Google Code, User Search & Gravatar! NerdAbility Updates - September 2012

At NerdAbility HQ we have had a busy month, launching some cool new upgrades to your profile! This includes Google Code project integration, StackOverflow Flair and Gravatar profiles pictures! Additionally you can now search other users based on their username or skill, giving you the results along side the users NerdScore.

We have also added new privacy options to allow you to hide your page to the public while you are getting things ready. Oh, and if you don't want to be included in our user search feature, you can easily opt-out on the privacy settings page.

Other small changes include more ways to share your profile with enhanced social sharing buttons. This makes it easier to share your's or others profiles and show off!

We are going to keep pushing out more features, so keep an eye on your profile and the blog for the latest news. Now a quick guide to some of the new features.......

Setting Up a Gravatar Profile Photo - Stand out!

First of all login to your profile at http://nerdability.com - then once you are directed to your page look to the right hand side, if your picture, then hey, you already have a Gravatar! If you don't see a picture, or want to change it then you can follow the link underneath and go sign up (it's really quick and easy too).

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NerdAbility - Setting Up a Gravatar Profile Photo

Signup to Gravatar or Login

Adding Google Code Projects to your Profile - Show off!

If you have a Google Code profile you can now have your projects shown on your NerdAbility profile! It's just as easy as adding any other integration, simply login to your profile at http://nerdability.com and look at the right-hand side of your profile for 'Get Connected', then click the 'Connect Google Code' and enter your Google Code profile URL (something like http://code.google.com/u/....). 

NerdAbility - Connect Google Code

Searching & Searching - Find Other Awesome Techies!

You can now search our users to find who has certain skills, and then pick who you want to check out based on their NerdScore! This makes it easy to say find users with Java skills and then check out the person with the highest NerdScore! To access the search go to the Users page and get searching...

NerdAbility User Search

Changing Your Privacy Settings - It's Under Your Control!

We now offer privacy options for your profile, as we know you may not want your profile to be searchable or you may want to go into hiding for awhile. You can mange this quickly and easily from your profile page, simply login and click on your name in the top right of the page. Then click 'Privacy & Settings' from the drop down.

NerdAbility Privacy & Settings 

Next you can choose the privacy settings for your profile (and if you want to sign up to our site email updates). Hopefully it will look like this...

Privacy Privacy Privacy!

And that's all for this month! Make sure to spread the word and check us out on Twitter @Nerd_Ability

6 Steps to Getting an Awesome Tech Job

So everyone wants an awesome coding job using the ’latest technologies’ at a amazing company right? And the competition for these jobs is tough! People from big corporations want in on the exciting world of start-ups, and well-seasoned start-up coders want to work on the next big thing. Previously you needed a great hand crafted CV and 100 years of experience building monolithic Java EE / C++ apps to get noticed. Now companies want to see you are up to speed with new school technologies like Node.js, Groovy & Grails, Ruby, Scala, Clojure and that you also actively contribute via Blogs, GitHub, BitBucket, StackOverflow etc.

How do you get one of these awesome jobs you ask? Follow NerdAbility’s fool proof 6 point plan!.....

1.  Create a tech blog! – Have you been trying to learn a new technology but found the documentation is a bit shady? Did you spend hours on forums and post multiple StackOverflow questions to finally get to a solution? Then write a blog about it! Document the problem, the steps you took to solve it and give some sample code or even put the project on online. Next make sure to share it back with the people and forums that helped along the way. This is a great way to get your solution out there and people checking out your blog (maybe even the CTO of your next employer). Sites like Blogger and Tumblr make it super easy to get started, so go make one today!

Why We're Not Worried About Facebook's Job Board

Not long after NerdAbility was released in to the wild in beta, Facebook announced that they were going to be creating a job board.

Hmm, Facebook seems like tough competition, after all, they already have millions of users, about whom they know pretty much everything, but, to be honest, we're really not that concerned.

Here's why..

1. We're techies, looking to deliver a service for techies - even if the Facebook job board becomes a massive success, how worthwhile will it be for them to build up the service to cater for tech folk, integrating GitHub commits and stuff like StackOverflow? I cannot see it being worthwhile for FB to do so.  NerdAbility is focusing entirely on tech recruitment, and all our efforts are in enhancing the site to make tech recruitment a wonderful thing!....