[photon_lines]

Having a portfolio definitely does help and I can attest that it doesn't take all that long to build a solid one. I spent a few weekends on most of my Github projects, albeit I did clean them up and some of them luckily took off on Hacker news propelling them to the front page. The open repositories did lead to some interesting interview conversations and people do pay attention to them -- actually, prior to being offered my current job the interviewees commented on some of the content I open sourced. Most people should spend some time and do their best to 'hack' something over a weekend or two -- don't simply post garbage though - do something interesting and spend some time cleaning up what you post (and pay attention to the little details when it comes to code quality). Doing this will definitely boost your chances in landing a job. (Edit - my repository in case anyone is interested: https://github.com/photonlines)