Most of Contestants prepare themselves for either IOI or ICPC so they make training & solve Problems as much as they can to Achieve their goals. Now if you neither IOI nor ICPC , Does improving your rating on CodeForces or TopCoder will help to find a good job that appreciates your skills in countries like "Russia" or "United States" ? Is there companies interested in coders with yellow color Regardless he entered ICPC before or not. If yes, this will help me to put a Target for me and seeking to achieve it. Note In Egypt most of Companies need more knowledge of new Technologies and some IQ Tests than Problem Solving skills.
- UPD1: If you have a successful story please tell us.
- UPD2: If you in this status and want to put a goal to achieve ,so you can discuss this with us.
AFAIK, high TC/CF ranking may attract headhunters.
P.S New York is not a country.
Nobody gives your a job offer just because you "red" somewhere or won something. It only helps to get invited on the interview. But actually much better way to get invited — ask insiders to refer you. In companies like Google employees get significant cash bonus if candidate they refer accepts an offer so they will not object to do it :) (I bet, that feature "organization" here on CF was lobbied by Google's employees:)).
On other side: interview questions in companies like Google based on problems you solve in competition. Difficulty is about div1 250 on TC. So you will significantly increase probability of getting offer by getting good in programming competitions.
P.S. I got 3 offers in US without work experience, knowing nothing but algorithms. And problems I solve for Google now are really like TC marathon problems.
Did I say that "attracting headhunters"=="recieving a job offer"? However it will bring you to an interview and will let you pass it with high probability.
I also know a guy that was invited to an interview at Facebook because of his SPOJ account.
I don't argue with your statement, which is absolutely correct from my point of view :)
Oh, I thought that it was comment to my comment, but just have noticed that it wasn't, sorry)