[shubb]

That seems like a wierd expectation for evaluating peoples home side projects.

One reason people do side projects to develop and demonstrate effectiveness with technologies they don't use at work.

If I saw someone using a familiar and established stack to build fininshed, highly polished applications as side projects... I'd assume they were trying to make a product. That's what you do when you are making a product. You'd need to bring it up because they might be more interested in building their own startup than working for me.

[corobo]

The question was "What portfolio items are most impressive" not "What portfolio items are required" :P

Infinite disagree on the "they might want to work on their own thing more than my thing" angle

They're keeping their skills sharp on their own dime and that's a bad thing? Many employees only stick around for 2 years or so anyway who cares whether they move on to the next 9-5 or their own thing?