careers Sales team review every advert? I seriously doubt it, based on the quality of what gets in. I suspect they only approve on a per company basis, and the company is then free to post a certain number of openings and contact a certain number of users. Or maybe the latter is unlimited. Spamminess of the requests I saw certainly suggest it is unlimited.
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 2:50
  • 1
    That's a serious question, btw. If the careers team is reviewing all postings and explicitly approving the "come be a salesperson for our startup" garbage (scam), I'll know it's a listing site I don't want to be a part of.
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 2:52
  • 4
    I upvoted RobM's comments at first, but I think Ben is actually right. 1) I've gotten one of the automatic invites, but on further research that was as a result of answering a question that was migrated to SO. 2) careers.SO/about. Seriously, read it. Every bit of research that I try to do in support of RobM's stance -- the one that I naturally gravitate toward -- shows that they are marketing themselves directly to programmers. There's nothing to stop it from being used as monster.SE, but that's not what they say they are.
    – Andrew B
    Commented Jan 7, 2014 at 23:23
  • 3
    @AndrewB: I have found one piece of evidence that suggests non-development skills are valued: a Careers profile can link to answers on more sites than just SO. But only the one, and in light of the overwhelming focus on development (profile wants you to link source code repositories for open source projects and contributions, etc), that could just be an acknowledgement of the vertical market skills many programmers possess.
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented Jan 7, 2014 at 23:31

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