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Ask HN: What do recruiters look for in a GitHub profile?

• gargarplex 8y ago
  As a recruiter I can answer this! I do not speak for all recruiters. As a recruiter who is also a programmer, my approach may be nonstandard. * I want to see thoughtful README files. If the README is whatever was generated default by the framework and not edited at all, that's a huge groan and turn off and you lose tons of strength (credibility) as a candidate. * I want to see your code looking pretty. Consistent indentation, run through a linter, good comments, and so forth. Would I be able to contribute to and maintain this code? That's pretty much it. The most important thing that companies want to see is employment history, either at brand name companies or somewhere where you've already been doing the job they're hiring for.
  • Aeolun 8y ago
    I really don’t see why these things are relevant at all. It’s a personal Github profile. Why would anyone add thoughtful readme’s or a clean coding style if they’re the only contributor? I mean, those things are great of course, but not sure if I’d expect it on Github.
    • david-s 8y ago
      Some use GitHub as a portfolio, it seems. Mine is/was mostly a dumping ground of half finished ideas in my college days.
    • seba_dos1 8y ago
      My GitHub/GitLab profiles are full of hacky, ugly games written at game jams in 48 hours, often just by me or me plus some artist, with just one end-goal: to be able to present it at the end of the event. A README file is the last thing needed there :P
      • solarkraft 8y ago
        I 100% disagree. Even just saying that it was hacked together gives some context for 1) Why the code looks so unconventional 2) What you do in your spare time.
        • akerl_ 8y ago
          Context for whom? My target audience for my personal projects is myself. Any company that assumes their recruiting org is the target audience for my personal projects is setting themselves up for disappointment.
          • yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
            Sure, but we're in a discussion of what recruiters look for. If you only code something for yourself, that's fine, but if you want it to be taken well when job-hunting, you should make it at least minimally presentable (i.e., a recruiter can tell what they're even looking at).
          • TheRealPomax 8y ago
            in which case you wouldn't have put your github profile on your resume, so there is no issue. That's not what this question was about, thought.
          • chillacy 8y ago
            Tell us in the readme if you make it public. You gotta think, who is reading this? That goes beyond documentation to code itself and any communication you do.
            • godelski 8y ago
              Repositories are public for a lot of reasons, a lot of which are not "I want to show this off to a potential employer". Let me give some good reasons, that's not an exhaustive list. - It is the default. - Free private repos are new and no one is going back and making things private. - If you are working with someone it is many times easier to make it public. - You want to share code with someone, public is easier than making them a collaborator. Honestly I don't think a lot of people, if any, are reading the stuff I have on GitHub.
    • ModernMech 8y ago
      Ostensibly, you put your code on Github for others to read, use, and maybe even contribute to. If you have a project that you didn't care enough to write cleanly, or even document in the most bare minimum of ways (a helpful README to contextualize the code) then why are you even putting it online? It's just going to reflect poorly upon you. If all your Github repos are as described above, people are going to (rightly) assume that's how you treat all of your projects, even those you are paid for.
      • cimmanom 8y ago
        That’s quite an assumption to make about intentions. Repository hosting is also a way to back up your code or make sure it’s available on multiple devices. Until very recently, you couldn’t do that and keep your code private on github without paying. So (unless they want to also maintain a bitbucket account) people dump stuff there for reasons other than explicitly wanting to share it with the world or show it off.
        • ModernMech 8y ago
          > Until very recently, you couldn’t do that and keep your code private on github without paying. Ok, but now you can. > people dump stuff there for reasons other than explicitly wanting to share it with the world or show it off. Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact you are sharing it with the world and you are showing it off, and if you put a bunch of sloppy inscrutable code on your GitHub, people are going to assume you tend to write sloppy inscrutable code, especially if you don't contextualize it with a Readme. That's just the reality of it. The real big assumption here is thinking people aren't going to judge you by how you present your work online.
          • Aeolun 8y ago
            > That's just the reality of it. Given that I don’t, and am in a position to hire people tells me this isn’t as hard and fast as you present it.
            • 8y ago
    • BjoernKW 8y ago
      If you use your GitHub profile as part of your personal brand / marketing then these things absolutely are relevant. As a developer in a professional context you'll hardly ever work alone or be the sole contributor. Even if you use a GitHub profile just as your personal code repository code still is communication, even if it's just with your future self. Therefore communication skills are crucial. A well-thought-out README file and consistent, readable code help others to understand your work. These aspects often are more important than what the code accomplishes. Working, even efficient, but unmaintainable code is a risk. Ultimately, code is a precise specification of what the software at hand is supposed to do. If that specification is hard to understand it'll be much less useful.
      • RussianCow 8y ago
        > If you use your GitHub profile as part of your personal brand / marketing then these things absolutely are relevant. The problem is when others assume this on your behalf. I would take a lack of proper readme as a signal that the repo isn't intended for viewing and judgement by others, not as a signal that the candidate has poor communication skills. If the repo is for a library that the author has published and is marketing for production use, then sure, but I'd wager that does not represent the vast majority of repos on GitHub, and to assume otherwise is foolish in my opinion.
      • peruvian 8y ago
        I use to think this way then I started working in the real world with developers who coded and documented work code cleanly but had messy GitHub profiles especially because until recently private repos were not free. A lot of people don't care about perfectly formatted READMEs, commit comments, etc. if they're just hacking on the weekend on something small... and that's fine. Nowadays unless you pushed your profile and repos hard in the resume or interview process, I couldn't care less if the rest of the interview went fine. Worst case scenario they're "forced" to write good documentation as part of the job - not everything we do at work is natural or fun for us.
    • stevekemp 8y ago
      The assumption is that if you have a personal github project then you're doing it because it interests you, you're passionate about it, and you're not doing it just for money. If a developer writes sloppy code when they're doing it for passion, then that doesn't show them at their best. Of course we all have repositories, tools, or code, that was just thrown together to solve an immediate project but in general I'd expect something that is a labour of love - not a project for work - to be something that they'd put more effort into.
    • systematical 8y ago
      I write verbose readme files with examples of how to use my libraries because it's what I expect of other engineers. I do the same for private repos.
    • your-nanny 8y ago
      if you are linking to it in your resume than you are showcasing it. if you are showcasing it and it's a scrapheap, folks straight not going to be impressed. I think the obvious thing to do is create a showcase profile and a scrappy scratchpad profile. keep the former clean and polished
    • closeparen 8y ago
      Personal projects can give signal about someone's interests, level of investment, sense of adventure, etc. They're also often an explicit relief valve from "dotting the Is and crossing the Ts" at work, so not a great way to assess professional/production code quality. If I see a tower of inscrutable Haskell on someone's Github, that is a great thing: both that they have the urge to do it, and the good sense to scratch that itch away from the company's codebase.
    • k__ 8y ago
      Yes, sounds like BS to me. But on the other hand I'm no employee and don't know the "virtues" employers look for, haha.
    • hacym 8y ago
      You're right -- if they don't feel like they need to have clean, maintainable code on their own personal work, why would they feel like they need to do it at work? That's a red flag.
  • Waterluvian 8y ago
    Everything you say makes sense on the surface. But it scares me a little bit. Do you ignore all my half-done prototypes and junky hacks and experiments?
    • Frost1x 8y ago
      Or your proprietary work you don't own IP to. Ironically, some look to GitHub to somehow correlate with employment history. Many employed are too busy sinking development time in source that's never releasable. Some companies may contribute to certain OSS projects publically but a lot of their core business code base is protected.
      • Benjammer 8y ago
        This is what I never understood. Say that I choose to spend my spare time in propriety code instead of open source or personal hobby code. It seems like some recruiters are making a tradeoff in indicating metrics here. They are saying that a good GitHub profile correlates so strongly with a good recruit, that it's worth a false positive of someone who spends too much time working on side projects and doesn't get as much done at work, and also this seems to be saying that people who spend spare time innovating proprietary code aren't worth finding and should be lumped into the weak coder pile by default. Is this a plausible deniability thing? ("How could I have known that guy would be a dud? I mean, look at his GH!"). This can't possibly correlate as well as people claim to success on the job... There just seem to me to be too many other complicating factors for this specifically to be any kind of decent metric.
  • Novashi 8y ago
    >that's a huge groan and turn off and you lose tons of strength (credibility) as a candidate. Toxic and off putting. You put too much weight on relatively minor things. It’s preventing you from fairly considering the rest of the candidate. You could be the one to teach them to do READMEs well.
    • beardedwizard 8y ago
      Wow. This comment is deep. People who call themselves managers, read that last sentence 20x. This is what we need to do, can you?
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      • chillacy 8y ago
        Most big companies no longer believe in training but selecting. This is popularized in “strengths based” training sold by a handful of consultants.
    • zepolen 8y ago
      So choose between: 1. A developer who doesn't respect himself first and foremost to write a README/maintainable code so that his future self and others can have an easier time. 2. A developer who cares about communicating his work to himself/others and making the environment easier for everyone to work for the future. Right.
      • chickenfries 8y ago
        I cannot stand this kind of developer armchair psychology.
      • beardedwizard 8y ago
        Are developers only male? Your biases are really showing in these comments.
  • avip 8y ago
    Let me politely call BS on that. There is no possible correlation between the "code quality" of my random github repos, which I usually start to learn/test/share something, and my general ability to write clean documented code. If a project evolves to have users, things shift.
  • iandanforth 8y ago
    I know people are being down on this comment, but it's important to know that people do this, which might help people get jobs. Google is known to can applications if there are typos in either the resume or cover letter. Supposedly there is a statistical correlation that backs this. While this seems arbitrary and absurd it is important to know it's a thing so you can at least work around it.
    • projektir 8y ago
      I disagree. Bending over backwards to strange expectations and requirements is a race to the bottom.
  • grepthisab 8y ago
    This is awful, no offense. You're a recruiter, do you mind if I ask if you were previously a professional software engineer? GitHub is often, very often, for small personal projects where you don't spend a lot of time going through TDD or making sure the readme is up to date. Often mine are smaller projects I built to accomplish a specific goal (hello python script that clicks the "okay I'm still watching" button on all the required learning videos I've had to watch at work). It's impressive when someone has a substantial project or contributed to open source, but GitHub shouldn't be a negative signal.
  • gherlein 8y ago
    That's lame, sorry. As a long-time hiring manager I do value a good readme if the project is meant for others to consume, otherwise if it's a scratch pad for learning who cares? And I could care less about how pretty their code is. I'm more interested to see if they are PASSIONATE about tech. While it's true that some folks don't have time outside of work my experience is that really good Engineers still play around a bit. They fork stuff. They try it. They may submit a PR that fixes something. They have some experimental repos where they put stuff when learning a new language. And yes, the rare one will have a fork of a project where they regularly contribute. I don't think you are looking for the things I look for in a candidate at all.
  • jordache 8y ago
    Haha dude expects personal projects to go through a linter... You code?
• wccrawford 8y ago
  I'm not convinced that the Github profile is for recruiters alone. As someone doing hiring at the company, I want to see it myself. So what am I looking for? Clean code that's more than just boilerplate. Comments, good logic, some sense of purpose. There can be garbage repos in there, too, but I expect there to be some that show off who you are. In short, they want to see who you are. If your Github isn't showing who you are, you're not helping yourself by providing it to the recruiter.
  • chillacy 8y ago
    I do this too, just to find stuff to dive into in the first 10 mins. The worst was when somebody’s github was full of tutorial projects that were done in 2-4 hours a piece by following detailed instructions.
• Waterluvian 8y ago
  I look for things to chat about. That's it. If there aren't any then I'll find other things to chat about. It's almost like a dating profile. You use the items as jump-off points to start a conversation and get to know the other person better.
  • linuxlizard 8y ago
    > It's almost like a dating profile. That's a good description!
    • dvtrn 8y ago
      git commit -m "adding just_ask.md" I'm riffing on a comment chain elsewhere in the thread about candidates who provide links to empty Github profiles. Reading the comparison to online dating just makes me think of the dating profiles out there that have a couple of photographs, but nothing beyond the line "Just ask" in the summary/description field of the profile holder. But agree, it's an interesting and apt comparison I think.
    • laurentl 8y ago
      I would say that it’s more like a dating profile picture. You don’t have to add one, but if you do, it better be one where you’re smiling, not the one where you’re in hung over with a little bit of barf on your pajamas.
• pcmaffey 8y ago
  Since most people’s work is going to be in private repos, Ive always thought the most consistently valuable signal is the contribution graph. But that’s just my opinion.
  • saagarjha 8y ago
    > Since most people’s work is going to be in private repos Is this generally true?
    • madhur_ahuja 8y ago
      Yes
  • cimmanom 8y ago
    And some of us are contributing to private repos hosted on bitbucket or gitlab. Just saying.
    • detaro 8y ago
      Or on locally hosted infrastructure.
    • pcmaffey 8y ago
      For sure, I'm not saying it's a universally valuable signal, just the most valuable one relative to other signals on a github profile.
• Edd314159 8y ago
  As a hiring manager, I glance at it and take a brief look at anything interesting. It’s good for talking points at the interview, perhaps to ask the candidate to expand upon and explain the work. If the profile is empty, I close the tab and find something else to talk about. I will never, ever penalise a candidate for an empty GitHub profile. So many people just do not have time for open source and that’s totally fine. GitHub activity helps lubricate conversation at interviews, but it should never be taken as anything other than a superficial representation of the candidate’s ability or experience.
  • PopeDotNinja 8y ago
    +1 for this. I used to be a recruiter, and knew hiring managers looked at GitHub profiles. When I started, I used to to stress out over pushing crappy code to my GitHub account. At some point I realized that anyone judging me for stuff I put into GitHub was simply not someone I would ever want to please. My GitHub is mostly a graveyard for experiments, learning, and goofing off, and that is exactly what I want it to be :) If you have something really notable in your GitHub account, maybe it should probably be on your CV/resume, too!
    • _asummers 8y ago
      I've started doing this -- my resume has an "Open Source and Public Speaking" section for putting in noteworthy GH accomplishments.
    • gumby 8y ago
      I’m curious: why bother to use GH then? Why not simply have various repos in your filesystem? It feels to me like having a blog site and only putting notes, scraps and drafts in it. Maybe there’s some functionality i’m not seeing?
      • PopeDotNinja 8y ago
        It's a good question, and I don't have a specific answer. I guess the short answer is because I want to. It's convenient for a number of reasons.
• beager 8y ago
  I would hazard a guess that most pure recruiters aren't looking at your GitHub profile other than ensuring that you've provided one. The hiring manager or interview team, however, might be interested in it. Here are some things that I check for in a GitHub profile, as a hiring manager and as a recruiter (hooray startup roles!): 1. Repos that aren't just forks. I've seen plenty of profiles where the majority or entirety of repos are forks. Unless there's some annotation that talks about contribution to those projects, I assume that those forks don't contain any actual development. 2. Code past the boilerplate. A lot of projects start with enormous boilerplate, checked-in node_modules, and large-app scaffolding. The README should have a pointer that says "actual code is in src/app/site" or something, otherwise I click around for where the commit message is something other than "initial commit". 3. A real README.md. Bonus points for README.md in the subdirectories. 4. A "real" photo of you. LinkedIn profile pictures tend to be very professional and buttoned-up (sometimes literally). Most GH profile photos in my experience are a closer of the real person though. You're more likely to see a casual photo, a hobby, someone's dog, a photo of their art, etc. When that person is working with you, they're going to act more like their GitHub profile photo than their LinkedIn profile photo. Conversely, when I don't see a profile photo, that's concerning. 5. Nothing too boring, or too creative, in the name. The era of screen-name judging is not over, and you will get judged based on your GitHub handle. John35082192 makes me think that John reluctantly created a GitHub account and loathes using it. XxCodeMurdererGoatSlayerJohnnyXx makes me think that John is a bit of a weirdo, and his code reviews may be... uncomfortable. 6. Stars. If your real repos have real stars (or even forks), that means that not only have you creating something cool, but you've created something useful, and marketed it at least somewhat well. NB: repo stars are not expected for professional-profile style repos, only if you're creating something for an actual OSS community. 7. A real github.io page/repo. Maybe this is the basis of your professional profile, maybe there's a link to a personal website in your profile, but I am interested in seeing how you present yourself beyond which repos you show first.
  • cimmanom 8y ago
    What’s wrong with not having a profile photo? FWIW, as a woman, I leave my photo off github to avoid the assumptions people make when they know someone’s gender. In fact, there’s research to back that up: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/data-analysis-of-github-contributions-reveals-unexpected-gender-bias/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/data-...
• saagarjha 8y ago
  Related question: how many recruiters actually look at GitHub pages? Does this number change if one is linked in the resume they’re looking at?
  • linuxlizard 8y ago
    Yes, please put your GitHub, GitLab, etc, profile on your resume. When interviewing, being able to see someone's code quality is golden.
    • saagarjha 8y ago
      But do you actually look at them? I have my GitHub profile in my resume, but I’ve never once been asked about anything on there, nor has a recruiter let on that they had looked at it.
    • walshemj 8y ago
      But actually a breach of contract in most places - you know "gross misconduct" as HR call it.
• rinchik 8y ago
  When interviewing devs, I always check GH profile. If its empty it's usually a read flag (meaning that I will have to do more work during the interview). Coding samples, contributions graph, personal projects can push a candidate forward very fast. Worth to note: GitHub itself does NOT matter, the contents your profile and you contributions do. Prefer GitLab? awesome! Just don't forget to put it in your resume.
  • jitix 8y ago
    “meaning that I will have to do more work during the interview” Isn’t that your job as a hiring manager? Also how do you know that their github projects actually work in production? Do you do a through code analysis to evaluate performance bottlenecks or do you do a build-deploy-test do figure that out? IMO if you want to evaluate candidates on complete end to end projects you should give them assignments based your your evaluation parameters and ask them to explain their code/solution
    • rinchik 8y ago
      Depends. Depends. No. In some cases.
  • cbg0 8y ago
    So any candidate that doesn't have open source contributions can basically take a hike because they'll be viewed as lesser? Many folks have full time jobs working on closed source projects and don't do software engineering as a hobby, so if you're really putting them down because of that you will be missing out on a lot of talent.
    • rinchik 8y ago
      1. No. 2. No, read my comment again.
• dyeje 8y ago
  I've never met a recruiter who discussed my GitHub beyond asking for the link. As for interviewers, my GitHub has only been brought up a handful of times.
• purple-again 8y ago
  I want to know what other people will see when they look at my employees GitHub Account. If I see nothing that concerns me, I move on. All of our companies code is private so an empty GitHub is not concerning. Daily stars in the seize_the_means_by_any_means repository is going to get your resume tossed.
  • febeling 8y ago
    I don’t understand the second paragraph. Could you explain?
• linuxlizard 8y ago
  I am not a recruiter but help with software/firmware interviews where I work. When interviewing someone, any and all signals are very useful. For someone fresh out of university, they can show me their student projects. But an experienced engineer, their contributions are usually property of their previous employer and can't be shown. To me, being able to see an interviewee's code is like being able to see an artist's portfolio. Alternatively, if an interviewee can point to mailing lists, code repos, etc, for open source contributions, that also is very valuable. Some other folks in the comments are saying they use Github, etc, as a dumping ground for projects. Still valuable. In my opinion, that means you're interested enough in the project to at least save the code. Plus, even quick and dirty code can have valuable information. Does this person understand, for example, the common idioms in C, C++, Python, etc? (Specific example, using malloc/free/printf correctly, new[]/delete[], not using for i in range(len(foo)). Simple stuff like that.) Note a repo containing "this is code where I'm learning this language, this library, etc" won't have the best use of the language, obviously, but will be a good sign this person is learning something new. It's another signal. Just my opinion.
  • Gasp0de 8y ago
    Noob question: Why is it bad to use for i in range(len(foo))? Because you can just use for bar in foo?
    • snazz 8y ago
      Yes. Iterating over a range of integers equal to the length of an iterable is really clunky compared to iterating directly over the iterable. Plus, if you actually want to use one of the elements of the list, for instance, in the body of the loop, you would have to do foo[i] instead of referring to it as bar.
      • tgb 8y ago
        And when your actually need the index, generally you use enumerate(foo).
    • futureastronaut 8y ago
• bradleyjg 8y ago
  As someone doing interviews, most of the github profiles I’ve seen have a bunch of forked repos with little to no added code. I don’t understand why people include a link to that. A couple of times I’ve seen real code and it certainly didn’t hurt.
  • philihp 8y ago
    GitHub doesn’t do a good job with this. IMO they’re sometimes just a fork with the intention of a PR. Gotta see what they committed on top of it. When it’s nothing, I’d love to see them hidden or downplayed on the default view.
    • detaro 8y ago
      Some people seem to make an organization (e.g.forks-by-$username) and put their "unimportant" forks in there as a workaround.
      • WorldMaker 8y ago
        Also, though limited and sometimes not great, "Pinned Repositories" is an easy tool to manage (easier than bouncing things between orgs and pseudo-orgs like `$username-forks`) and typically a strong signal for "I contribute to this".
        • detaro 8y ago
          Right, I forgot those are a thing now (and just pinned a few repos). They certainly help a lot with that.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• raviolo 8y ago
  I’ve been writing code for over 20 years yet I don’t have anything that I can share in a public repo. My employer would sue me immediately. I don’t imagine I will be looking for a job via the “normal process” with recruiters and all, but if I did, would I need to put out stuff to github? Would I need to spend 6 months just writing random but nice-looking code so I’m not rejected due to not having github profile? I think there’s a lot of people like that. Making github a mandatory requirement is strange.
  • your-nanny 8y ago
    sorry but your employer should go throw themselves under a rolling donut.
  • baq 8y ago
    You just tell the truth. Create a repo that says in the readme that you can’t show any code you write if you’re concerned that not having a profile is a problem.
  • plibither8 8y ago
    > My employer would sue me immediately. This is the first time I'm hearing about something like this. Why would your employer sue you?
    • lildoggo 8y ago
      Probably because of an NDA the OP signed. Companies don't like it when their employees share the company's profitable code with the world.
• johnfn 8y ago
  From experience, not much. I have an open source project with millions of downloads and thousands of stars on the top of my profile. Never once got asked about it across at least 10-15 interviews with both startups and large companies.
  • zZorgz 8y ago
    It should be on your resume or you may not be giving the attention it deserves on your resume.
    • johnfn 8y ago
      It was in fact the top personal project on my resume (though below work experience). Dunno how I can give it more attention than saying the millions of downloads and stars.
      • zZorgz 8y ago
        To just toss ideas I changed my resume to be experience vs projects over work vs ‘personal’ (which could be undermining if one has significant project experience), where the experiences have multiple strong points and the projects are short descriptions. Take account importance of each item to you and recency for order. Millions of downloads is a great metric (github stars lingo is ‘meh) Assuming you have put lot of commitment or hard work in it maybe there’s more to talk about :p. I personally have personal projects I rate higher than previous employment experience so this isn’t applicable to everyone.
• xarien 8y ago
  It's a good arena to discover talking points especially if the candidate is not a good interviewer. There are a lot of good engineers who simply do not interview well and this is a fantastic way for me to pry some positives out that may otherwise have been missed / glossed over.
• davb 8y ago
  I never look at them, at all. Some of the worst programmers I've met have got some fantastic portfolio/showcase work on their github. Conversely some of the best coders have no OSS contributions at all. In all, I find it to be a fairly poor signal. I get a much better feel for someone from conversation alone, and some well thought out questions about someone's previous projects and workflow usually tell me all I need to know.
• ddebernardy 8y ago
  The only company I worked with that made much use of it was open-source inside and out. They mostly hired developers that had been OSS contributors. They'd use GH to evaluate coding style and as a proxy for skill level. It was a terrible proxy IMHO, because a lot of the projects or contributions they were looking at were years old. (People change and grow.) Anyway, if there's a takeaway here it's this: Delete old repos that you wouldn't feel comfortable putting forward as examples of how you currently work. Or refactor the code to match what you'd currently do. Or don't maintain any public GH profile, frankly -- there are plenty of great engineers out there who have a family and no time to contribute OSS.
• chimen 8y ago
  I ask both Github and StackOverflow profiles. In Github I look for code style & quality, tests written, open source project participation (often good indicator of quality code when accepted). In SO I look for issues created as an indicator of one's struggles and overall expertise. Both profiles offer me a strong view over one's position and the data really helps me to filter out prospects. 95% of the times when they respond with "I don't have a Github|StackOverflow profile" they prove to be juniors or time wasters applying for a high salary. That's fine if I'm looking for a junior but they often apply for senior positions. I trust the data on these two as I consider it to be really difficult to get by as a programmer without decent activity on at least one platform. HAving code out there, IMHO, adds better than any CV. It's just data but it helps me get a clearer view.
  • jitix 8y ago
    I’m interested to know what kind of software system you work on that you “need” github code to prove that a candidate is good. IMO your hiring practices need to include processes that can evaluate a candidate based on their talent and experience, and not what do in their spare time.
  • flurdy 8y ago
    No. It does not work as a filter. But if you have a high amount of applications then statistically it may work for you. Same as throwing half of the CVs in the bin, as you only hire lucky people. Github and SO data is a conversion point, not a filter. Sure I am also suspicious if no public profile, but never exclude as it often has valid reasons. My personally github code is a lot more slapdash than my commercial github code. Nearly all of my commits in commercial github repos are private repos so not on my profile except in the activity graphics. I have worked with and hired really good developers with a great public github profile and with lots of SO points. I have also worked with many very experienced and good developers with no github or SO presence. And I have met people with lots of SO points that I never want to work with again. But if you got too many applicants you can apply whichever filter you want. It just wouldn't work for me, or my location (London)
  • androidgirl 8y ago
    Stackoverflow seems interesting as an inclusion of that level. I've always used SO as a "read-only" source, and generally when I need an answer to a question not on there I ask on a relevant IRC channel. My github has quite a few OSS projects though. Do you find there are any other devs like that?
• tptacek 8y ago
  Suckers.
• simoleone 8y ago
  A recruiter or sourcer? In most cases (and I am generalizing here) basically a pattern-matching robot, so the same treatment as your CV. Have words and phrases they're looking for? Great! No? Meh. Someone besides a recruiter? Might give it a glance out of curiosity and for conversation starter material, but if they're overly concerned about what's there or how much is there - you didn't want to work for/with them anyway. Honestly, most people that have been in the industry for any time at all quickly run out of free time and motivation for this stuff, and their github profiles will be rather barren as a result (unless they work at a company that publishes open source software, of course... but that's the exception not the rule).
• hartator 8y ago
  I do look at GitHub profiles when filtering applicants. Mostly overall activity, consistency in commit messages, and actual code and PR.
• andrewingram 8y ago
  The main thing I don't want to see is a bunch of repos where you're just taking a library/framework for a spin. This isn't because these are bad in any way, but it can be hard to tell whether they represent your real coding approach or not, and therefore risk creating unconscious bias. Whereas I'm not going to hold it against you if you don't have a public profile. Now that Github allows free private repositories, if you're planning to use your profile as part of a recruitment process, you're arguably better off only making your best work public. It doesn't have to be your best code, just something you're proud of and are happy to talk about. This may run counter to normal thinking, but I have no way of knowing the extent to which my assessment is unconsciously coloured by seeing code that isn't representative of your ability, so I worry about the impact of that.
• TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  For me, my github profile shows my personal interests. I work on a bunch of robotics stuff for fun, and then try to get jobs related to things I like. So if the job is a good fit the github profile serves as an extension of my resume. At the very least it shows my passion for the field.
• prakhunov 8y ago
  Like other people in this thread have said, I definitely look for projects or contributions that look interesting, or are job related, to start out having a conversation. However, there is one thing I look for that will, usually, be a huge negative against the candidate. I have run into many candidates where their github projects are just 100% clones of various tutorials. When a github profile is only full of such projects it doesn't tell me anything different than what is on your resume, and my trust in the candidate goes down. Other than looking at code quality, I actually look into their commit history and see if they are using the various best practices of git.
• jugg1es 8y ago
  I was approached by an Amazon recruiter that seemed to have used some sort of algorithmic tool that had keyed on specific information about in my github profile. Specifically, it mentioned that I had more than 1 public repository with 'stars' from more than 2 people and 1 or more forks. I asked the recruiter about this and she mentioned that she used a tool like this to find potential recruits. It didn't sound like it was a company-wide thing, though.
• zZorgz 8y ago
  Speaking as someone with a decent github profile, we need to get out of the notion that github profiles are important. Anything substantial or noteworthy of interest should really be on the candidate's resume. Even personal websites are more worthwhile going through than github profiles in my opinion.
• JesseAldridge 8y ago
  - Stars - Green squares
• alkonaut 8y ago
  I glance at their code to see if there is something that can say whether they are very good coders or terrible coders. Usually you can't say anything though. Something I really try to find is how they communicate when writing bugs, responding to questions, differences in opinion etc. If you find someone who can respond to an angry user of their library because their feature wasn't implemented, or that can politely turn down a PR for example, that's really good sign.
• userbinator 8y ago
  Depending on the exact environment and position, "I don't use GitHub" may actually be a positive response, because they might signify someone who is less likely to accidentally publicise a company's confidential IP. Likewise for anyone who "stays dark" online, in social media and such.
• m0zg 8y ago
  99.9% of excellent people I worked with don't have a public GitHub profile. Most of the remaining 0.1% don't have anything interesting there, in part because their employer claims ownership of everything they create, so disclosing their side projects publicly is stupid. As the old Russian saying goes, "the less they know, the better they sleep".
  • ndnxhs 8y ago
    Its incredible that anyone would accept such a horrid term.
    • m0zg 8y ago
      All those high-paid FAANG jobs come with that term. Most others do, too, but if you're senior enough and they want you badly enough, you can strike it out.
• nukeop 8y ago
  As a rule of thumb, people who offer their own code publicly, are usually in the top 10% of developers. People who have ever contributed to another project, even if in a minor way, are in the top 5%. And people who contribute or develop their own projects with any regularity, are the top 1%. Exceptions exist, but this pattern emerges on a large enough scale.
• chiefalchemist 8y ago
  Not to get off topic but...Recruiters? Haven't I heard more than one of companies that (promise to) analyze code for quality, etc.? That is, resume aside, they can grade the quality of code / coder? I'm not sure how often these come into play, but I would also bet that outfits that do don't brag about it.
• tootie 8y ago
  I'm on the technology side, but I review and interview candidates pretty regularly. Unless you have an actual notable repo with stars or something (and I've literally never seen a candidate with stars on a repo) then I don't care. Maybe if you have a cool picture of yourself?
• kstenerud 8y ago
  A recruiter will take whatever you've posted publicly, and draw conclusions based on what you've presented. Whether you agree with it or not, that's precisely what will happen, even if they try not to. It's on you to communicate your intent for things you release publicly. That means a README.md which explains what the reader is looking at. If it's just some half baked idea you've been kicking around, say so. Tell your reader what to expect, because if you don't, they WILL expect the wrong thing. Effective communication is the foundation of any relationship, including work relationships. Show that you can communicate your thoughts. Guide your reader. Make it dead simple for them to see the best of you. Beyond that, it's helpful to have a showcase "portfolio" project that is written as if you were presenting a finished product to a customer, including documentation, unit tests, ci, good design, the works. Showing that you can see a product through from initial design to release will impress people. Do you need it? No, but it will set you apart from the crowd.
• franciscop 8y ago
  Love the question! I'm a developer who has optimized his Github profile as I could/thought it was best. If it's okay, let me highjack one thread to ask, RECRUITERS, how would you improve further my Github profile? https://github.com/franciscop https://github.com/franciscop
• tdeck 8y ago
  An email address, in my experience.
• humbledrone 8y ago
  As a hiring manager, I am careful to avoid drawing any negative conclusions from looking at a personal GitHub profile, because I believe that sloppiness or "bad" code is actually just fine in the context of random personal projects. And of course not everyone programs for fun in their free time, so a lack of a meaty profile is not something I worry about. (I would sure hate for someone to judge me for a lack of comments in some random code I wrote a 2AM 8 years ago for giggles.) But sometimes I can get a really strong positive signal from a GitHub profile. All else being equal, if a candidate has a meaty personal project, or has been an active contributor to other projects, etc, I can greatly increase my confidence that they're a good hire by reading through their code. It can sometimes show me that they're really capable in some dimension that's hard to assess otherwise. In other words, a GitHub profile is not a make-or-break thing for me, but hiring is always based on information that's more limited than one would like, and sometimes a GitHub profile can provide enough extra signal to make a hiring decision easier. I will say that one specific thing that is really helpful is the presence of simple README files for original projects that describes what they are and who the author is.
• dominotw 8y ago
  i know this from tons of experience. Everyone asks for github profile but no one actually has the time to analyze it. I asked an interviewer about it and said he admitted he hasn't looked at it.
• gherlein 8y ago
  To heck with the recruiter. As a hiring manager I look for passion for coding and learning - and that your profile isn't brand new. If it has periods of no contribution I don't care - people get busy, have lives, etc. I don't hold the lack of a profile against someone, but an active profile that shows someone playing, learning, testing, and especially contributing is someone that jumps to the top of my list. A passion for doing and learning is something that cannot be taught. Faked maybe. But that shows up pretty quick too.
• gabrielblack 8y ago
  In my experience they don't look your Github profile at all. I think mainly because the average recruiter have no competence to read it (sad but true). I had two so called independent recruiters pretending to read it, but when I asked what repository preferred and why I obtained an embarrassing silence. Worst, the same happened with a couple of programmers during the final interviews. Recently I had a letter from a big software house, declaring they was interested to my projects on Github, I asked some questions discovering that that someone else ( maybe some kind of automatic system) give him a suggestion, but that wasn't his direct examination.
  • scardine 8y ago
    We hire remote software engineers to work with Python/Django/Vue. We believe talent can be anywhere. Many companies will ask you to invest a couple hours of your life writing some toy project as a code exercise (often unpaid). Instead, we ask you to pick any open issue in an opensource project and contribute a few hours to fix it (we suggest links to a dozen issue lists filtered by "easy for beginners" tags) - we call it "social code exercise". Of course if you have such contributions already you can skip this step. We will analyse your github profile and give extra points to: * any PR to projects in our technology stack * good online citizenship * constructive, reproducible bug reports * well written documentation * test coverage We penalize: * unprofessional, disrespectful or toxic behavior while interacting with the community * non-constructive comments and answers The rationale is that while pushing the envelope with an opensource stack we often have to report (and fix) bugs or implement lacking features. Projects like Python and Django have a high bar for accepting contributions so any candidate able to land a PR is capable of basic communication in English, writing acceptable code, documentation and tests.
  • souprock 8y ago
    I've done it, really surprising a candidate. He was a developer for Xenia, an emulator for the Xbox360. Right away, I reported several bugs. I found a problem in the executable loader, a problem with the division instruction, and a problem in the memory mapper. These could be considered software vulnerabilities if you accept that test code or a game might be hostile. Despite the bugs, we hired him. (now everybody will apply for the job so that I will find their bugs, LOL)
• wyaeld 8y ago
  No idea what recruiters look for, but when I'm part of a hiring process I'm particularly interested in evidence about how well a candidate communicates with other people, whether presenting their ideas or discussing options.
• s3nnyy 8y ago
  Tech recruiter here. The list of repos give a rough idea about the tech stack the person prefers. That's it. If it is Javascript or Python (I can read & assess the quality of the code of these languages) I sometimes dig into some project, if it is not a fork.
• sekizkarakter 8y ago
  I don't think they look at to GitHub profile at the very first place. I see that most of then even not checking what is written in my linkedin profile.
• StacieMcnamara 8y ago
  Why do you need GitHub? There are many places where you can send a resume. here https://uk.jobsora.com https://uk.jobsora.com, for example. There are a lot of vacancies for any choice
• early 8y ago
  Github commit history is an excellent measurement of your willingness to work overtime for free. Of course companies will love you for that