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Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

benfrederickson.com

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Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #30
toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's just outright factually inaccurate. Are you expecting employers to hire on blind faith? If employers are hiring without evidence to support your skill-set, then their hiring process is broken. I have been working in tech for 18 years, as both an IC and a hiring manager. I do not believe it to be inaccurate. It's how I do hiring in my current role. I also do not have a degree. In my current role, I was hired…

> I also do not have a degree. In my current role, I was hired on the spot leaving the conference room after my interview. Sounds like a broken hiring process. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all saying you're bad it your job. I'm saying your employer got lucky. > I used to be an infrastructure engineer. Now I'm in security architecture. What work would you have someone like me show that I did the work I claimed to be…

> There's absolutely nothing stopping you publishing part of your solutions to Github, along with published articles explaining what you did and why you did it.

Except my intellectual property copyright assignment from both employers. This is pretty standard, even in startups. Your suggestion is unreasonable.

> You could have a better job.

My current job is pretty phenomenal (I do security for financial markets). Definitely interested if you know someone paying more than $230k/year for my skill set. Cash is king.

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#33

Post by minimaxir »

ryanf323 wrote: post #6

I look at GitHub profiles to help filter / disqualify candidates. Just last weekend, I had a marketing candidate who had stolen three Wordpress projects from their current employer and post them as public repos on their personal GitHub account. In addition to the flagrant intellectual property theft, the repos contained the wp-config.php file with exposed database “root” credentials to live, client sites.

> flagrant intellectual property theft

Granted, this seems like a case that's less malice and more adequately explained by stupidity.

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#34

Post by scarface74 »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #25
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it not your responsibility as a developer to keep an accurate portfolio of your skill set? It is not. If an employer can't ascertain your skill level through the interview process, their hiring is broken. It is a slippery slope where we allow employers to dictate uncompensated signaling necessary for a role. Observe how it worked out for everyone who got a degree because employers won't hire without one, and the…

> If an employer can't ascertain your skill level through the interview process, their hiring is broken. That's just outright factually inaccurate. Are you expecting employers to hire on blind faith? If employers are hiring without evidence to support your skill-set, then their hiring process is broken. > Observe how it worked out for everyone who got a degree because employers won't hire without one, and then they d…

That's just outright factually inaccurate. Are you expecting employers to hire on blind faith? If employers are hiring without evidence to support your skill-set, then their hiring process is broken.

I haven't had any publicly accessible work to show off since I posted a HyperCard stack on AOL and freeware FTP sites while I was in college in 1995. I've been working as a professional developer since 1996, have never been asked to show code and have a pretty good track record for getting jobs based on solely my interview skills and knowledge.

At this point in my career, few companies waste time even asking me about technical trivia. I talk about the projects of the teams I've been on and led. I've gotten jobs over the past 10 years where I didn't meet half of the requirements going in.

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#35

Post by cwyers »

minimaxir wrote: post #26

The argument that "GitHub isn't a useful indicator of skill" has the logically-following argument "we won't look at GitHubs at all because they're a waste of time." Which is a loss of helpful information for hiring a candidate, and ignoring relevant information seems inefficient.

Nobody actually wants to make the most informed decision, what they really want is to make the right decision. There's all kinds of places where additional information leads to worse decisions:

https://ignoranceanduncertainty.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/whe...

So you may in fact want to ignore relevant information to be more efficient.

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#36

Post by FLUX-YOU »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #25
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it not your responsibility as a developer to keep an accurate portfolio of your skill set? It is not. If an employer can't ascertain your skill level through the interview process, their hiring is broken. It is a slippery slope where we allow employers to dictate uncompensated signaling necessary for a role. Observe how it worked out for everyone who got a degree because employers won't hire without one, and the…

> If an employer can't ascertain your skill level through the interview process, their hiring is broken. That's just outright factually inaccurate. Are you expecting employers to hire on blind faith? If employers are hiring without evidence to support your skill-set, then their hiring process is broken. > Observe how it worked out for everyone who got a degree because employers won't hire without one, and then they d…

>If employers are hiring without evidence to support your skill-set, then their hiring process is broken.

No one does this. It's just that talking is not evidence enough like it is for other industries because interviewers don't know the right questions to ask. So they add code challenges to fill in the gaps.

It's saying "your previous experience doesn't actually matter that much and we only care if you can actually put code down in the limited fashion of our technical tests". People are naturally annoyed at having to prove they know the basics after 3-5 years in the field.

There's definitely some who hire engineers based on conversation only though. If they can, why can't others?

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#37

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also do not have a degree. In my current role, I was hired on the spot leaving the conference room after my interview. Sounds like a broken hiring process. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all saying you're bad it your job. I'm saying your employer got lucky. > I used to be an infrastructure engineer. Now I'm in security architecture. What work would you have someone like me show that I did the work I claimed to be…

> There's absolutely nothing stopping you publishing part of your solutions to Github, along with published articles explaining what you did and why you did it. Except my intellectual property copyright assignment from both employers. This is pretty standard, even in startups. Your suggestion is unreasonable. > You could have a better job. My current job is pretty phenomenal (I do security for financial markets). Def…

> Except my intellectual property copyright assignment from both employers. This is pretty standard, even in startups. Your suggestion is unreasonable.

I'm not suggesting you publish their IP. However, you've the legal right to learn (utilise and transfer between employers) skills that you learn on the clock.

You are absolutely entitled to publish (in one form or another) your personal learnings. Your contract with your employer may (if you have an extremely restrictive contract) simply prevent you claiming you're using those skills as part of your current role.

If employers had the right to prevent you utilising skills you learned on the clock, you'd have to somehow unlearn skills and start from scratch at every new job - that's not how it works.

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#38

Post by always_good »

scarface74 wrote: post #34
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If an employer can't ascertain your skill level through the interview process, their hiring is broken. That's just outright factually inaccurate. Are you expecting employers to hire on blind faith? If employers are hiring without evidence to support your skill-set, then their hiring process is broken. > Observe how it worked out for everyone who got a degree because employers won't hire without one, and then they d…

That's just outright factually inaccurate. Are you expecting employers to hire on blind faith? If employers are hiring without evidence to support your skill-set, then their hiring process is broken. I haven't had any publicly accessible work to show off since I posted a HyperCard stack on AOL and freeware FTP sites while I was in college in 1995. I've been working as a professional developer since 1996, have never b…

Surely the argument isn't that a portfolio is a necessary positive signal, but rather that it's just a positive signal.

In other words, would you take the stance that having some quality work on Github can never work in your favor?

What about other positive-but-not-guaranteed signals like having a quality blog where you cover technical topics? Can that ever work in your favor? Or is it pure noise that can never demonstrate value?

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#39

Post by madrox »

What I think a lot of the comments are missing is that, sure, a strong GitHub profile can be a positive signal for hiring, but an inactive GitHub profile is not a negative signal.

So no one should be "filtering out" inactive or boring profiles.

The exception I'll claim is for junior engineers. At that stage in someone's career, having a portfolio matters, and should be actively cultivating some kind of public code presence.

Re: Why GitHub Won't Help with Hiring

#40

Post by scarface74 »

convery wrote: post #5

One thing that have always annoyed me about Github is the lack of (free) private repos which makes the activity history patchy. So you show that you're active for months on end, then then radio-silence for a month. Or when you delete/move a repo and suddenly months of activity disappears. Just makes it look like you've lost interest in what you were working on =(

I use Microsoft's Visual Studio Team Services - their online hosted TFS version (yes they use Git). They give you free private repos, complete project management, either a hosted build server or you can use it to orchestrate your own private build agent, a wiki and a lot of other features.

I am starting a side project mostly for learning but have no real interest in making it public.

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