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

by passenger on 3/17/19, 10:47 AM with 218 comments

• by Edd314159 on 3/17/19, 12:54 PM

  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.

• by gargarplex on 3/17/19, 12:20 PM

  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.

• by Waterluvian on 3/17/19, 12:49 PM

  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.

• by linuxlizard on 3/17/19, 1:14 PM

  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.

• by humbledrone on 3/18/19, 12:23 AM

  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.

• by chimen on 3/17/19, 7:02 PM

  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.

• by raviolo on 3/17/19, 2:15 PM

  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.

• by andrewingram on 3/17/19, 7:24 PM

  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.

• by simoleone on 3/17/19, 7:18 PM

  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).

• by davb on 3/17/19, 6:59 PM

  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.

• by gherlein on 3/18/19, 2:12 AM

  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.

• by wccrawford on 3/17/19, 12:32 PM

  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.

• by gabrielblack on 3/18/19, 6:41 AM

  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.

• by franciscop on 3/18/19, 12:04 AM

  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

• by hartator on 3/17/19, 7:20 PM

  I do look at GitHub profiles when filtering applicants.

  Mostly overall activity, consistency in commit messages, and actual code and PR.

• by bradleyjg on 3/17/19, 1:25 PM

  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.

• by rinchik on 3/17/19, 1:00 PM

  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.

• by kstenerud on 3/17/19, 10:32 PM

  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.

• by prakhunov on 3/17/19, 8:09 PM

  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.

• by johnfn on 3/17/19, 6:40 PM

  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.

• by wyaeld on 3/18/19, 7:48 AM

  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.

• by jugg1es on 3/17/19, 8:10 PM

  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.

• by alkonaut on 3/17/19, 8:56 PM

  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.

• by userbinator on 3/17/19, 9:46 PM

  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.

• by beager on 3/17/19, 12:56 PM

  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.

• by ddebernardy on 3/17/19, 7:00 PM

  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.

• by chiefalchemist on 3/17/19, 10:05 PM

  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.

• by zZorgz on 3/17/19, 8:24 PM

  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.

• by tootie on 3/17/19, 10:24 PM

  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?

• by xarien on 3/17/19, 6:50 PM

  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.

• by TaylorAlexander on 3/17/19, 7:28 PM

  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.

• by s3nnyy on 3/18/19, 9:45 AM

  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.

• by dyeje on 3/17/19, 1:01 PM

  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.

• by sekizkarakter on 3/18/19, 10:06 AM

  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.

• by saagarjha on 3/17/19, 12:59 PM

  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?

• by early on 3/19/19, 5:50 AM

  Github commit history is an excellent measurement of your willingness to work overtime for free. Of course companies will love you for that

• by JesseAldridge on 3/17/19, 8:38 PM

  - Stars

  - Green squares

• by dominotw on 3/18/19, 12:26 AM

  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.

• by pcmaffey on 3/17/19, 12:52 PM

  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.

• by tdeck on 3/18/19, 12:12 AM

  An email address, in my experience.

• by m0zg on 3/17/19, 9:47 PM

  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".

• by nukeop on 3/17/19, 10:02 PM

  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.

• by StacieMcnamara on 3/18/19, 1:54 PM

  Why do you need GitHub? There are many places where you can send a resume. here https://uk.jobsora.com, for example. There are a lot of vacancies for any choice

• by tptacek on 3/17/19, 7:16 PM

  Suckers.

• by purple-again on 3/17/19, 1:07 PM

  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.