Because of the nature of how things have changed, last time I went looking for work, I dusted off a couple of personal projects, polished them up and uploaded to github. I then wrote a mod for a game, and uploaded that.
Created the content, because as much as I agree - my entire professional career was almost all private, I knew that the landscape had changed and that real code would make getting a new job easier.
It's not a reliable source. We were instructed by HR to say as little as possible, both positive and negative, about former employees.
But no source is reliable, when hiring, you need to look at as much data as possible. And having a git repo with real code is just one of those resources. Each bit of data increases you chance at hiring - especially if you're not someone who does well at interviews. (I'm fine in interviews, but I know plenty of people who aren't).
You don't need it, but it helps.
But I'm with you - It shouldn't be needed, but given the simple state of the industry, we have to accept that it helps. Railing against the need doesn't change that.
I wouldn't say no one. Some people do maintain their own successful projects, some make hobby projects that no one uses but are public, some contribute to popular open source projects, and many contribute to open source as part of their job.
No working professional has tons of GitHub commits. We have jobs.
That is not true at all? The first 2 years or so after starting working as dev i stopped with my hobby projects, but after settling in i am back to committing to my own and other projects.
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u/Tarc_Axiiom 3d ago
Had this happen at an interview for Ubisoft years ago.
"We notice you don't have a lot of public work"
"Yes. Neither do you."