Ask HN: Effects of hiring based on GitHub

A related question to this. While I have started putting up my code on Github but they are rather small hacks which I do in my free time. I find it hard to be persistent in extending them or contributing to existing projects. Does that reflect negatively on me?

I work in the gaming industry, and recently have been spending a lot of time between reviewing resumes and going through Github code. What I did notice is: - The best profiles I've seen were not Github publishers - Doing a dev-test prior to interview is a better sorting - I believe open-source contribution is a state of mind and not of performance

- yes - yes - yes ... but that's not to say it's a must or even a terribly significant factor. It merely makes you easier to say 'yes' to from afar, and that's it. I think people generally realize that the "github profile is a must" mentality is extremely likely to pass by highly qualified candidates in a hiring market where nobody can afford to do that. Willingness to torch any candidate that doesn't behave like a 25 year old groomed in the silicon valley of the last few years is not a successful hiring strategy.

Making it mandatory to have appropriate examples of your work on GitHub is foolish. There are a huge number of talented engineers who simply don't have the time or the ability to maintain a decent OS repo.

Sure, it certainly helps to be able to see real samples of code but it should never be a mandatory requirement.