I think side projects are for fun and potentially for impressing technical reviewers in stage 3. Soft skills are for impressing recruiters. During the recruite

I think side projects are for fun and potentially for impressing technical reviewers in stage 3. Soft skills are for impressing recruiters. During the recruiter phase, they're not going to understand the projects anyway. The only value they have at this point is they boost your confidence and let you move on to next questions. Just list them briefly if asked what you've been doing recently. Most recruiters can't recognize a good programmer, so they approximate it by judging your confidence. The weapon of choice against recruiters is being prepared for the questions they ask. You pull out a lot of paper, write the questions down, and write answers. Ron Fry's 101 questions book describes them in detail. What the recruiter wants to hear, what she doesn't want to hear. All recruiters have the same set of questions, and although it changes every couple of years it's a solved problem. Yes, I know telling a recruiter what she wants to hear is manipulative :-(.