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Would you say then an online persona doesn’t matter much? I think about this a bit as an undergraduate hoping to land a gig in a few years. I could care less about having a technical blog or a tailored Github/Gitlab account contributing to open source or having an LinkedIn account, I just want to build cool stuff and become a good programmer and not have to worry about showcasing that on the internet like a clown in a circus. But on the other hand, it seems like companies look for that kind of stuff or at least give you the upper hand for it.

[peterhi]

LinkedIn is just an online CV for recruiters to find you by. The one you submit should be tailored to the job you are applying for

The CV that lands on my desk will determine if you get called for an interview. One or two sides of A4 is all you need. We only look at Github if the CV is interesting enough

If your CV says 'I have a CS degree' rather than 'I am a programmer' then I'm not going to look any further. I have employed excellent programmers this way. Only one of them had a Github account. None wrote blogs. Didn't even look at LinkedIn

Github can be interesting to see what languages you work in and what topics you found interesting when satisfying your own needs. But I will only look if the CV makes me think that it will be interesting

Github, LinkedIn and blog posts are merely supporting documents for your CV. If the CV sucks then it goes no further

[eksimba]

An online persona is like client-side data validation. It's a nice to have, but it cannot be trusted. You should always have server-side validation anyway. That's what tests/assignments/interviews are for.