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Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

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Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#141

Post by avip »

Gasp0de wrote: post #32
linuxlizard wrote: post #23

I am not a recruiter but help with software/firmware interviews where I work. When interviewing someone, any and all signals are very useful. For someone fresh out of university, they can show me their student projects. But an experienced engineer, their contributions are usually property of their previous employer and can't be shown. To me, being able to see an interviewee's code is like being able to see an artist'…

Noob question: Why is it bad to use for i in range(len(foo))? Because you can just use for bar in foo?

It's not "bad", but it's generally unnecessary. And breaks on generators.

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#142

Post by tootie »

I'm on the technology side, but I review and interview candidates pretty regularly. Unless you have an actual notable repo with stars or something (and I've literally never seen a candidate with stars on a repo) then I don't care. Maybe if you have a cool picture of yourself?

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#143

Post by kstenerud »

A recruiter will take whatever you've posted publicly, and draw conclusions based on what you've presented. Whether you agree with it or not, that's precisely what will happen, even if they try not to.

It's on you to communicate your intent for things you release publicly. That means a README.md which explains what the reader is looking at. If it's just some half baked idea you've been kicking around, say so. Tell your reader what to expect, because if you don't, they WILL expect the wrong thing.

Effective communication is the foundation of any relationship, including work relationships. Show that you can communicate your thoughts. Guide your reader. Make it dead simple for them to see the best of you.

Beyond that, it's helpful to have a showcase "portfolio" project that is written as if you were presenting a finished product to a customer, including documentation, unit tests, ci, good design, the works. Showing that you can see a product through from initial design to release will impress people. Do you need it? No, but it will set you apart from the crowd.

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#144

Post by sl1ck731 »

gregmac wrote: post #94
travisjungroth wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I penalize people slightly for an empty GitHub if they put it on their resume, just out of annoyance. Why did you put this url for me to follow if there's nothing here but a half started React tutorial from 3 years ago?

Yeah, this is just like any other thing you call out by putting on your resume. Nobody is a expert in everything, of course, but if you specifically put "TCP/IP" or "OOP" on your resume, you better be able to explain TCP vs UDP or class vs interface (both real examples from real phone screens I've done).

If recruiting software didn't penalize for keywords I think it would be less of an issue. Its a struggle trying to figure out what to put in the "list of technologies" type section. I have to put them somewhere to get past crappy HR screening software since explaining every tech in a job description would create paragraphs but just listing it doesn't represent the level of aptitude.

For example, I might use Chef daily. If I put it in a list of other tools I use it can mean I know how to use it for my very specific use case, but usually it is taken as "this guy thinks he contributes to the Chef source code and knows every bizarre scenario involving it" by some tech screener trying to get his rocks off.

I 100% blame every tech recruiter for furthering this mess.

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#145

Post by ModernMech »

nukeop wrote: post #135
ModernMech wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's well and good, but the thing people seem to keep missing is that git != github. Github is first and foremost a social network . You may keep your personal projects there, but they are still public and on a social network, and that means anyone who reads them will judge them. The question before us is, how do recruiters judge them?, and the answer one has given is he or she looks at style and clarity in code. O…

It usually takes a lot of work to get a person to judge your work. Typically if you make a repository public, no one will give a shit. It takes a lot of advertising to produce any interest. I have a repository with 4500 stars, and hundreds of thousands of visitors. Not one person has ever commented on the quality of my code, but many people contribute. Back when I had 100-200 stars, potential employers were impressed…

> nobody will ever judge your code if it's public, unless you work very very hard for it.

But this whole thread is about people reporting that they do just that for recruiting purposes.

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#146

Post by m0zg »

ndnxhs wrote: post #139
m0zg wrote: post #131

99.9% of excellent people I worked with don't have a public GitHub profile. Most of the remaining 0.1% don't have anything interesting there, in part because their employer claims ownership of everything they create, so disclosing their side projects publicly is stupid. As the old Russian saying goes, "the less they know, the better they sleep".

Its incredible that anyone would accept such a horrid term.

All those high-paid FAANG jobs come with that term. Most others do, too, but if you're senior enough and they want you badly enough, you can strike it out.

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#147

Post by mr_toad »

androidgirl wrote: post #90
chimen wrote: post #72

I ask both Github and StackOverflow profiles. In Github I look for code style & quality, tests written, open source project participation (often good indicator of quality code when accepted). In SO I look for issues created as an indicator of one's struggles and overall expertise. Both profiles offer me a strong view over one's position and the data really helps me to filter out prospects. 95% of the times when they…

Stackoverflow seems interesting as an inclusion of that level. I've always used SO as a "read-only" source, and generally when I need an answer to a question not on there I ask on a relevant IRC channel. My github has quite a few OSS projects though. Do you find there are any other devs like that?

I’ve never asked a question on SO. I don’t think most people should, because these days most questions will be duplicates, mistakes, or just too obscure for anyone to answer.

I’ve answered questions enough that I have enough rep to edit review queues, and probably 90% of what gets asked on SO these days is unnecessary.

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#148

Post by hyperpape »

chimen wrote: post #72

I ask both Github and StackOverflow profiles. In Github I look for code style & quality, tests written, open source project participation (often good indicator of quality code when accepted). In SO I look for issues created as an indicator of one's struggles and overall expertise. Both profiles offer me a strong view over one's position and the data really helps me to filter out prospects. 95% of the times when they…

I have a mix of things on Github: one might be positive, a few are ok, but most are crap. However I almost never ask important questions on SO. It’s almost all from languages/frameworks I’m playing around with, and I’m usually stuck on things I’d find elementary once I’m actually fluent. Actual work problems have too much context to make them things I can ask ok SO. So giving a thumbs up to a really good SO profile might make sense, but I couldn’t endorse caring if a candidate’s profile was unimpressive.

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#149

Post by josephorjoe »

dep_b wrote: post #96
eponeponepon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is never anything wrong with writing "n/a" in any kind of form. There was a long overlap during which any form that took contact details already had fields for email address and mobile phone number, but before either of those were as ubiquitous as they are today; nobody processing those forms ever ignored one with "n/a" for email address. Granted, it might be less prudent to skip some fields than others, of cou…

"error: n/a is not a valid URL"

Disable their client side validations and find out if they bothered with server side validations...

Re: Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

#150

Post by Aeolun »

ModernMech wrote: post #48
cimmanom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s quite an assumption to make about intentions. Repository hosting is also a way to back up your code or make sure it’s available on multiple devices. Until very recently, you couldn’t do that and keep your code private on github without paying. So (unless they want to also maintain a bitbucket account) people dump stuff there for reasons other than explicitly wanting to share it with the world or show it off.

> Until very recently, you couldn’t do that and keep your code private on github without paying. Ok, but now you can. > people dump stuff there for reasons other than explicitly wanting to share it with the world or show it off. Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact you are sharing it with the world and you are showing it off, and if you put a bunch of sloppy inscrutable code on your GitHub, people are going to ass…

> That's just the reality of it.

Given that I don’t, and am in a position to hire people tells me this isn’t as hard and fast as you present it.

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