Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 157 posts

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

#91

Post by mewpmewp2 »

kybernetikos wrote: post #84
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.

Ideas are not hard to find, even if you don't feel like you have them yourself there are loads of people pursuing side projects who would love help from someone skilled like yourself. I have pages of side project ideas I'd like to explore but will probably never get chance and would be happy to share with someone who might want to do them. Maybe it's more that you don't get very excited by side project type ideas? Th…

If they succeeded, was it irrational optimism, or rather irrational pessimism from the senior person?

I consider myself senior, but I haven't really lost my optimism. I don't think becoming a senior should mean losing optimism. For me it's the opposite. I have much better understanding how to achieve something than before so I have the confidence that I can definitely do it. Maybe it's my personality though, that instead of thinking what the obstacles are, I think how I'm going to visualize and build it.

But I can see how it's different from plenty of other folks, and I think it comes down to personality. Usually I don't or can't think of challenges/weaknesses up front and I like to just dive in. I have been criticized and given feedback of having this flaw, but I have unrelenting belief, that I can solve everything on the fly and for me it has worked in the past.

It's like my mind is unable to bother or concentrate on what the obstacles will be. And it's frustrating because many people expect you to come up with a plan and potential obstacles beforehand while my mind just wants to jump in.

Most advice tells you to think/ask questions/plan before you code, but I code while thinking and iterate on that code. I can't think or concentrate if I'm not coding or actively solving the problem. If I try to plan something, it's half-assed and to me it seems useless and it kind of pretends to be a viable plan and when I finally do it, I do it completely different from the plan anyhow.

Not saying it's the right way, but maybe it's some sort of thing similar to ADHD where I just can't focus without building. And I am very impatient as well so if there's something that needs to be built or solved I will need to jump on it asap and get it solved asap. If I'm not building and am planning I have this increasing anxiety, that I should just be doing it.

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

#92

Post by ljm »

dannyw wrote: post #43
majewsky wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 that point is perhaps more difficult, but the playing field is still level. The single parent still has a fighting chance against the person who has the time and money to do extra work for themselves.

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

#93

Post by williamdclt »

kybernetikos wrote: post #84
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.

Ideas are not hard to find, even if you don't feel like you have them yourself there are loads of people pursuing side projects who would love help from someone skilled like yourself. I have pages of side project ideas I'd like to explore but will probably never get chance and would be happy to share with someone who might want to do them. Maybe it's more that you don't get very excited by side project type ideas? Th…

I'm also of the type "Give me a project and I'll build it. Ask me what I'd like to build and I'll have no idea". I'd love to see this list (or part of it), I have no idea what it could even look like. Mind sharing?

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

#94

Post by xenocratus »

austincheney wrote: post #39

My experience is that side projects are 90% ignored. They are treated strictly as line items like education. I got furious tired of this so on my last resume I treated my employment history strictly as employment history. A list of employers with dates and dates of promotions plus a sentence or two what I worked on. Supremely lowered emphasis. I also put my personal projects into a separate section above my employmen…

I have no experience in hiring and can't really talk about it from my experiences of applying for jobs, but this sounds a bit weird to me, essentially telling the person reviewing your CV: "I've been focusing more on side projects than on my previous jobs, that's why you should consider me for this _job_".

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

#95

Post by bregma »

If you're qualifying for a true senior position, and if you haven't done something outside of work in the decades of your professional experience, it's a bad sign. If by "senior position" you're thinking something that can be done by a 25-year-old with over 5 years of experience in a specific product, your resume is already on the discard pile.

I recruit a lot of work-term students (and have filled a few senior positions in the past). I always look for side projects. I always check github accounts for unmentioned side projects. Side projects tell me more about who the applicant is than a resume does. I hire people, not resumes and not previous positions of employment. Folks who are interested and enthusiastic about their field are better to work with.

Honestly, it's pretty rare that anyone lists a side project on their resume, so it's not absolutely required. When it's there, though, it usually makes the interview better ("tell me about your side project") and it's often the difference between getting an interview and not.

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

#96

Post by carnitine »

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…

This is just impossible to do, the side projects are on the CV and will influence any decision, it’s not feasible to ignore them. Of course being less accomplished is a disadvantage.

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

#97

Post by Tade0 »

jstx1 wrote: post #71
Tade0 wrote: post #52

Recruiters are mostly interested in the things other people paid you to do - because it shows that it's safe to pay you as well. I list such things as "web presence" along with my GitHub account, "technical blog"(heavy quotes here) and LinkedIn profile. I think only that last one ever gets clicked on. Large companies especially don't care about such things, because they need you to fill a highly specific role, not on…

Is the last part really true? I think large companies often hire much more broadly and some don't even have a specific position/team for you until you go through the matching process after you start the job.

I've never been part of such a recruitment process, so I can't comment on that.

My role as a contractor was always highly specific, and so were the roles of my more permanent co-workers. That being said they did tend to switch to mostly unrelated roles every few years or so.

I have a friend who worked in accounting for a large company and complained that nowadays large corporations slice responsibilities into these little bits, because it's easier to train for them this way, but the side effect was that her role had a very narrow scope and she was easily replaceable.

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

#98

Post by kybernetikos »

IQunder130 wrote: post #90
kybernetikos wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideas are not hard to find, even if you don't feel like you have them yourself there are loads of people pursuing side projects who would love help from someone skilled like yourself. I have pages of side project ideas I'd like to explore but will probably never get chance and would be happy to share with someone who might want to do them. Maybe it's more that you don't get very excited by side project type ideas? Th…

>Ideas are not hard to find, > I have pages of side project ideas Well evidently not for you. But please don't assume everybody's mind or personality works the same way yours does. You were told to not judge everybody by the same subjective yardstick and your immediate response is to.. project and judge everybody by the same yardstick. The ability to generate side project ideas or the interest in investing huge amoun…

There was no assumption that other minds work like mine in this respect.

The point I evidently failed to get across was that there are lots of ideas around and you don't need to generate them yourself. People who like generating ideas generate far more than they can hope to work on and often would love to see others carry them forward.

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

#99

Post by unishark »

jstx1 wrote: post #71
Tade0 wrote: post #52

Recruiters are mostly interested in the things other people paid you to do - because it shows that it's safe to pay you as well. I list such things as "web presence" along with my GitHub account, "technical blog"(heavy quotes here) and LinkedIn profile. I think only that last one ever gets clicked on. Large companies especially don't care about such things, because they need you to fill a highly specific role, not on…

Is the last part really true? I think large companies often hire much more broadly and some don't even have a specific position/team for you until you go through the matching process after you start the job.

I can imagine some degree of inflation where experienced people are called senior engineers so they can be paid more while the still have room to move around and get training in a new area. But at a high enough level, I'd think the goal switches over to hiring key engineers based on their command of a niche. E.g. a principal engineer with 15 years experience in whatever to lead the new product in that area.

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

#100

Post by gabereiser »

Do side projects for you, not for them. List them at the end of your CV if you want but don't expect them to care. Some do. Most don't. Just keep that passion alive and continue doing side projects - who knows, maybe one day it will become your primary job.
Post reply on HN