6 ms·

Unless you have your CV on github..

kybernetikos 13y ago
Yes, all the complaints about how you can't tell a story with your github profile seems to completely ignore gh-pages, a phenomenal service that does let you tell a story. Maybe your github profile isn't a good portfolio by default, but it's an excellent service for creating your portfolio. On top of that, even a poor github profile provides more signal than most CVs I've read.
- hyperpape 13y ago
  The point (imho) isn't that literally nothing on github can be a good hiring indicator. It's that people are treating github as if, by itself, it is an adequate way to assess candidates and decide who to interview. Maybe if you make a page like you're suggesting, then you can link to that page, but then github is more or less just a host.
  - kybernetikos 13y ago
    Well, I can certainly accept that it's possible to overweight github as a hiring indicator, however that's not been my experience from either side of the interview, so I strongly suspect that if there's an optimum amount of attention to pay to services like github, most recruitment programs are on the 'too little' side rather than the 'too much'.
    - hyperpape 13y ago
      Yeah, while I agree with a lot in the article, I also agree with your generalization. Most companies are still looking for the boring "CS degree + 2 years experience, HR doesn't know what github is". But there are also a lot of "hot" companies, of the sort that are talked about a lot on HN, that are pushing github as the end all be all. The real point isn't about what the average company is doing, it's about which attitudes are sensible. (Bias: I got my first job as a developer based on a combination of a non-technical friend's contacts and my github repos looking acceptable. I was three years out of grad school in the humanities at the time).
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  > Yes, all the complaints about how you can't tell a story with your github profile seems to completely ignore gh-pages Yeah... that's not what they mean, and you know it.
  - kybernetikos 13y ago
    Not really. Plenty of people have a site like http://kybernetikos.github.io/ http://kybernetikos.github.io/ which just tells a story about some of the projects they've got on github. I just threw that together quickly a while back and haven't updated it, but github whould make a fantastic site for a portfolio.
    - jasonlotito 13y ago
      > Not really. Apparently not. When people are referring to using Github as your CV, they aren't talking about Github pages. They are talking about the repositories and the code. Github pages are another thing entirely, and not what is being discussed here. > but github [pages] whould make a fantastic site for a portfolio. No one would argue that github pages would make for an easy to use hosting provider for a portfolio site. No one is suggesting that.
      - kybernetikos 13y ago
        > When people are referring to using Github as your CV, they aren't talking about Github pages. That's actually my point. They should be, and maybe you didn't read the comment I was replying to, but that is in fact exactly what we were talking about - "Unless you have your CV on github.." Of course having a mess of github project pages is a bad portfolio, but each of the individual projects in your portfolio makes sense as a github project, and the fact that they give you a pleasant <username>.github.io site to tie it all together makes it one of the best ways to host your portfolio. It makes perfect sense to have github projects as your portfolio parts and turn it into the 'narrative' so beloved of the original author with a github pages site.
        13y ago

Yes, all the complaints about how you can't tell a story with your github profile seems to completely ignore gh-pages, a phenomenal service that does let you tell a story. Maybe your github profile isn't a good portfolio by default, but it's an excellent service for creating your portfolio. On top of that, even a poor github profile provides more signal than most CVs I've read.

hyperpape 13y ago
The point (imho) isn't that literally nothing on github can be a good hiring indicator. It's that people are treating github as if, by itself, it is an adequate way to assess candidates and decide who to interview. Maybe if you make a page like you're suggesting, then you can link to that page, but then github is more or less just a host.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  Well, I can certainly accept that it's possible to overweight github as a hiring indicator, however that's not been my experience from either side of the interview, so I strongly suspect that if there's an optimum amount of attention to pay to services like github, most recruitment programs are on the 'too little' side rather than the 'too much'.
  - hyperpape 13y ago
    Yeah, while I agree with a lot in the article, I also agree with your generalization. Most companies are still looking for the boring "CS degree + 2 years experience, HR doesn't know what github is". But there are also a lot of "hot" companies, of the sort that are talked about a lot on HN, that are pushing github as the end all be all. The real point isn't about what the average company is doing, it's about which attitudes are sensible. (Bias: I got my first job as a developer based on a combination of a non-technical friend's contacts and my github repos looking acceptable. I was three years out of grad school in the humanities at the time).
jasonlotito 13y ago
> Yes, all the complaints about how you can't tell a story with your github profile seems to completely ignore gh-pages Yeah... that's not what they mean, and you know it.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  Not really. Plenty of people have a site like http://kybernetikos.github.io/ http://kybernetikos.github.io/ which just tells a story about some of the projects they've got on github. I just threw that together quickly a while back and haven't updated it, but github whould make a fantastic site for a portfolio.
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    > Not really. Apparently not. When people are referring to using Github as your CV, they aren't talking about Github pages. They are talking about the repositories and the code. Github pages are another thing entirely, and not what is being discussed here. > but github [pages] whould make a fantastic site for a portfolio. No one would argue that github pages would make for an easy to use hosting provider for a portfolio site. No one is suggesting that.
    - kybernetikos 13y ago
      > When people are referring to using Github as your CV, they aren't talking about Github pages. That's actually my point. They should be, and maybe you didn't read the comment I was replying to, but that is in fact exactly what we were talking about - "Unless you have your CV on github.." Of course having a mess of github project pages is a bad portfolio, but each of the individual projects in your portfolio makes sense as a github project, and the fact that they give you a pleasant <username>.github.io site to tie it all together makes it one of the best ways to host your portfolio. It makes perfect sense to have github projects as your portfolio parts and turn it into the 'narrative' so beloved of the original author with a github pages site.
      - 13y ago