The Workplace Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I've read Is “Stack Exchange use” a valuable skill on my CV? and decided to include my Stack Exchange contributions in my resume when I start looking for a job for the first time.
I consider simply putting it as a link: "Stack Exchange contributor".
Will that piece of information be disregarded by recruiters if my profile has neither my real name nor a picture of myself? Or will they assume I'm not lying and simply verify my claim in an interview (or something like that)?
I wouldn't expect someone to put their real name or photo on an online account on somewhere like StackOverflow or GitHub. As long as the username isn't something really unprofessional then I wouldn't really care what it is.
However, I'll probably ask you some questions about it in the interview to judge whether it actually is your account - and if I think that you're trying to claim someone else's profile as your own that's a big red flag.
One thing to be aware of if you do this is to think about how unique your username is. Yours is pretty generic here, so is unlikely to be an issue. But if I have your username or email address then I'm going to Google it and see what other accounts you have online - some of which you may not want me to find, and might present a rather less professional image of you.
You definitely don't need your photo on your SE profile to "prove" that it is yours. I don't have a photo on mine, yet everyone knows it's mine. If you don't use your real name, you can include your SE username in the same section where you list your twitter name, github account, code streamer handle, and any other online presence you think could help people know who you are.
I recommend you do this with a two-fold approach - one tiny speck of information for those who don't want to investigate further, and knowing that much more is there for those who want to check you out. So you might do this (with your info):
Online activity:
... and so on. (You can include actual links to your profile, too.) This tiny summary of what you think is important may make an impact on a busy resume-screener, though it may not. It may lead some to check out your profile in more detail, to see what you're good at or what you care about. Rather than putting things in your profile to prove ownership, be prepared to answer questions about this activity: what is one of your best answers, and how did you come to know that? (The story you tell is a great way to describe yourself and your problem solving skills, good memory, industry connections, or whatever.) Which of these questions was the biggest relief to get an answer for? That sort of thing.
