Speaking from the perspective of someone looking to hire: It doesn't make for a good impression if I see anyone other than the original author with the same obviously distinctive style of site showing pretty much a subset of the info I can already see from your GitHub account, except the latter doesn't require JS to view. If I'm looking at someone's personal site, it should look personal --- not "I cloned someone els…
Would you mind sharing what company you're hiring for so that I can actively avoid it?
> Speaking from the perspective of someone looking to hire: It doesn't make for a good impression if I see anyone other than the original author with the same obviously distinctive style of site > If I'm looking at someone's personal site, it should look personal --- not "I cloned someone else's I found on GitHub To me that seems petty and I feel you'll end up isolating a good portion of the talent pool. Anecdotally,…
Petty though it may be, if it's true, if it's sufficiently widespread, then it's a reality with which we must be able to deal.
Judgements like "I'd expect dev to write it themselves" come across as arbitrary. I think there's no shared context wherein interviewers / job-applicants have the same set of assumptions.
Especially since "I'd expect a dev to not rewrite everything themselves, and leverage what's already available" is just as reasonable.
There's not exactly a specific "right answer" about whether you need a personal website, what it should look like, or how it should be written.
Speaking from the perspective of someone looking to hire: It doesn't make for a good impression if I see anyone other than the original author with the same obviously distinctive style of site showing pretty much a subset of the info I can already see from your GitHub account, except the latter doesn't require JS to view. If I'm looking at someone's personal site, it should look personal --- not "I cloned someone els…
I'm a salaried software/database guy for the last 10 years. I ceased programming for personal pleasure before github was invented and haven't done anything more complex than a minor tool on my own time in years.
My personal website is a wordpress blog we've I've dumped some photos of the hardware stuff I do as a hobby.
I'm curious to hear how this factors into your views on what to look for when hiring people?
Speaking from the perspective of someone looking to hire: It doesn't make for a good impression if I see anyone other than the original author with the same obviously distinctive style of site showing pretty much a subset of the info I can already see from your GitHub account, except the latter doesn't require JS to view. If I'm looking at someone's personal site, it should look personal --- not "I cloned someone els…
I'm a salaried software/database guy for the last 10 years. I ceased programming for personal pleasure before github was invented and haven't done anything more complex than a minor tool on my own time in years. My personal website is a wordpress blog we've I've dumped some photos of the hardware stuff I do as a hobby. I'm curious to hear how this factors into your views on what to look for when hiring people?
Once you have a certain amount of experience, I don't think a person's website is going to matter anymore.
Speaking from the perspective of someone looking to hire: It doesn't make for a good impression if I see anyone other than the original author with the same obviously distinctive style of site showing pretty much a subset of the info I can already see from your GitHub account, except the latter doesn't require JS to view. If I'm looking at someone's personal site, it should look personal --- not "I cloned someone els…
Speaking from the same perspective: I don't really care. I rarely look into github repos, unless they mention something during the interview/screen or sounds interesting in the CV. Even then, I spend a small amount of time there (less than 15 min). The noise-to-signal ratio for github/gitlab links is really high.
source: I've been a hiring manager for large companies (and a few startups) in SF for the last 8 years.
Speaking from the perspective of someone looking to hire: It doesn't make for a good impression if I see anyone other than the original author with the same obviously distinctive style of site showing pretty much a subset of the info I can already see from your GitHub account, except the latter doesn't require JS to view. If I'm looking at someone's personal site, it should look personal --- not "I cloned someone els…
Well, I'd argue that using templates as a base is OK. Especially if it's just gonna be a page containing your portfolio - looks more presentable that just a plain github account.
Using templates can be free, or low cost, compared to writing everything from scratch yourself. There are other things I'd rather be doing in my spare time.
Petty though it may be, if it's true, if it's sufficiently widespread, then it's a reality with which we must be able to deal.
Judgements like "I'd expect dev to write it themselves" come across as arbitrary. I think there's no shared context wherein interviewers / job-applicants have the same set of assumptions. Especially since "I'd expect a dev to not rewrite everything themselves, and leverage what's already available" is just as reasonable. There's not exactly a specific "right answer" about whether you need a personal website, what it…
> Judgements like "I'd expect dev to write it themselves" come across as arbitrary.
I feel like this depends on the type of dev. If you write C code for microcontrollers then who cares, but if you do web dev then using a generic template not authored by you seems like a bad sign, no?
Ummm....shouldn't a programmer make their own? Dumb question I know.
The website isn't representing their work, the portfolio within is. There's the opportunity cost of the construction vs pre-built. I write smart tv applications for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, etc. I'm not a web dev nor do I pretend to be one. However, I would like videos and descriptions of my work displayed in the nicest way possible, like this. If every dev had to only use the code which only they created, this entire industry would grind to a halt. All of these criticisms about looking down on people using the same theme for a portfolio site just sends up all kinds of flags about their understanding of the software industry in general, and their hiring practices / company culture. I'm guessing many of you "can't find good devs" or keep devs for very long. It's like judging a job applicant on their tie instead of their resume.