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Just look at their GitHub and if it looks good, dive in at the interview to make sure they actually wrote the code. Isolated take-home tests seem ridiculous to

Just look at their GitHub and if it looks good, dive in at the interview to make sure they actually wrote the code. Isolated take-home tests seem ridiculous to me if the candidate has public code available. You're filtering out anyone who likes to avoid duplicated effort.

rocqua 6y ago
Requiring github as a CV is worse from the POV of not forcing people to spend a lot of time outside work programming. Not everyone has the inclination or time to code outside of work. Many of these people are still very competent developers.
- danjac 6y ago
  If a person has some interesting Github activity (that they can back up) I would certainly discuss it with them. If I'm hiring for a Django developer and the candidate has contributed to the Django core or a related library, that would be a strong signal - but it should not be a requirement. A strong candidate is typically a mixture of good work history, side projects, hobbies and interests, personality and other things that indicate they would be a good fit for your team. How much and in what way depends on the job and the person. Maybe the startup company needs a person who does lots of side projects, builds stuff on their own etc because you need self-starters that don't require lots of hand holding and are ready to take the initiative to learn. On the other hand your 1000-strong engineering subdivision at big corp needs more heads-down 9-5ers who just produce reliable output. Maybe the things you ask a junior dev out of college are different to what you would ask a mid-career developer. There's no one size fits all approach that people seem to be looking for.
- bananaface 6y ago
  Sure, that's why I said "if" - if they don't have a public presence then give them a test. But frankly I don't really buy that excuse. Those people have time for multiple coding tests but they don't have time for a (small) public project? Ehhh. Not convinced. If you can get away with no portfolio to begin with then you're not going to be inclined to accept coding assignments.
GordonS 6y ago
I don't think you should require GitHub, but if a candidate came to me with projects on GitHub I'd skip all technical aspects of the interview, since they have already demonstrated their technical ability.

rocqua 6y ago

Requiring github as a CV is worse from the POV of not forcing people to spend a lot of time outside work programming. Not everyone has the inclination or time to code outside of work. Many of these people are still very competent developers.

danjac 6y ago
If a person has some interesting Github activity (that they can back up) I would certainly discuss it with them. If I'm hiring for a Django developer and the candidate has contributed to the Django core or a related library, that would be a strong signal - but it should not be a requirement. A strong candidate is typically a mixture of good work history, side projects, hobbies and interests, personality and other things that indicate they would be a good fit for your team. How much and in what way depends on the job and the person. Maybe the startup company needs a person who does lots of side projects, builds stuff on their own etc because you need self-starters that don't require lots of hand holding and are ready to take the initiative to learn. On the other hand your 1000-strong engineering subdivision at big corp needs more heads-down 9-5ers who just produce reliable output. Maybe the things you ask a junior dev out of college are different to what you would ask a mid-career developer. There's no one size fits all approach that people seem to be looking for.
bananaface 6y ago
Sure, that's why I said "if" - if they don't have a public presence then give them a test. But frankly I don't really buy that excuse. Those people have time for multiple coding tests but they don't have time for a (small) public project? Ehhh. Not convinced. If you can get away with no portfolio to begin with then you're not going to be inclined to accept coding assignments.

GordonS 6y ago

I don't think you should require GitHub, but if a candidate came to me with projects on GitHub I'd skip all technical aspects of the interview, since they have already demonstrated their technical ability.