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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?

#171

Post by gherlein »

gargarplex wrote: post #2

As a recruiter I can answer this! I do not speak for all recruiters. As a recruiter who is also a programmer, my approach may be nonstandard. * I want to see thoughtful README files. If the README is whatever was generated default by the framework and not edited at all, that's a huge groan and turn off and you lose tons of strength (credibility) as a candidate. * I want to see your code looking pretty. Consistent ind…

That's lame, sorry. As a long-time hiring manager I do value a good readme if the project is meant for others to consume, otherwise if it's a scratch pad for learning who cares? And I could care less about how pretty their code is. I'm more interested to see if they are PASSIONATE about tech. While it's true that some folks don't have time outside of work my experience is that really good Engineers still play around a bit. They fork stuff. They try it. They may submit a PR that fixes something. They have some experimental repos where they put stuff when learning a new language. And yes, the rare one will have a fork of a project where they regularly contribute. I don't think you are looking for the things I look for in a candidate at all.

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

#172

Post by zinckiwi »

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"

n://a?

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

#173

Post by seba_dos1 »

godelski wrote: post #163
chillacy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us in the readme if you make it public. You gotta think, who is reading this? That goes beyond documentation to code itself and any communication you do.

Repositories are public for a lot of reasons, a lot of which are not "I want to show this off to a potential employer". Let me give some good reasons, that's not an exhaustive list. - It is the default. - Free private repos are new and no one is going back and making things private. - If you are working with someone it is many times easier to make it public. - You want to share code with someone, public is easier tha…

I put my things public on GPL out of principle, because there are some people playing those games, so I want to provide all necessary freedoms to them - even if nobody is actually interested in exercising those freedoms, because well, those are shitty jam games.

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

#174

Post by PopeDotNinja »

gumby wrote: post #169
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for this. I used to be a recruiter, and knew hiring managers looked at GitHub profiles. When I started, I used to to stress out over pushing crappy code to my GitHub account. At some point I realized that anyone judging me for stuff I put into GitHub was simply not someone I would ever want to please. My GitHub is mostly a graveyard for experiments, learning, and goofing off, and that is exactly what I want it to…

I’m curious: why bother to use GH then? Why not simply have various repos in your filesystem? It feels to me like having a blog site and only putting notes, scraps and drafts in it. Maybe there’s some functionality i’m not seeing?

It's a good question, and I don't have a specific answer. I guess the short answer is because I want to. It's convenient for a number of reasons.

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

#175

Post by gherlein »

To heck with the recruiter. As a hiring manager I look for passion for coding and learning - and that your profile isn't brand new. If it has periods of no contribution I don't care - people get busy, have lives, etc. I don't hold the lack of a profile against someone, but an active profile that shows someone playing, learning, testing, and especially contributing is someone that jumps to the top of my list. A passion for doing and learning is something that cannot be taught. Faked maybe. But that shows up pretty quick too.

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

#176

Post by Washuu »

gumby wrote: post #169
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for this. I used to be a recruiter, and knew hiring managers looked at GitHub profiles. When I started, I used to to stress out over pushing crappy code to my GitHub account. At some point I realized that anyone judging me for stuff I put into GitHub was simply not someone I would ever want to please. My GitHub is mostly a graveyard for experiments, learning, and goofing off, and that is exactly what I want it to…

I’m curious: why bother to use GH then? Why not simply have various repos in your filesystem? It feels to me like having a blog site and only putting notes, scraps and drafts in it. Maybe there’s some functionality i’m not seeing?

I push to Gitlab from home so that I can pull down to the computer in the shop. Fleshing out an idea is much more comfortable in the home than standing up in front of a an old computer.

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

#177

Post by blazespin »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #95
gregmac wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

As a former recruiter, I just assume all resumes are complete shit. I never saw much of a correlation between a quality resume and a quality candidate. Screening for the stuff one uses on the job is what I prefer to do. It's also nice to focus on the job requirements, too, because it removes any need for someone to impress me with what the have done. When you can walk into an interview with "hey, I really want you to…

Agreed, I think a resume with just yoe, last 10 years of companies worked at/positions/years, education, and 4 our 5 technologies/areas currently interested in working on is enough.

You could probably drop education from it if you have 5 or more yoe.

Frankly you could do this in one 5 or 6 line paragraph without a resume

I never read them anymore. It’s such a waste of time. Totally useless compared to our phone screen templates.

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

#178

Post by Tempest1981 »

scarface74 wrote: post #155
gregmac wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I’ll go even further. Don’t put any language, framework, technology on your resume that you don’t want to talk about or that you don’t want to do. I took C and C++ off of my resume years ago even though I did both for 12 years and I still know all of the ends and outs of C. There is going to be that one old geek (I’m 45) who wants to ask me some obscure question just to prove how smart he is. I definitely leave PHP a…

Just scanned a resume touting IBM 370 assembly, along with a dozen web frameworks.

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

#179

Post by burfog »

petsormeat wrote: post #31
cimmanom wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with not having a profile photo? FWIW, as a woman, I leave my photo off github to avoid the assumptions people make when they know someone’s gender. In fact, there’s research to back that up: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/data-...

Same here; I'm woman, and over 50. I use a landscape snapshot from an enjoyable daytrip for my profile photo. Is this, like removing graduation dates from a resume, an undesired tell?

Most companies would discriminate in your favor for both reasons. I suppose it is unpleasant to be the token woman or the token old person though. It sucks to suspect that you are being kept around to meet somebody's quota.

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

#180

Post by projektir »

iandanforth wrote: post #126
gargarplex wrote: post #2

As a recruiter I can answer this! I do not speak for all recruiters. As a recruiter who is also a programmer, my approach may be nonstandard. * I want to see thoughtful README files. If the README is whatever was generated default by the framework and not edited at all, that's a huge groan and turn off and you lose tons of strength (credibility) as a candidate. * I want to see your code looking pretty. Consistent ind…

I know people are being down on this comment, but it's important to know that people do this, which might help people get jobs. Google is known to can applications if there are typos in either the resume or cover letter. Supposedly there is a statistical correlation that backs this. While this seems arbitrary and absurd it is important to know it's a thing so you can at least work around it.

I disagree. Bending over backwards to strange expectations and requirements is a race to the bottom.
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