[gregjor]

An actual maintainer of an open source project that has users would get my attention, but that's not what I call a "personal project." There's a big difference between someone's work on a useful open-source project and their personal to-do list app or social network for people who own ferrets.

If a candidate had a personal or side project that solved a unique and challenging problem I would look at it. When I have seen personal projects they look like programing class assignments or riffs on a language/framework tutorial.

When interviewing I am always most interested in how the candidate will fit into the team and organization, and if they understand the difference between adding value to the business and playing with technology for its own sake. The last time this came up in an interview the candidate had some Raspberry Pi/Arduino code they were proud of, probably fun but not relevant to the job, and so far removed from the business domain that I couldn't judge how relevant it might be.