Live data from Hacker News

Github is my resume

pydanny.blogspot.com

11–20 of 70 posts

Re: Github is my resume

#11
Yeah well it is not and never will be mine. This isn't to say that I wouldn't want to use it to host software (I won't but only because bitbucket is free with private repos) but because I know that appearances matter. As does the ability to selectively show what you have -- you wouldn't want anybody to look at the repositories for that porn scraper you wrote, or that half-finished stuff or what you play around with in other languages.

Finally you will want to be able to have something in PDF format or that you can print and show to your prospective employers.

Re: Github is my resume

#12
Apparently github is my de-facto resume, because I got emailed by a headhunter just the other day saying he found me on github, and my Java-related experience would be a real benefit to them.

Wait, Java-related experience? I'm pretty sure there's not a single line of Java in my entire github repo. Oh wait, that's not true - there's my trivial benchmark script that shows Java is slower than python in some cases. :)

Re: Github is my resume

#14
A fair bit of discussion here, perhaps much of which misses the point:

A resume has just two purposes: first, to help you get an interview, and second, to get you past an HR hurdle.

It is not the job of your resume to go further than those objectives. In particular: it is not the job of your resume to establish a valuation for yourself. No one document can do that; in fact, no document can: you have to do it yourself, preferably face-to-face, by understanding in each interview what the "buttons" are, what the language of benefits that company speaks is, what things they find important, and how your prior experience can be phrased in ways that push those buttons and communicate those values.

More importantly: resumes, in any form, are bad at getting you interviews. A resume comes into play at the earliest part of the recruiting funnel, when the hiring team has the smallest number of cycles to spend on each candidate. Your primary strategy for dealing with recruiting funnels: jump the fucking line. It's never been easier to do this! Ten years ago, you'd have to track down someone who worked with someone who worked for someone at the same company as the hiring team. Today, in tech, you just go search Github for projects your hiring team contributes to and start sending pull requests.

Keep your resume simple. If Github does it for you, gets you in the door, great.

People spend a lot of time thinking about resumes. It's easy to see why. Resumes are the key ego document everyone in our field gets to work with. They are, admit it, fun to tinker with. That's fine. But don't obsess. The resume is literally the least important part of the search for your next role.

Re: Github is my resume

#15
post #3

One of the most frustrating things for me, I feel, is that hardly any of the code I have written is on Github for various reasons (NDA, proprietary code, etc). So when an employer asks me for my Github, what do I do? Do I send him my account showing off my code from 3 years ago containing only a script I didn't really care about? I don't mind a Github being used in conjunction with other resources (the projects I've…

I really don't think you have much to worry about. A track record of open source contributions is one of many calling cards a developer can have today. The fact, however, is that there aren't enough excellent developers for all the roles that need them. It's a seller's market.

Having said all that: no matter what you've been doing for the last 5 years, proprietary or open source, most developers suck at "goal-directed" networking. One way to overcome that obstacle is to make targeted open source contributions to projects your preferred future employers pay attention to, as a way of meeting people who can recommend you for a role in the future. If you're like most developers, you may find this easier than the standard networking approach of asking people out for coffee, even if it involves extra coding effort.

Re: Github is my resume

#16
post #5
post #3

One of the most frustrating things for me, I feel, is that hardly any of the code I have written is on Github for various reasons (NDA, proprietary code, etc). So when an employer asks me for my Github, what do I do? Do I send him my account showing off my code from 3 years ago containing only a script I didn't really care about? I don't mind a Github being used in conjunction with other resources (the projects I've…

> One of the most frustrating things for me, I feel, is that hardly any of the code I have written is on Github for various reasons (NDA, proprietary code, etc). So when an employer asks me for my Github, what do I do? Do I send him the my account showing off my code from 3 years ago containing only a script I didn't really care about? The not-so-easy answer is: find time to contribute to the open source community. T…

Or don't, and just be really really good with marketable technologies. The opposite of your advice also holds: you can spend a whole lot of time doing excellent open source and still end up with a crappy job.

Re: Github is my resume

#17
post #9

From the comments it seems like there are three points of view: 1) Yeah this is dead on. Employers should only care about the code you've written. 2) No your always need a resume because your job history is more important. 3) GitHub complements your resume. I'd say that this is totally situational. It is like a cover letter. You position yourself for the jobs you want. A lot of startups would probably put more emphas…

What GitHub (and others) are for the developer is leverage. There's nothing worse than going into a job interview that you know you are (over-) qualified for and being given fizzbuzz because the person interviewing you doesn't know if you are a rock star or a fraud. Handing them your GitHub commit log lets you walk in on more equal terms. If they are interviewing you, they already think you're good enough for the pos…

It's fizzbuzz. Why would you optimize around it? Just write the silly fizzbuzz answer and move on. We don't "fizzbuzz". We have a more realistic interview challenge (with a similar purpose). But we apply it uniformly, even for candidates that come in with lots of code in their Github accounts.

Re: Github is my resume

#18

Apparently github is my de-facto resume, because I got emailed by a headhunter just the other day saying he found me on github, and my Java-related experience would be a real benefit to them. Wait, Java-related experience? I'm pretty sure there's not a single line of Java in my entire github repo. Oh wait, that's not true - there's my trivial benchmark script that shows Java is slower than python in some cases. :)

I've gotten two kinds of offers because of my Github account. The first is a genuine, honest-to-goodness message written by a human in HR that thought my skills were a good match for their company.

The second arrived late last night and appears to be an automated message from Githire[1], though a real name was used in the From field.

I think this is a new trend and while I don't mind it at all now it could easily get out of hand.

[1] http://githire.com/

Re: Github is my resume

#19
I agree with Danny here. In fact, part of the reason we built Work for Pie is to address this issue.

I also agree with some of the other comments - Github certainly isn't the end all be all. But, we're all trending away from traditional education, and software developers are on the leading edge of this trend. There may be a fairly standard path for "finance guy," but great developers can (and often do) come from any background. Resourceful developers can learn all they need for free via sources outside of a CS degree someplace.

So the question for a company seeking great developers becomes "how do I evaluate these non-traditional folks?" Resumes don't get there, but open source work can work to fill that gap. It's certainly not key for everyone - there are plenty of folks who stand on their own without a public repo in site. But, increasingly, it replaces more traditional indicators of talent like CS degrees.

Just my 2 cents, and I'm admittedly a bit biased.

Re: Github is my resume

#20
post #4

github complements your resume in providing evidence that you can write good code. Anyone who's been employed for a while will not be able to share the bulk of their source code, and source code doesn't typically give a high-level overview of career development and accomplishments.

Agreed. Things people write for fun are often quite different from what they write for work. I've written a few compilers and interpreters for fun but that doesn't mean I have the chops to do it for a living. I could learn to do it, but toy languages differ greatly from SpiderMonkey, V8, or LLVM. It's the difference between Ruby <=1.8 and JRuby or Rubinius.
Post reply on HN