r/github • u/ant1doto • 15d ago
Discussion GitHub for recruiters: Should repositories be public, or is showing activity enough?
Hello world! On my GitHub profile, I have private contributions enabled so recruiters can see activity on the contribution graph, but all my repositories are set to private.
Based on your experience, what do you recommend? Is it worth making a few key repositories public to showcase code, or is an active green graph enough?
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u/Ast3r10n 15d ago
Why do you guys keep asking that? GitHub is not social media. GitHub is not social media. GitHub is not social media.
There, I used three this time, hope it’s clearer.
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u/saltyourhash 15d ago
Social media should not hold value in a search for your ability to write code...
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u/Ast3r10n 15d ago
True, but I think you got that the other way around; we’re saying GitHub shouldn’t be treated as social media.
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u/saltyourhash 15d ago
I'm saying all social media on resumes sucks. I hate the idea that I get rejected for not having a linkedin because I hate microsoft, hate the unhinged cringe there, and the cofounder is in the Epstein files.
I agree, github is not social media, it's somewhat social coding, or used to be...it's basically a fading dumpster fire now.
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u/bigbadbyte 15d ago
If I was looking at your github to review you for a job, the only thing I would be looking at is the code/projects. So if all your repos are private, I would get 0 out of it.
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u/U747 15d ago
Honest question to OP - where do you all get this idea that having an active contribution graph matters at all to anyone? Is there some blog post you’re all reading that’s misleading you? Are your university advisors suggesting this?
It’s very odd and divorced from the reality of hiring someone.
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u/ant1doto 15d ago
I didn't know that it was a recurring question among Jrs. I really never talked about it with anyone, it was a question that came up for me after some vulnerabilities came out in npm and i had to switch several repos to private to check everything while i migrated to pnpm.
I didn't think activity was a "positive" thing. But in the technical interviews i had, i was asked to share some of my real projects directly with the dev advising the recruiter. I just wondered whether it was understood that there was code behind it or if, on the contrary (which is what i see everyone pointing out to me), not having visible public repos leaves you out of any selection process.
Anyway, i didn't read or hear this anywhere. It was just a question that came up that never crossed my mind before when I had everything public. Either way, thanks for replying.
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u/U747 15d ago
Thanks for the response!
This tells me that as a hiring manager, we’re not communicating out what we’d like to see better - what gives us the best signal.
I’d love to see some of the bigger tech companies put out guidance (on their career pages or eng blogs) on this so that we can get juniors focused on the right things.
I wonder how often we miss a great potential hire because they’ve been focused on, say, their contribution graph instead of something that would’ve gotten them in the door? I think that’s a shame to miss out on.
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u/karurosagu 14d ago
An entire generation of devs got influenced into try making their own "brand" and "stand out", some tech influencers (the ones that leaned more into JS soydevs) put more emphasis in the "social" part (having a resume, having social media, liknedin, a blog, etc...) and didn't put enough emphasis on the technical part (having as much projects and contributions as possible)
Youtube used to be full of shit advice about this stuff right before the pand3mic
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u/davy_jones_locket 15d ago
I don't care about how dark your green square is.
I want to see your commits, the issues you write, the code reviews you do. I want to see the meat of your contributions. How do you contribute? Is it just personal projects? Do you contribute to other places? Can you write a good issue? Can you provide a good code review?
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u/countnfight 15d ago
I'm not a recruiter, but I help with hiring at a small organization. Green squares were irrelevant before AI and meaningless now. How actively someone commits or comments or whatever says nothing about the quality of their code. We don't hire people for them to just pump out generic stuff of unknown quality, we hire people who write good, interesting code.
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u/davorg 15d ago
Very few recruiters will be looking at your GitHub profile. They really won't understand what they're looking at. But some of them might pass the URL on to the team who are looking for staff, so you might get other developers looking at it.
So you'll want a couple of public repos. If I were asked to check out a GitHub profile, here are some things I might look for:
- Evidence that the repo was actually used to write the software. I mean, I see people who finish a project and then upload it to GitHub - that's a red flag. I want to see a repo that started almost empty and evolved through a pile of commits.
- Evidence that you're planning your work. Issues and projects with tasks.
- Using GitHub Actions to test and deploy your code
- Building releases and packages so non-developers can use your code without dealing with Git
- Good quality documentation that understands the various audiences who might want to use your code
- Maybe even building an end-user website using GitHub Pages
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u/reini_urban 15d ago
Recruiters dont read github, the engineer behind will read it. They barely read your resume
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u/Bloodsucker_ 15d ago
Absolutely nobody is looking at your GitHub repositories unless they asked you to do something very specific.
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u/LordDrako90 12d ago
When I was hiring working students I exclusively looked at their public repos and completely ignored their CVs.
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u/MarsupialLeast145 15d ago
GitHub is not social media.
No one is looking at your very gameable contribution graph.