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Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

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Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

#111

Post by CapsAdmin »

Osiris wrote: post #56
dannyw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am trying to hire someone into my team, I want to make use of all relevant and appropriate signals that can help me make a better decision. I consider side projects to be an appropriate and often valuable signal. While it is unfortunate that side projects have some selection bias against those who are time-poor, it also feels wrong to me to discriminate against people who can demonstrate their skills and impress…

I am not an ideas guy. Give me a project and I'll build it. Ask me what I'd like to build and I'll have no idea. In 15 years I've had 1 side project. I'm a staff engineer.

I'm a side projects type guy, but maybe one downside of having active side projects is that it might interfere with work? As in stealing mental capacity and wanting to go home to work on your current side project

This has happened to me sometimes.

It depends on how much time you spend on side projects I guess. It also helps for me to have a fixed work schedule.

Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

#113

Post by notsureaboutpg »

majewsky wrote: post #31
Jenk wrote: post #21

I always ask candidates if they have anything to show off. I am _always_ more interested in what people do as a side project than I am of what they have done professionally. Hyperbole time but I think it conveys the message: People do side projects for better reaons than they do professionally. At worst it's because they want to quickly learn/achieve something for their next job. Compared to professional experience,…

I appreciate your sentiment. At the same time, looking at side projects runs the risk of discriminating against qualified candidates who don't have time for side projects because of other commitments (e.g. childcare or care for elderly relatives) or who choose to pursue non-IT hobbies to keep a work-life balance. How do you avoid treating such candidates unfairly?

My workplace raises this issue as well for hiring. They went so far as to say you should not look at degrees, university that one went to, GitHub projects, etc.

The problem is that if you want to pay for a quality engineer those are things that signal quality.

Many people didn't have time to go to university because of caregiver duties. Many could not afford to go to university, but it's still a huge and reliable signifier of quality. The same can be said of previous jobs. Not every candidate could do a job with a reputable company because those require more work (think Amazon) and your off-job duties might conflict with that.

In the end, you are going to discriminate against someone for some circumstance of their life if you screen resumes at all. There needs to be a balance but you can't throw out an entire metric because some people don't have time to participate in it.

EDIT: I want to point out I have a lot of family responsibilities. I live with my parents and got married young so I was never as single and as free as my colleagues. I still don't think it makes sense to ignore a person's resume because others may not have had the chance to have as nice a resume.

Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

#114

Post by indigochill »

majewsky wrote: post #31
Jenk wrote: post #21

I always ask candidates if they have anything to show off. I am _always_ more interested in what people do as a side project than I am of what they have done professionally. Hyperbole time but I think it conveys the message: People do side projects for better reaons than they do professionally. At worst it's because they want to quickly learn/achieve something for their next job. Compared to professional experience,…

I appreciate your sentiment. At the same time, looking at side projects runs the risk of discriminating against qualified candidates who don't have time for side projects because of other commitments (e.g. childcare or care for elderly relatives) or who choose to pursue non-IT hobbies to keep a work-life balance. How do you avoid treating such candidates unfairly?

> How do you avoid treating such candidates unfairly?

To be frank, the job of a hiring decision-maker isn't to treat candidates fairly, it's to hire the best fit for the role based on the available signals. It's the job of the candidate to send the best signals they can, however they go about doing that. One thing we'll probe for in our interviews with more experienced candidates is what kind of experience/lessons they have from their former employers, for example, and that can weigh in their favor if there's conceivable overlap with what we're doing.

But I would say don't give any single signal undue weight. Side projects are nice, but not mandatory. Heck, we've even hired people who bombed our programming test because they did okay in the post-test interview (where we'll usually see if they can work out where their solution failed).

Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

#115

Post by OJFord »

CapsAdmin wrote: post #111
Osiris wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not an ideas guy. Give me a project and I'll build it. Ask me what I'd like to build and I'll have no idea. In 15 years I've had 1 side project. I'm a staff engineer.

I'm a side projects type guy, but maybe one downside of having active side projects is that it might interfere with work? As in stealing mental capacity and wanting to go home to work on your current side project This has happened to me sometimes. It depends on how much time you spend on side projects I guess. It also helps for me to have a fixed work schedule.

Having inactive side projects (as in never started, or a tiny bit ages ago) interferes at least 'emotionally' for me. Sometimes I can't stop thinking about an idea I want to work on, excited to 'go home' (i.e. stop working) and work on it, but then by the end of the day I'm too tired, if not physically then of sitting or computers, and cook, eat, and sleep instead.

For a while indoor 'cycling home' as I did when I went into an office more worked well to delineate the day, shower, and get on with something of my own feeling refreshed. I still do it, but I suppose I'm used to the feeling or whatever, I don't really find the same benefit any more.

Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

#116

Post by KallDrexx »

ljm wrote: post #92
dannyw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am trying to hire someone into my team, I want to make use of all relevant and appropriate signals that can help me make a better decision. I consider side projects to be an appropriate and often valuable signal. While it is unfortunate that side projects have some selection bias against those who are time-poor, it also feels wrong to me to discriminate against people who can demonstrate their skills and impress…

If two candidates are equal and the tie-breaker is that one ran a side project in their spare time, is that not an immediate disadvantage to the otherwise excellent, hireable candidate who didn't have that? Meanwhile, if you ignore the side project, that candidate isn't disadvantaged as a result. They're just given the same consideration as the other candidate, not more and not less. How you choose between the two at…

I think this is the wrong question, because candidates are never equal (mostly due to the number of variables involved).

The better question is if one candidate has a strong set of work experience but no side projects, and another candidate has an underwhelming set of work experience but a strong set of side projects, does one get valued over the other or are they given equal weight?

If they aren't given equal weight, do you understand the reasoning why (or is it just because they think side projects are cool and want people like themselves).

Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

#118

Post by j45 »

majewsky wrote: post #31
Jenk wrote: post #21

I always ask candidates if they have anything to show off. I am _always_ more interested in what people do as a side project than I am of what they have done professionally. Hyperbole time but I think it conveys the message: People do side projects for better reaons than they do professionally. At worst it's because they want to quickly learn/achieve something for their next job. Compared to professional experience,…

I appreciate your sentiment. At the same time, looking at side projects runs the risk of discriminating against qualified candidates who don't have time for side projects because of other commitments (e.g. childcare or care for elderly relatives) or who choose to pursue non-IT hobbies to keep a work-life balance. How do you avoid treating such candidates unfairly?

A side project can be as little as 30 minutes or an hour a week, with lots of time spent away from the keyboard thinking about the problem and designing the most effective approach to code the least.

It could be a home automation project or applying tech to another interest.

It’s entirely up to the individual to take initiative in their own self directed learning.

Quality is far more important than quantity.

Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?

#120

Post by sime2009 »

shard wrote: post #42
Jenk wrote: post #21

I always ask candidates if they have anything to show off. I am _always_ more interested in what people do as a side project than I am of what they have done professionally. Hyperbole time but I think it conveys the message: People do side projects for better reaons than they do professionally. At worst it's because they want to quickly learn/achieve something for their next job. Compared to professional experience,…

I think it depends on just how senior this position is. Senior developer, sure. VP of engineering, no. Team lead, maybe. If you list side projects, it needs to scale with your position. A VP's side project would scale up to a viable business of its own, which then is no longer a side project but a work experience entry in the CV.

> it needs to scale with your position.

Does it? really?

> A VP's side project would scale up to a viable business of its own

Why? I don't follow your logic here, or we are using different definitions of side-project.

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