[VexXtreme]

That is definitely the case in most professional fields outside of the whole startup culture (which can hardly be called professional). I find the whole concept of expecting people to be open-source contributors, to maintain active Github accounts etc to even be able to get their foot in the door in the hiring process completely abhorrent. This practice is a blight on this industry, benefiting only greedy exploitative startup founders and VC folks (usually calling themselves "progressive", ironically).

My dad is a civil engineer and I don't see him drafting construction plans for bridges and highways in his free time. My mom is a social worker and I won't see her dealing with domestic violence and welfare cases in her free time. Why is it that the modern IT industry expects people to put in massive hours contributing to some useless obscure projects just to be employable? I will tell you exactly why - because it lowers the bar for everyone and screens in for people who are willing to bend over backwards, work 90 hour weeks with no paid overtime, who will never stand up for themselves or have any self respect whatsoever.

There are plenty of professional industries out there (such as finance, medical, aerospace etc) which value software engineers greatly, pay big bucks and don't force people to jump through these kinds of arbitrary hoops.

I have better things to do with my free time (such as spending it with my friends, girlfriend, family etc) and that is exactly why I don't want to work in your shitty little startup. Engineers always complain about being treated like dirt by "the suits", but I can tell you that it's usually other engineers/"hackers" coming up with these kinds of abysmal borderline extortionist hiring practices. This shit won't stop until people just say no and stop linking their Github accounts in their resumes in a supplicatory sycophantic fashion just to be even considered for a position.

Want to contribute to an open-source project? Fine, that's a legit hobby as any other. But let's just stop using that as a leverage in the hiring process.