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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?

#41

Post by cimmanom »

ModernMech wrote: post #28
Aeolun wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t see why these things are relevant at all. It’s a personal Github profile. Why would anyone add thoughtful readme’s or a clean coding style if they’re the only contributor? I mean, those things are great of course, but not sure if I’d expect it on Github.

Ostensibly, you put your code on Github for others to read, use, and maybe even contribute to. If you have a project that you didn't care enough to write cleanly, or even document in the most bare minimum of ways (a helpful README to contextualize the code) then why are you even putting it online? It's just going to reflect poorly upon you. If all your Github repos are as described above, people are going to (rightly…

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.

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

#42

Post by chickenfries »

zepolen wrote: post #37
Novashi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's a huge groan and turn off and you lose tons of strength (credibility) as a candidate. Toxic and off putting. You put too much weight on relatively minor things. It’s preventing you from fairly considering the rest of the candidate. You could be the one to teach them to do READMEs well.

So choose between: 1. A developer who doesn't respect himself first and foremost to write a README/maintainable code so that his future self and others can have an easier time. 2. A developer who cares about communicating his work to himself/others and making the environment easier for everyone to work for the future. Right.

I cannot stand this kind of developer armchair psychology.

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

#43

Post by pcmaffey »

cimmanom wrote: post #19
pcmaffey wrote: post #9

Since most people’s work is going to be in private repos, Ive always thought the most consistently valuable signal is the contribution graph. But that’s just my opinion.

And some of us are contributing to private repos hosted on bitbucket or gitlab. Just saying.

For sure, I'm not saying it's a universally valuable signal, just the most valuable one relative to other signals on a github profile.

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

#44

Post by stevekemp »

Aeolun wrote: post #4
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 really don’t see why these things are relevant at all. It’s a personal Github profile. Why would anyone add thoughtful readme’s or a clean coding style if they’re the only contributor? I mean, those things are great of course, but not sure if I’d expect it on Github.

The assumption is that if you have a personal github project then you're doing it because it interests you, you're passionate about it, and you're not doing it just for money.

If a developer writes sloppy code when they're doing it for passion, then that doesn't show them at their best. Of course we all have repositories, tools, or code, that was just thrown together to solve an immediate project but in general I'd expect something that is a labour of love - not a project for work - to be something that they'd put more effort into.

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

#45

Post by PopeDotNinja »

Edd314159 wrote: post #10

As a hiring manager, I glance at it and take a brief look at anything interesting. It’s good for talking points at the interview, perhaps to ask the candidate to expand upon and explain the work. If the profile is empty, I close the tab and find something else to talk about. I will never, ever penalise a candidate for an empty GitHub profile. So many people just do not have time for open source and that’s totally fin…

+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 be :)

If you have something really notable in your GitHub account, maybe it should probably be on your CV/resume, too!

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

#46

Post by raviolo »

I’ve been writing code for over 20 years yet I don’t have anything that I can share in a public repo. My employer would sue me immediately. I don’t imagine I will be looking for a job via the “normal process” with recruiters and all, but if I did, would I need to put out stuff to github? Would I need to spend 6 months just writing random but nice-looking code so I’m not rejected due to not having github profile?

I think there’s a lot of people like that. Making github a mandatory requirement is strange.

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

#47

Post by beardedwizard »

zepolen wrote: post #37
Novashi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's a huge groan and turn off and you lose tons of strength (credibility) as a candidate. Toxic and off putting. You put too much weight on relatively minor things. It’s preventing you from fairly considering the rest of the candidate. You could be the one to teach them to do READMEs well.

So choose between: 1. A developer who doesn't respect himself first and foremost to write a README/maintainable code so that his future self and others can have an easier time. 2. A developer who cares about communicating his work to himself/others and making the environment easier for everyone to work for the future. Right.

Are developers only male? Your biases are really showing in these comments.

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

#48

Post by ModernMech »

cimmanom wrote: post #41
ModernMech wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostensibly, you put your code on Github for others to read, use, and maybe even contribute to. If you have a project that you didn't care enough to write cleanly, or even document in the most bare minimum of ways (a helpful README to contextualize the code) then why are you even putting it online? It's just going to reflect poorly upon you. If all your Github repos are as described above, people are going to (rightly…

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 assume you tend to write sloppy inscrutable code, especially if you don't contextualize it with a Readme. That's just the reality of it. The real big assumption here is thinking people aren't going to judge you by how you present your work online.

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

#49

Post by akerl_ »

solarkraft wrote: post #35
seba_dos1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My GitHub/GitLab profiles are full of hacky, ugly games written at game jams in 48 hours, often just by me or me plus some artist, with just one end-goal: to be able to present it at the end of the event. A README file is the last thing needed there :P

I 100% disagree. Even just saying that it was hacked together gives some context for 1) Why the code looks so unconventional 2) What you do in your spare time.

Context for whom? My target audience for my personal projects is myself. Any company that assumes their recruiting org is the target audience for my personal projects is setting themselves up for disappointment.

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

#50

Post by Novashi »

zepolen wrote: post #37
Novashi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's a huge groan and turn off and you lose tons of strength (credibility) as a candidate. Toxic and off putting. You put too much weight on relatively minor things. It’s preventing you from fairly considering the rest of the candidate. You could be the one to teach them to do READMEs well.

So choose between: 1. A developer who doesn't respect himself first and foremost to write a README/maintainable code so that his future self and others can have an easier time. 2. A developer who cares about communicating his work to himself/others and making the environment easier for everyone to work for the future. Right.

False dichotomy, and if you actually witness this first hand and only have two options in your candidate pool, you might need to spread your net a bit further. Also the original post was about READMEs only, so if they have unmaintainable code, the README really doesn't matter that much, does it?

Developers are at various stages in their expertise when they go looking for jobs. READMEs are nice but try not to let yourself get tied up with emphasis on a few signals that document the whole human. README quality is a pretty weak signal.

If you bring up the README in an interview, and the dev cannot find any motivation or acknowledge that it could be better, then maybe you might have to pass on them. My problem with your methods is that you get to this point without even opening a discussion.

READMEs are a relatively teach-able skill and in pretty quick fashion. Maintainable code, much less so obviously.

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