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I have no side code projects to show you

codementor.io

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Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#481

Post by cat199 »

ultrasaurus wrote: post #218
eropple wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side? As somebody who has plenty of open source projects--the set of employers who actually looks at them is within epsilon of zero. I have not once, not once gotten a meaningful question from anything I have posted on Github in any interview or client meeting even after suggesting up-front that it's worth taking a look. And I used to interview on a monthly basis just to keep in practice! No--instead you…

Hiring manager here who reads Github profiles -- it just occurred to me that I've almost never actually mentioned it to the interviewee. It's flavoured the conversation for sure (except for the bootcamp grads who all have identical Githubs) but I tend to talk more about your process than the actual code.

hope you guys realize there's more to opensource than github..

show me freebsd or linux kernel contribution on github, for example

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#482

Post by pault »

kilotaras wrote: post #380
nanodano wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you asked a musicians to perform an audition before you hired them, would you accept the response, "Sorry, I don't work for free." Would you expect a musician to practice their instrument in their free time or only play their instrument during paid gigs?

That is a bad analogy. Supply/demand ratio of musicians is way higher then for developers.

That's not the only reason it's a terrible analogy; Musicians are artists, developers are tradespeople. If an interview method doesn't make sense for a carpenter or an electrician, it probably doesn't make sense for a developer. That being said, I don't think there are any good proxies for whether a hire will be a good fit, so I understand the problem employers are facing.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#483

Post by dboreham »

Honestly when hiring I think the exact opposite : I would only look to side or open source projects for an inexperienced candidate who would have no other way to demonstrate competence and a track record. In the case of a candidate with more experience, their having a body of work outside of their paid employment would be perhaps interesting and something to drive a discussion with them but it would also make me wonder if they were engaged in their day job.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#484

Post by hinkley »

sobani wrote: post #409
hinkley wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who have only recently completed their 10,000 hours don’t understand that there are diminishing returns, and that learning something else entirely may help you more than doubling down on your narrow skill set. Some of the things you can learn outside of this field are what overtraining is (actually not that different from the AI concept), perspective on the learning and teaching process, the importance of prep…

Besides the fact that many consider the 10,000 hours a myth, please keep in mind that the theory is about 10,000 hours of practice . I bet that even people who have spend 20 years on side projects haven't reached those 10K hours of practice yet.

We aren’t talking about people moonlighting as developers. We’re talking about people in the industry working on software every waking hour.

Roughly 220 work days a year, 5 hours a day at work if you are full time, 6 if you dabble a bit outside of office hours, that’s around 5 years out of school, which isn’t too far off from my experiences prior to Malcolm Gladwell.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#485

Post by pault »

crdoconnor wrote: post #107
eropple wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side? As somebody who has plenty of open source projects--the set of employers who actually looks at them is within epsilon of zero. I have not once, not once gotten a meaningful question from anything I have posted on Github in any interview or client meeting even after suggesting up-front that it's worth taking a look. And I used to interview on a monthly basis just to keep in practice! No--instead you…

I noticed this as well. The interviewer has checked the "codes in his spare time" checkbox" and I've guilt tripped them into skipping the dance like a monkey test once or twice by pointing them at my github but that's about it. I'd be super impressed if a prospective employer looked and made some sort of salient comment, but it's never happened and probably won't.

As much as I hate it, the problem with taking the github profile as evidence of proficiency is that it's easy to plagiarize, and the applicant has a significant financial incentive to do so. Obviously plagiarizing code samples would be a terrible career strategy, but that doesn't protect you as an employer if you get the one in a thousand con artist who can collect six months' salary before people start to ask difficult questions.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#486

Post by pault »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #29
shortsightedsid wrote: post #25

It's funny that the tech industry is so insistent on side projects. I mean - would you hire a marketing person based on their 'side projects' or a corporate lawyer purely based on their pro-bono work? Likewise, who on earth asks a building contractor if they have any side projects? You would ask for references or find a contractor via someone you know. What about recruiters themselves? How does one judge if a person…

Side projects are for software what a portfolio is for other creative industries. You don't hire a designer sight unseen -- usually you ask for a sample. It makes perfect sense to expect the same of technology.

I agree, but the problem with this is that visual design is publicly available, and most professional code is locked behind IP and copyright laws. I can't bring my employer's code base to an interview with another company without risking a heap of legal trouble.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#487

Post by Sean1708 »

cat199 wrote: post #481
ultrasaurus wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring manager here who reads Github profiles -- it just occurred to me that I've almost never actually mentioned it to the interviewee. It's flavoured the conversation for sure (except for the bootcamp grads who all have identical Githubs) but I tend to talk more about your process than the actual code.

hope you guys realize there's more to opensource than github.. show me freebsd or linux kernel contribution on github, for example

Here you go: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/692b48258dda7c302e7...

I do understand what you're saying though but I don't think people are going to just search Github for your name on the off-chance that you're on there, I suspect that what most people do is look at the things that you've specifically mentioned in your CV.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#488

Post by pault »

logfromblammo wrote: post #160
shortsightedsid wrote: post #25

It's funny that the tech industry is so insistent on side projects. I mean - would you hire a marketing person based on their 'side projects' or a corporate lawyer purely based on their pro-bono work? Likewise, who on earth asks a building contractor if they have any side projects? You would ask for references or find a contractor via someone you know. What about recruiters themselves? How does one judge if a person…

Asking for side projects is essentially saying that you think the resume is a pack of lies from back to front. My work is my work, and my play is my play, and I question the wisdom of judging the play in the decision to hire someone to work for you. Even when I do code at home, away from the office, I do it differently. It might be in a different language, for a different target platform, for instance. I might write…

This is a great idea! I would love to have an interview where I was presented with some terrible code and asked how I would refactor. That would be so much more relevant to actual work experience than solving technical puzzles.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#489

Post by Double_a_92 »

pawelkomarnicki wrote: post #435
eropple wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side? As somebody who has plenty of open source projects--the set of employers who actually looks at them is within epsilon of zero. I have not once, not once gotten a meaningful question from anything I have posted on Github in any interview or client meeting even after suggesting up-front that it's worth taking a look. And I used to interview on a monthly basis just to keep in practice! No--instead you…

There was one, (literally: ONE) time I check out somebody's GitHub profile when making a hiring decision. It was a clusterfuck of forks, and source repos were a total mess, no documentation, nothing. In such case I would rather NOT see a GitHub link like that, really. He didn't get a job.

It would be nice if GitHub offered a grouping function for "random" forks. Sometimes you just fork something out of interest or to fix some small bug and they mess up your profile...

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#490

Post by wyclif »

icebraining wrote: post #408
nanodano wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were hiring a musician, and you asked them to perform an audition. Would you accept the response, "Sorry, I don't work for free." "Well do you have any recordings you can show me instead?" "No, I do other things with my free time. I don't work outside of work."

Auditions don't usually take several hours, do they?

That's another reason the "audition"/side project analogy doesn't work. I'm a musician. When you audition for a band, it's a matter of walking in, plugging in or setting up, and playing a few songs with the band.

If the musician is any good compared to the people they've already auditioned, many times you won't play another song. The band will hire you on the spot.

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