[austincheney]

It makes perfect sense to anybody who has contributed to personal projects. At work there is an institutionally locked velocity for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are highly qualified, some are accidental, and some are completely nonsense.

With personal projects you set your own velocity. Output is the result of initiative, time spent, speed of delivery, competence in product development, and expertise on the problem.

[xenocratus]

You're gravely generalising, as if everyone who does side projects has to do them the same way you do.

And even disregarding this, you're still not proving my point wrong. You're saying personal projects show you can work in some set of conditions that have little to do with how work in a company gets done. Yeah, you can "prove" yourself somewhat when you're on your own, does that automatically translate to being a good engineer in the office?

Again, I have no experience hiring, but I fail to see a logic here. Good luck with trying the CV out, and do write a blog post when the results are in!

[austincheney]

As an employee you do what is assigned plus administrative things. That is incredibly limiting. On a personal project you accomplish whatever you want, regardless of demand or ambition or challenge.

You are your own principle audience. You aren’t trying to prove anything. You are trying to build something. Unless you are the kind of person just likes building things I suspect it will be impossible to understand.

[lolinder]

You're still missing OP's point: an employer needs people who can take assignments and do them. Deemphasizing the evidence of that skill in favor of evidence of ability to complete passion projects isn't necessarily a good move on a resume.

For the record, I am someone who just likes building things. I totally get why building things on your own is more enjoyable. I just don't think that an employer really cares all that much about that.

[austincheney]

The necessary technical competence is identifiable in the personal projects. In my experience though the prospective employer is incapable making any such determination from provided evidence.

I suspect that technical competence is an irrelevant aside to what you are looking for. It sounds like you are looking for someone who can check a box, perhaps copy/paste or a gear on an assembly line. If you are strictly looking for a box checker then I would suggest hiring people who never mention personal projects of any kind on a resume. You are looking strictly for labor, a hard worker, not initiative. Work harder, not smarter, and your targeted candidate will do exactly that.

The whole point of personal projects is the opposite: initiative building something new because there is a passion to build, grow, and improve.

[mattdeboard]

"institutionally locked velocity" is a great turn of phrase