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GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

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11–20 of 51 posts

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#11
Remove all projects over a year old that you haven't touched? Such bad advice. I've fixed up some old projects of mine that are 2+ years old. Was a great way to see what I was doing wrong back then and apply new knowledge.

I don't think this is satire, but it's definitely misguided.

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#12

Remove all projects over a year old that you haven't touched? Such bad advice. I've fixed up some old projects of mine that are 2+ years old. Was a great way to see what I was doing wrong back then and apply new knowledge. I don't think this is satire, but it's definitely misguided.

I've found so many projects that haven't been maintained but have useful bits of code in them that I can learn from.

Deleting old projects is a disservice to the open source community.

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#13
While I agree that Github is a part of your resume, I don't think it's the whole thing. If I was providing a link to my account when applying for a job, I would probably link to some specific projects and provide some narrative around them, rather than just saying "here's 20 projects I've worked on, go nuts". If the recruiter wants to look through everything else then fine, but they shouldn't expect perfection from everything.

Some other thoughts I had on the article:

"Too many forked repositories": You just need to click on Sources[1] to see the user's actual repos.

"Missing or unclear descriptions": If repos are just simple little side-projects, they don't necessarily need descriptions - I know what they are, I know what they do, they aren't there for anyone but me, I don't expect them to be starred or forked.

"Old repositories": So because I wrote something a year ago, I can never go back to it? What's wrong with having a record of achievement? A display of progress.

"Mediocre code": If we were only allowed to store perfect code, there would never be any code on Github.

[1] https://github.com/danielsamuels?tab=repositories

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#14
post #7

That's silly. I don't even have a GitHub account. All my professional life ( 20+) I've been writing code or building solutions for private companies, all the cool stuff I programmed lies in a private repository. And for the reference, I am always sending nicely PDF-formatted, very relevant, but succinct, CV and not a "poorly formatted, badly designed Microsoft Word template filled with irrelevant information you’ve c…

I assume he wants to validate the amount of hours he has carefully put into maintaining his public image on github.

I get that as an employer checking github and seeing the odd pull request or repo might be a signal that this person at least understands version control and the benefits of open source software - but i'm sure as hell still gonna read his resume and do a coding exercise/interview together.

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#15
post #9

I only use bitbucket and all my repos are private. Am I not allowed to have a job?

This made me laugh.

I'm imagining someone with massive open source projects pouring hours into open source tools and software that benefits thousand and storing it all in bitbucket while his recruiter is tossing his resume in the bin when he sees that on github he has only starred 1 repo "EugeneKay/git-jokes". lol.

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#16

Remove all projects over a year old that you haven't touched? Such bad advice. I've fixed up some old projects of mine that are 2+ years old. Was a great way to see what I was doing wrong back then and apply new knowledge. I don't think this is satire, but it's definitely misguided.

I've found so many projects that haven't been maintained but have useful bits of code in them that I can learn from. Deleting old projects is a disservice to the open source community.

Yes this is so true. Please leave your old code up even if you think it is crap.

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#17
I don't use GitHub to show off, and most of the points in the post are very bold.

"The work you did a year or more ago couldn’t possibly still be relevant today." - yeah I should delete all my work because it is not fresh enough, although there is nothing I have to do.

"Don’t waste your time building unimportant things." - Important for whom? You? Me? Public?

"GitHub is your portfolio." - No, it is a place to share projects and contribute to others. If you want to use it as a portfolio, It shows your most starred projects anyway.

You take the GitHub as a personal promotional page, rather than collobarative environment.

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#18

While I agree that Github is a part of your resume, I don't think it's the whole thing. If I was providing a link to my account when applying for a job, I would probably link to some specific projects and provide some narrative around them, rather than just saying "here's 20 projects I've worked on, go nuts". If the recruiter wants to look through everything else then fine, but they shouldn't expect perfection from e…

I agree on almost all points.

However, I think that the author has a point with the 'mediocre code'. If you're hand-picking a project to highlight, you should probably be sure that the code is at least a little bit polished.

It might just be personal preference, but I've seen so many great projects that have absolutely abysmal code standards. Some even mixed tabs and spaces! shudder

Re: GitHub Is Your Resume Now (2012)

#20

While I agree that Github is a part of your resume, I don't think it's the whole thing. If I was providing a link to my account when applying for a job, I would probably link to some specific projects and provide some narrative around them, rather than just saying "here's 20 projects I've worked on, go nuts". If the recruiter wants to look through everything else then fine, but they shouldn't expect perfection from e…

I agree on almost all points. However, I think that the author has a point with the 'mediocre code'. If you're hand-picking a project to highlight, you should probably be sure that the code is at least a little bit polished. It might just be personal preference, but I've seen so many great projects that have absolutely abysmal code standards. Some even mixed tabs and spaces! shudder

Except you can't hand pick a project to highlight. Github does the selection for you.

I like the idea of Github as a resume for showing people how you work, but I don't want to have to carefully curate all my public repositories because it is primarily a place for storage. Github really does need a way to pick and choose what appears on your main profile page.

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