Every CodingHorror post and list of hiring tips demands a GitHub profile, with the implication that it had better contain useful, quality code. (And with a bit of a threat that you'd better not put any hacked-together, one-off project in there, even though everyone has some.)
That's good, I see the value of it, and I also understand why interviewers don't want to read it. But new devs have every right to be annoyed when the industry-standard wisdom says that you have to have a thing which is never used.
(The real answer is probably "New devs, get ready for the interview gamut. Experienced devs, call a contact and have a GitHub profile." But somehow that never comes up.)
As a hiring manager, I wouldn't say people are serious if they have a github account, but having one, which actually has original work in it, can show that the applicant has some interest in the industry beyond the money. If you don't have a github account, that's fine but you've got to show something else that can fill in the gap. Perhaps you're on bitbucket or even source forge. Or maybe you did summer of code. Worst case, tell me you can bring in some samples to an interview.
Every CodingHorror post and list of hiring tips demands a GitHub profile, with the implication that it had better contain useful, quality code. (And with a bit of a threat that you'd better not put any hacked-together, one-off project in there, even though everyone has some.)
That's good, I see the value of it, and I also understand why interviewers don't want to read it. But new devs have every right to be annoyed when the industry-standard wisdom says that you have to have a thing which is never used.
(The real answer is probably "New devs, get ready for the interview gamut. Experienced devs, call a contact and have a GitHub profile." But somehow that never comes up.)