[jawilson2]

When I interview candidates, I ALWAYS take these things into consideration. My best hire was a guy who took some time off after his last job, and the highlight of his previous year was learning a book of Bach piano pieces. It IS, however, hard to not pry too much into personal/family stuff, for HR reasons, e.g. talking with "women who are pregnant or may become pregnant" without giving the impression that pregnancy or child care might be a detriment to hiring. Obviously there are numerous other cases like this as well, unrelated to gender, pregnancy is just the first example that came to mind.

I love hearing about non-professional things. Coding outside of work is actually a negative for me, because I assume you are going to get burnt out. I WANT you to have a life outside of work, because A) you are human and deserve that, and B) you are more productive during work. I'm fine if you take a few days off to run an ultra-marathon, or take off a few hours early to catch your kid's baseball game, or care for a family member, whatever. Well-rounded people are better at writing software, in my experience, and better to work with.