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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

#41

Post by peruvian »

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…

> its better to use new tech in real job instead of side projects.

Lol this is why so many tech stacks at work go to shit. Someone wanting to add another bullet point to the resume and instead of doing it at home, they force a new tool/language at work (when possible).

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

#42

Post by zhobbs »

Agree -- recruiters don't care about side projects. But, if you hustle and track down the hiring manager they might be impressed, and at a minimum it could be a good conversation starter.

My side projects have opened a lot of doors for me, particularly they have enabled career switches. I'm a B2C product manager, was interested in moving to B2B and was ignored until I launched a small SaaS side project (B2B vs B2C PM is considered quite different.)

But the theme of this article is true, recruiters don't care and you should focus on enjoyable side projects.

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

#43

Post by zolland »

lostmsu wrote: post #5

I turned a side project into a company, and recruiters contacted me non-stop during the entire journey. But maybe it is because I already had experience at Microsoft and Amazon.

I think there is a huge difference between what the author mentions as "shallow" side projects (where you are just trying to mess around with some new tech), and side projects where the aim is to develop a legit product. I imagine the latter, when seen all the way through, is much more attractive to recruiters. Although, I don't have any solid anecdotal experience with recruiting to validate that claim.

I just think it's important to not classify all projects outside of your job as "shallow" side projects, and then completely discard them career wise like the article seems to be doing.

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

#44

Post by vbezhenar »

dvt wrote: post #28

> 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…

How many people are hired through standard recruitment process and how many people are hired by impressed CEO?

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

#45

Post by enos_feedler »

maverickJ wrote: post #32
binarymax wrote: post #6

Advice to my young self: put MORE effort into one of your 100 side projects, and stop messing around with other stuff.

How would you go about choosing that one project?

I would choose the one you can't stop thinking about. Or the one that many of the other side projects eventually lead to. If you feel similarly about all 100 side projects, probably none of them are worth doubling down on.

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

#46

Post by _9hey »

It’s interesting how the author equates independence with leftist ideology. That seems more libertarian to me, leftist support of government expansion is more authoritarian. Ideally a career is a launch pad to a business, or else what are we all doing here?

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

#47

Post by gredelston »

maverickJ wrote: post #32
binarymax wrote: post #6

Advice to my young self: put MORE effort into one of your 100 side projects, and stop messing around with other stuff.

How would you go about choosing that one project?

This is the paradox of choice. In most cases, it doesn't pay to spend your time hemming and hawing about find the perfect project. It helps to just pick one, even if it's the stupidest idea of the lot.

The alternative is to wind up as Burdian's Ass, who is equally hungry and thirsty, can't decide whether to eat hay or drink water, and so dies of hunger and thirst.

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

#48

Post by jonathankoren »

dvt wrote: post #28

> 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…

As a hiring manager, I never cared about side projects, or Stack Overflow or Kaggle scores. The most a side project github link would tell me if it was big or not. That’s it.

I’m not going to go through and read a bunch of random code by myself, when I can just ask a couple of questions, and get the same information quicker. They are just too many resumes to read.

Seriously, all side projects tell me is that you spend your free time coding, instead of hiking, or some other hobby.

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

#49

Post by megalomanu »

Hello HN! Author here. I wasn't expecting so much comments! I would have chosen a less provocative title if I had known :)

Just to clarify: I founded a company a few years ago from a side project I had started three years before, and this year I released two projects, so I can say that I love side projects. I simply regret this tendency to start so many shallow side projects (which are little more than tutorials) just to build a portfolio instead of focusing on creating something really substantial, or something that at least you really like. It's a waste and an illusion to think that it could help to be hired. I know too many developers stuck into this pipe dream.

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

#50

Post by ch_123 »

kingnothing wrote: post #38
dvt wrote: post #28

> 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…

At any company of any decent size, your resume isn't going to get to the hiring manager if it doesn't get through the recruiter. The CEO of any large tech company is never going to meet you, much less see your resume.

I know quite a few hiring managers who will search Linkedin directly, and reach out to candidates themselves. This, for example, was how I was hired into my current employer (which is a company with over a thousand people)
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