> There are exceptionally talented, successful, high-profile software developers with incomplete & unpolished exploratory projects on their GitHub.
If you intentionally put up your GitHub page in your resume and all you have is "incomplete and unpolished exploratory projects", that's how you're choosing to present yourself.
Also, the degree of "unpolished ness" actually attests to the skillet you bring to the table. If the "exploratory projects" you choose to showcase as your portfolio are ungodly messes, you should not be surprised they reflect poorly on you.
> It's surprising that you would take pride in using this as a basis to disqualify.
I know for a fact that public GitHub repositories explicitly presented by candidates as their technical portfolio is an accurate reflection of their skillet. I am certain of this fact because I never used personal source code repos to exclude candidates but to guide the interview, and each and every single candidate I interviewed that published crap in their portfolio was lacking absolute basic competencies in the domain they showcased.
Do you have any data to refute this?
I really don't understand how anyone in this day and age is surprised that the way you present yourself in a CV or even online, specially in professional venues, has an impact on your hireability.