[rantallion]

Checking out their projects (if they have any and volunteer them) is fine. Just as long as we don't expect them to have said projects.

I can see the argument for a candidate seeking their first job in IT needing to distinguish themselves from the rest of the crowd and how a couple of well-executed projects can help with that. However, it's unfair to expect that any candidate must have projects, especially if they're already in employment elsewhere - few of us have the time or the energy to put into projects of passion after we've done our 40 hours and taken care of other priorities.

[gregjor]

I agree. I don't have any side/personal projects to show because I don't write code for fun. Because the code I write is almost always owned by an employer or client I have to get their permission to show snippets, and rely on describing the problem and how I contributed to solving it.

Code samples are easy to plagiarize so I always ask candidates who have code samples to explain the code, walk me through it. It's disappointing to see how often candidates can't do that, either because they don't actually understand the code or didn't even write it themselves.