[Ryel]

Github PLEASE work on some kind of 'Proof Of Activity'

98% of my work is private and all employers get to see is about 100 open-source commits when I have roughly 4,000 commits throughout several private organizations. I know I need more open source contributions but I should be able to prove to an employer that I am a heavy Github user and have more experience than 100 commits.

Sometimes I've been asked to send a screenshot of my total number of commits, and happily oblige to the odd request but a screenshot is not even worth it's weight in the physical world (aka nothing).

[georgemcbay]

Using total number of github commits as any sort of qualifier for employment is as bad (maybe even worse) as asking for a wc -l LOC count on your last project.

To be clear, I don't have an issue with github contributions being seen as a plus for hiring... but trying to turn this into something concretely quantifiable via total commit count (especially on commits you can't even see) seems crazy to me.

Please let me know which employers are asking you for this information so I can avoid applying to them in the future!

[Ryel]

They are not(I hope) judging quality of my work based on # of commits.

-They are assuming I have little to no experience in a service they use every day.

-They are assuming I don't contribute to Open Source in any way (I contribute to private repos that are at the core of several large OS projects but are private for business concerns).

-Github provides an easy metric to see what most of my work is. I can see that 45% of my work is done in Python, and maybe the rest in front-end tech. That would be useful information to an employer if I apply to an Obj-C position.

Actually the work I am most proud of is in my side-projects, which I would much rather employers go on and interact with rather than scour over the github repo. Posted above is not just something I want, but something I see much more value in for Github to become a more friendly intermediary between employer/employee.

[gaadd33]

> They are assuming I don't contribute to Open Source in any way (I contribute to private repos that are at the core of several large OS projects but are private for business concerns).

How are those open source? Or are they open source but not open to third party contributions? Or does development not take place on github? Just curious since if the code isn't public I'm curious how it's considered open source.

[Ryel]

I explained it poorly.

When we can't afford to keep building a feature, we release it as open source and reintegrate it eventually.

[jmduke]

How would you handle this case if the work you're doing that's being stored on private GitHub repositories wasn't on GitHub at all (like the majority of tech work that employees do for their employer)?

[Ryel]

I see what you're hinting at but the point of that question is lost on me.

That's like going up to Elon Musk and asking, why make electric cars when most people drive internal combustion engines?

[stbtrax]

The point is that it's not entirely useful for employers, which seems to be what you're concerned about. If 80% of people are committing to private corporate source control, and 20% are committing to private github accounts, it's not readily apparent why you would care to see some vague statistics about commit frequency for 20% of your candidates.

[rmc]

-They are assuming I don't contribute to Open Source in any way (I contribute to private repos that are at the core of several large OS projects but are private for business concerns).

If you're commiting to private repos like that, then you're not contributing to open source.

Sure, you're programming, and contributing to projects that others use, and yes, your github profile doesn't show that. But it correctly shows your level of open source contributions.

[bertil]

As someone who designs metrics for a living… Yeah, it would be… bad. But if they are fine with screen grabs, it's most likely a filtering system: real talent selection is at the interview level. For instance, I have no idea what to answer when they ask if I'm a developer (I ‘code’ in SQL and Python to set up BI metrics). If they ask for that kind of pre-requisite, I know what they mean and I shouldn’t apply. Same for: what kind of editing software/UDI/Python or R package do you prefer? I'm not expecting them to judge how clueless I am by saying “I know scikit-learn is cool, but I prefer pyml” but rather, that I know what those are.

[equalarrow]

Having the bulk of my Github commits all going to private repositories, I can empathize with this.

For me, in 2013, I made close to 800 commits to private repos. When I'm logged in, I can see the activity in the "Your Contributions" section of my private profile. Last year, I also switched employers and because I don't have any public projects I contributed to, my profile looks barren. However, that's far from the truth.

It would be nice if Github would allow me a setting to display just the commit activity, but not link to the private repos. I wouldn't be surprised if this is far off.

For those that would say "you should be contributing to more OS projects then", just remember that there are some of us who can't code 14 hours a day (anymore). We have families and/or lives out side of coding. This doesn't make our effort any less valuable than those that do it for the public. We just have a different set of constraints and responsibilities.

[rtfeldman]

GitHub, please don't spend time pandering to employers who have indefensibly poor metrics for evaluating employees.

Instead, please spend that time improving things for your users.

[csmattryder]

It's not just employees, it's students.

My dissertation project is in a Github private repository, yet it looks like I abandoned Github - at least to the few people who seem interested in what I do.

Combine this with the use of StackOverflow Careers and Github Jobs, I might as well have died as far as potential employers are concerned.

[aspir]

Most employers know what a sudden and abrupt change in the graph really means. If someone's so short sighted enough to disqualify you on your contributions graph without so much as asking "why?", they don't respect your profession.

[syllogism]

What's the motivation for making your dissertation a private repo?

[csmattryder]

It is possible for another student at the Uni to find the repo, clone and turn it in and have us both up on plagiarism charges. It's unlikely, but I'd rather not run the marginal risk.

It was advised in my first year by a few tutors to just keep it in a private repo until hand-in. I'm fine with that, in fact, just publically listed a dodgy encryption algorithm I wrote for a class!

[berrypicker]

This could be abused and will render the whole thing pointless for everyone: make private repository, write bot to commit every day... now you have 4000 useless commits on your profile which an employer is supposed to think are legit.

[watwut]

I work for a company that does not uses github at all. We store code on our own servers. Do you seriously think that anyone working in such company is going to be unemployable?

I would say the companies you look at work in have seriously flawed hiring practices. They would not hired our best engineers, cause they do not have open source github contributions. They code plenty for work through.

[RoboTeddy]

Stats like commit count could easily be juked with a bot. Can you get testimonials and references from the people you work with instead?

[rubiquity]

If a flock of employers were requesting this feature it might be more reasonable. A candidate requesting this feature seems odd when the solution is obvious, and you know what the solution is already: write more code that you own.

[prezjordan]

I just want control over what shows up in "Repositories Contributed To"

[judk]

You just need to find less idiotic hiring teams.

[AndyKelley]

Solution: Arrange it so that you end up working on more open source projects :)

[morganherlocker]

You should use this tool, IMO. It creates images with your commit history graph :-)

https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti