Rule is in quotes because it does't actually quite apply here, but more on that later.

A few days ago I came across a post on Reddit by someone who was quite confused by recruiters asking for a link to your Github profile. They were confused because their previous job didn't use Github and so obviously they didn't have a Github profile with anything on it.

Obviously the point is more of a separation of people who write code for a living and people who are passionate about programming. Which, obviously, leads us to the 10,000 hour "rule".

The rule is actually not that much of a rule, and, on top of that, is usually misapplied and misunderstood.

The 10,000 hour rule

As it's often stated, it takes 10,000 hours to become proficient at something. But, as it was originally stated, it's not just about doing something for a long time, it's about actually practicing (and on top of that, practicing the correct way) something for a long time. Also in general it wasn't about mere proficiency as most people understand it. So assuming that it does take 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become the equivalent of a grandmaster in chess in whatever skill you want to become great at, how long does it take through casual engagement ? Unfortunately I couldn't find an answer to that. I also doubt that many recruiters can offer the kind of money that an expert programmer deserve. And then there's the whole question of what exactly is an expert programmer. Without question there are a few of them, but they have all done something to get the kind of recognition that you don't just get by being great. So does it make sense to ask someone for their Github profile link ?

Yes ! Also no ! Which I guess is kind of the same thing with literally any other question in recruiting.

First of all, I'm hoping that no recruiter just looks at the profile to see a bunch of commits (or lack thereof) and runs with however that makes them feel. I could very easily automate daily commits and have a whole lot of green on my profile for very little work.

Second, I doubt that any recruiter takes the time to actually look at someone's projects and the code they wrote.

Third, even if they did, I doubt most recruiters would be able to tell good code from bad code.

Fourth, are you actually looking for experts in your field ?

So no, most recruiters shouldn't ask for it.

However, if it's done right, and by done right I mean that giving a recruiter your Github profile should never negatively influence a hiring decision, I think it's still useful. At the very least it should be more useful than literally any reference if there's actually recent code on Github. The benefit to effort ratio is just not good enough to actually bother faking things just in case someone has a peek and actually knows what they're doing. If you're terrible at software engineering you won't last long in a job that goes through that effort anyway.

To summarize: Don't ask for the Github link if you're not going to look. Don't just look at green squares. Don't look if you can't tell good code from bad code. Do ask if the person who does a technical interview is the same as the one looking at Github. Do ask if seeing code on someone's personal Github account is a huge green flag regardless of what it is. Don't see it the same as going to a boot camp or getting professional experience.

There are so many things to learn from this situation. Mostly what a genius move the initial thing was.

So in case you haven't watched what happened, Bud Light sent a can of beer to Dylan Mulvaney. And immediately the backlash from the extreme right was enormous ! It was basically free advertising on all media. Bud Light was literally everywhere. Mostly because idiots were shooting cans and destroying them in other ways, but still.

On my side of the fence (queer people in case you're wondering.... I know very few cis/het people) people heard about things from the backlash. We were all very excited about things. We thought everything was getting better. We thought that despite the things going on in Texas and Florida things weren't all going to hell.

And then obviously Anheuser Busch made great strides towards pissing off the other side. So instead of standing on the side of people just wanting to live their life, they chose to do a complete 180 and try to somehow appeal to the side of oppression. So thank you, Bud Light, for making it clear that you don't really care about people like me. Now obviously queer people definitely won't buy Bud Light meaning that all the impact that came from Dylan Mulvaney wasn't just undone, it was a net negative. And on the far right side, do they really think they can undo the damage they've done by being inclusive and supportive ?

Now they're likely still getting boycotted by both sides. This just may have been the single worst advertising campaign ever. Of course it's too early to know, but I can't think of another advertising campaign that managed to have a negative impact on literally everyone.

Back in my day you just walked up to the CEO of a company, asked him (let's be honest, there really weren't any female CEOs "back in my day") for a job, shook his hand and started the next day. Why can't we go back to that (obviously minus the misogyny).

I'm joking, of course. Processes evolve for a reason, sometimes even a good reason. You do wonder though, how much is too much ?

I've read about people getting to the 7th round of interviews or people getting homework in their interviews. Assuming each application takes about an hour on both sides, which seems like a reasonable estimate overall (obviously on the side of the employer many people have worked very hard to streamline the process and cut costs to a minimum, but all that work did still happen), a job with 100 applicants costs 200 hours of productivity. Each hour of interview is another 2 hours of productivity.

And then you have the irony of the person most likely to be hired also being the person most likely having another offer, because in both cases it's people who interview well.

I also wonder what percentage of people survives the first interview. Say you interview 5 people out of 100 applicants, do 2 of them survive ? One ? I looked it up and my guesses seem close. Would love for someone with actual knowledge to let me know though !

Does anyone actually keep track of all the stats and calculating the total cost of hiring someone and the total cost of hiring the wrong person ? Seems like the second best candidate should be a good fit.

How much excess money goes into trying to separate the best candidate from the second best one ? Even in cases when hiring both is actually an option ?

Will AI actually make the process better ? If so, for which party ?

Obviously my perspective is the employee's perspective, although I do like considering both sides.