[kraftman]

It would be interesting to know what proportion of employers even look at your Github, let alone dig into detail enough to investigate your side projects to this level.

I work on quite a few side projects in my own time because I enjoy it, but I've never been asked about my projects on Github or my blog.

[lkrubner]

This surprises me all the time. Most people hire me without ever doing any research on me. I get to a job interview and they ask me if I know what "object oriented programming" means. Had they searched for my name, they would have found my name on the Wikipedia page for object oriented programming:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming

And I've never gone to a job interview where people knew I had a blog, even though I list the blog on my resume:

http://www.smashcompany.com/

I have to assume that other people put a blog on their resume, but its a mostly un-used site, so the maybe the employers get in the habit of ignoring personal sites? I've written on hundreds of technical topics over the years, but no one is ever aware of this when I arrive in a job interview.

Likewise, no one has ever checked my projects on Github.

[Pokepokalypse]

I don't even cop to having a github, and I don't have anything useful on my "public" github.

But where I have public-facing projects' URLs on my resume - interviewers seem to be completely clueless about them. They'll ask me questions about a topic, and I'll point them to that URL on my resume as an example of how I know that area, or did that task.

It seems like they only read the "skills overview" blurb at the top, that we put there to get through the search filters - and they don't read the work history.

[deedubaya]

I'd guess it depends on the employer.

When I hire, code samples (like Github contributions) are my first screen of a candidate before I decide to interview them. It is proof of ability to write code and a testament to what I consider to be quality. I do this in lieu of whiteboard challenges or Fizzbuzz tests.

[mundo]

I always do. For mid-to-senior it's more out of curiosity, but for entry-level it can impact my decision, especially for bootcamp grads.

I know the prevailing sentiment on HN is sometimes that hiring managers like making candidates jump through hoops to make themselves feel important, but I don't think that's the issue here. It's simply that someone who came to programming late in life is at a severe disadvantage compared to people who have been interested in it since fifth grade, and some kind of programming in your spare time is the best (only?) way to catch up.

Contra the article, I don't care if the project shipped, or if it's thoroughly unit tested, or how many iterations or whatever. I just want evidence that you're in the larval stage.

[itronitron]

Whenever I interview candidates I am always looking for things to talk to about with them so if I can find information on previous projects or publications of theirs then that is a good entry point to learn about their expertise.

[user5994461]

Noone looks at the github.

Source: https://thehftguy.com/2016/10/24/heres-how-to-make-a-good-gi...

[Bahamut]

That’s just flat out wrong. My GitHub profile has gotten strong interest from companies, including the famous big tech companies (I work at one currently), due to having a ton of open source contributions to major projects & smart analysis/questions through participation in open source communities. I also have gotten asked a fair number of questions directly related to my profile during interviews as well, often demonstrating that the interviewers took a non-cursory look at it.

The thing that companies don’t generally care for are non-impressive GitHub profiles. I don’t care about seeing code that doesn’t stick out as not from a craftsman, or just docs contributions when I review resumes/GitHub profiles. I want to see code demonstrating standard industry practices, and smart architecture decisions. I want to see an understanding of testing.

It’s up to the candidate to make good use of GitHub to impress. Most fail at it, but that does not mean that no one looks at GitHub profiles - on the contrary, they usually are quite revealing.

[user5994461]

That's flat out true. Companies didn't even open the github link.

Your experience suggests that one should contribute to the major open source projects used by the big companies to get noticed by them. That's very different from the usual advice to write side projects.