Is Physics SE on your CV?

Question

So there's this careers course thing I'm going to this week as part of some graduate school requirement, and I've been asked to prepare a curriculum vitae for it. I'm probably going to include something like

• Active on Physics Stack Exchange (https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/8563/emilio-pisanty).

because, after all, I think I've written up some pretty nice physics over time on the site.

I'm wondering, though, what people's attitude towards this is. So: if you're a professional physicist, is your participation on the site on your CV? If yes, then what did you include and how does it look like? If 'depends', then what sorts of CV use-cases do you include it in for and for which ones do you leave it out? If not, and you have a brag-about-able profile, what made you leave it out?

Answer 1

In the software industry, a high-reputation Stack Overflow profile is seen as a sign of competence, because you have to use the same technical knowledge and research skills required by your job to answer questions there. But in academia, people - at least, the people who make up the majority (though perhaps not the entirety) of tenure and grant review committees, funding agencies, and research directors - tend to see anything that's not actual research as a distraction from research. For that reason participation on this site doesn't play the same role to a professional physicist as participation on Stack Overflow does to a professional developer. Participation in Physics SE is probably best framed as a service activity, like other kinds of community outreach or volunteer work (not that you would put non-physics-related volunteer work on your CV), rather than as a demonstration of your knowledge of physics.

Professors reviewing CVs do look for some amount of service activities, but in many cases they do so only grudgingly, as a concession to the requirements of running a department and/or pressure from university administrators. (And something analogous applies to those in a non-academic environment.) This tends to be somewhat correlated with age, so that e.g. younger professors are a little more likely to look favorably on things like having a blog or contributing to Physics SE. As a graduate student, I don't think it can really hurt you that much to include it, but at later stages of your career (if you go for a career in academia) I think it's important to make it clear that this is not something that consumes a lot of your time, otherwise it probably could hurt your prospects.

As for what exactly to include: I'd put something a little more substantial than what you've quoted. A brief paragraph (2, maybe 3 sentences) that explains what Physics SE is and/or what you do here is probably going to be useful. (I don't have easy access to my own CV at the moment otherwise I'd give you an example, though I doubt that example would be any better than what you'd come up with on your own.) But again, don't play up the amount of time you've invested in the site; better to frame it as something that you use as a resource to improve your education.

I'm sure this has also been pondered extensively on Academia so you could check there for more thoughts, not specific to physics.

Answer 2

Speaking as a professional physicist not in academia, I would say that what you do here is seen more as a hobby (extracurricular interest) than a professional achievement. That said - when you are applying for a job, people are likely to Google you. If your profile links to your real name, your activity on PSE is likely to show up in search results. In your case, your profile is the second hit:

That means the cat is firmly out of the bag - even if you don't include it on your CV.

That said:

2. When I look at a resume, I assume that the things people mention are the things they find impressive: that tells me a lot about their thought processes.
3. Someone with a very high reputation probably spends a lot of time on this site: you might wonder whether this would distract that person from their "real job" - are they refreshing the question list every five minutes while at work to distract them from their task at hand? A constant need for "upvotes" is considered by some an unhealthy addiction (of which I am guilty).
4. A highly upvoted answer on this site does not carry the same weight as a highly cited peer reviewed publication

With all that said - if you have written some answers you are particularly proud of, you might link to them from a blog; then point to this blog to give people an indication of (a) your "informal" communication style (how you write when you are not writing for a peer reviewed journal) - this is an EXTREMELY important skill; and (b) your willingness to "give back" to your community - again, something that is highly appreciated by most employers.

Bottom line - everything you do online becomes a visible part of your record of achievements. Make sure that it projects the right perception of who you are - and why you would be a valuable member of whatever organization you would like to be hired by.

Good luck.

Answer 3

${}$Dear me-from-2014,

In the end, when you finished your PhD and got a job as a postdoc, you did end up including your Stack Exchange participation in your CV.

More specifically, you did this as a single bullet point in the section Science communication, under Professional experience, which looks roughly like this:

• Active contributor at Physics Stack Exchange, with ∼2450 posts reaching an estimated audience of 4 million views, 2012-present. Samples: Chirped Pulse Amplification; Unit realizations in the New SI; Oscillating charge in the hydrogen atom.

(using a font which does not highlight the links quite so aggressively), and together with the rest of your science-outreach activity.

After a few years of using this CV, nobody has commented specifically on this part of the CV, either positively or negatively.

In general, adding PSE-specific mechanics (including your SE reputation, badges, or other quirks) feels somewhat crass, and it will not be understandable to the academic hiring panels that will be reading your CV, though the (relatively) new stat of "people reached" is intuitive enough that it makes the cut. In contrast, it feels much more natural to place the emphasis on the writing samples which took a lot of work, demonstrate in-depth knowledge of physics and good writing ability, and which the readers of the CV can appreciate.

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Addendum, 2021.

I recently did an interview for a fellowship where the interviewer explicitly brought up my Stack Exchange participation. My application materials mentioned that I "am passionate about science communication and education, and I have authored over 2,400 science-communication pieces" but did not mention Stack Exchange by name.

The interviewer (who is a frequent contributor to a science-outreach YouTube channel) explicitly mentioned my Stack Exchange participation in a good light, and then asked whether I intend to maintain that level of public engagement during the fellowship. The results of the interview will take some time to come out, but I'm pretty confident in saying that this was considered as a positive aspect of my application materials.

That said, of course, this is a single data point. The funding organization in question places a high value on science outreach, and this probably colours their choice of interviewers as well as the criteria the interviewers are provided. In other places, your mileage will probably vary.

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^{Since I'm writing to you from 2020: this year, make sure you're well stocked with toilet paper. Since I'm writing to you in 2014: buy some bitcoin!}

Answer 4

I don't see why you would not, so long as it is in the proper context and not as a substitute for actual qualifications and high quality research outputs and teaching experience.

Almost all posts in academic institutions now come with the expectation that you work will have "impact" outside of academia. For people like me who work in astrophysics, and I guess for many who work in areas like particle physics or theory, then it is rather difficult to point to major technological breakthroughs or start-up companies who are going to take your work and produce a new best-thing-since-sliced-bread device. In fact, if your research is more "blue skies", what you have to argue is that you are reaching out to wide and diverse audiences and having an impact in that way.

Unfortunately, stack exchange does not really fulfil that objective because mostly you are not writing about your own research (I would guess only 1-2% of my answers on Physics or Astronomy SE are linked to my research) and the audience is not that diverse and difficult to quantify. Creating a personal blog about your research area might be more effective in that respect, though I doubt I would have gotten 3 million views of a blog about my research in 6 years.

What stack exchange does do however (providing that you have written many highly upvoted answers), is demonstrate the ability to communicate about science/mathematics/computing to a variety of audiences and that may be a very important part of the role you are applying for. It may also demonstrate a passion for teaching and often demonstrates the ability to marshall facts and research from a variety of sources to support an argument. So you could certainly use stack exchange as an example of work that you have done which might illustrate your ability or potential for certain kinds of tasks.

Having said all that, if you are answering many questions per day on average, then it probably just shows you're spending too much time on stack exchange... like most things, moderation is probably to be advised.

Bottom line: I don't do SE because I think it adds anything particularly significant to my CV nor am I especially altruistic; I do it because I find it entertaining; it drives me to look at old problems in a different way; it often gives me interesting ideas for student problems and assessments; and has prompted me on many occasions to keep up with the latest developments in some areas. I do add it to my professional CV, in the section about all the other public outreach work I do and I regard it as part of that.