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Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

manuel.darcemont.fr

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Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#21

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

actuator wrote: post #8

> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the year. What matters the most is your current company - and by that I mean the name of your current company. He is so much right here. Recruiters don't have the time to go through and understand your side projects, for that matter even engineers don't. Most interviews are 45-60 mins, you need to scope your interview…

If you can speak to the processes involved and have demonstrable knowledge about how to implement things learned from side-projects, what's the difference between having done it at work versus personal time? None in my opinion.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#22

Post by bt3 »

If one is not currently at a company with a "brand name", how else are they supposed to get noticed amongst a pile of other "brand name" applicants?

Is the same true for educational backgrounds? If you don't have an Ivy League degree, what methods can you use to put yourself in the running vs those that do? Side projects seems like a good option in both cases to appear competitive.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#23

Post by blocked_again »

I work on side projects on hope that I can one day make enough money from one of it and have financial freedom to do anything I want anytime. Hopefully soon and not when I am 60.

If I die tomorrow and all I did was focus on my career that would be so sad.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#24

Post by bluedino »

I can understand not letting your side project get in the way of your job. If you have a slow day at the office, it's not the time to be working on your side project - although many people do.

However, if it weren't for side projects, I would never have learned Linux, virtualization, handfuls of programming languages, or so many other things I ended up bringing into my 8-5 job.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#25

Post by asadlionpk »

I am who I am due to my side-projects.

- They allow me to grow my skills and also test ideas in public.

- Every code pattern or library I use in my main job has been put to test on my side-projects.

If I had more hours per day, I would pour them all into my side-projects.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#28

Post by dvt »

> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the...

Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders.

If you aren't trying to do your own thing (which, let's face it, is the most exciting prospect), at least try to impress CEOs or product managers, or -- my goodness -- at least hiring managers. I heard a fun anecdote of Evan Spiegel attending an LA hackathon maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Some nerdy engineer showed him that he figured out how to get around Snapchat's spam filter. Spiegel offered him a job on the spot. Could a recruiter ever do that? Hell to the no.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#29

Post by tylerchilds »

sytelus wrote: post #4

TLDR; Recruiters don't care about side projects. Side projects are often shallow and its better to use new tech in real job instead of side projects. I feel most of us would disagree with that. All new jobs in my career were result of learning something new on side projects. Recruiters show that as passion for learning. Many jobs don't allow for much exploration and you don't have leverage to call shots. It's usually…

and also using new tech in a work project is often a terrible idea unless you or someone else on the team has intimate experience with it. it's either going to be betamax or legacy spaghetti 9/10 times.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#30

Post by 0xEFF »

sytelus wrote: post #4

TLDR; Recruiters don't care about side projects. Side projects are often shallow and its better to use new tech in real job instead of side projects. I feel most of us would disagree with that. All new jobs in my career were result of learning something new on side projects. Recruiters show that as passion for learning. Many jobs don't allow for much exploration and you don't have leverage to call shots. It's usually…

> Many jobs don't allow for much exploration and you don't have leverage to call shots. It's usually uphil battle to even introduce any significant change. Also side projects shouldn't be just for goal of finding new jobs anyway. It should be for passion for creating things, realizing ideas.

You're right, but your point also indicates why business value side projects less than career projects. The skills and experience to complete the project don't overlap much between the two types of projects. The success criteria is usually quite different as well.

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