Take me as an Intern – 19yo student seeking internship (opens in new tab)

Before you write your own book, I would recommend taking an assessment of the number of books that are already out there and really making sure that you have something to say that isn't already being written about. 99% of books are trash. Don't write one unless you know it will help someone better than all those already existing books would.

Probably lots of people are like you. I think the world is changing, though, and I think it is instructive to note that the person complaining about the lack of Github content is 20 years old. I've read hundreds of CVs for web developers in the last 2 years and I could point to only a handful that didn't include some kind of reference to a portfolio (usually on Github).

Even though you say that you don't care about a Github account when hiring, you went out of your way to look at this person's website on HN. I suspect that it made a bigger impression on you than if the person had simply emailed you a Word file with their CV. The fact that the person cares enough to craft something and show it off says something about them.

Personally, I go and look at every single portfolio that gets sent to me. If there is anything half way interesting on there it gets an automatic telephone interview even if their CV is otherwise unappealing. I'm looking for people with decent technical chops -- I'm not bothered about how they got there.

I've gotten jobs through my portfolio before as well. I have one fairly large but poorly written Ruby app, a handful of well-intentioned but abandoned projects, and an egotistical semi-blog (which has some cringe-worthy content that I really should edit ASAP ;-) ). As bad as my portfolio is, it is miles better than 99% of what I've seen (generally cut and paste rails projects).

For anybody with real talent this can be a differentiator. It will get you to an interview and give the interviewer something to ask questions about. For me what the OP built would be much more than enough to interest me if we were hiring an intern, but the point of linking to whatever else they have done is a very good one. Especially for a permanent position, I would be following up on that.

It doesn't really matter much to me whether the projects somebody has worked on are open-source. But if they can't be demonstrated to exist, that's something else entirely.

I haven't taken GitHub into consideration in hiring; it doesn't matter where the source code is. Just show me that you are passionate about what you do, that you enjoy learning and can learn well from others, can work as part of a team, and that you have some code out there that demonstrates what you've played around with.

I'd be cautious if an employer wanted you to specifically have a GitHub account.

I've hired a lot of developers over the last 10 years and I put a lot of stock in guys contributing to open source or showing their work and interacting with the public.

>"over the last 15 years"

Well in the past several years I've worked with a lot of developers and I care a lot about their github/bug tracker/public accounts. I don't care if there aren't a lot of repos or projects... just that they're active participants in software and CS. Github is a pretty good indicator of that. Bug trackers are another great indicator. Seeing someone rant about: 500 errors on a website, poor extensibility in an API/lib, unexpected CLI behavior -- those are good signs that the person cares about their chosen profession.

Coding is only one part of engineering. Being able to work with a team, recognize requirements, and ship are other important components. I find that engineers who have strong profiles on SO, github, bug trackers -- they tend to ship. They may not be the best coders in the world but from a business stand point that doesn't really matter. The best ideas in the world are useless if they never get shipped.

I have no (public) github account and I approve this message.

Well since GitHub is only ~5 years old it is not very surprising...

As a student, when you don’t have a lot of professional experience, having a good GitHub profile is a huge advantage in some companies. I got my current internship because of that. And the last one. And the one before.

And other hiring managers do care, like the guy who wrote this article HN discussed a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9447173

I have also hired a lot of devs, I love it when they have a github account, especially those with less experience or as interns.

Thanks, we just found out! This definitely worked for several weeks previously, ha. We're looking into it right now.

Nope, anybody who is legally allowed to work in the UK (so EU member states included)

I have no association to hackcampus. But if they're fairly new, that kind of feature (to save you probably less than a minute, and not applicable to a many of their applicants) might well be on the list, but shouldn't be top-priority.

Databese should be an alternate term for big data.

> App to make uploading and downloading exam results more easier.

Unless he wanted to keep the emphasis and them "much easier" would be a nice fit.

He is young, surely, but in this very moment, there are silent young people on GitHub with exceptional projects. There are some people in their early-20 that are proving to be exceptional in the startup and the programming world. Maybe we are stuck in time when we started: back in the days Internet was more like a myth than a resource. And this feat would have been amazing. Nowadays you can nearly be a programmer without knowing how to program. Today the entry level was lowered exponentially... Back in the days there was an obscure manual and in a lot of cases written in another language with the need to go to the university and be laughed on the face, because you were too young, with a question that neither the professor was able to answer... And this was the easy part. For the hard part... Let the reminiscence kicks in and be amazed to how far we have gone. Learning alone like 20 years ago, could be outlawed as torture now lol

Drive and ambition are more valuable than "look what cool thing I made". You can teach talent; you can't teach motivation.

He isn't much different from a run of the mill college kid. He just has a "startup style" website with gratuitous pictures of himself all over it. It's called "personal marketing." Apparently software engineers are supposed to do that nowadays - our code no longer speaks for itself.

Standard American college kid doesn't really have opensource contributions to speak of.

But will it cause him any problems if he wants to come to the US to work or go to school in the near term after his internship? From what I remember, don't J1 visas require you to return to your home country for a certain period of time? It was something we (in the US) worried about when thinking about having an intern from India who was planning to attend graduate school in the US in a year or so...

I think it takes time though to apply for the J1 visa. I remember the process to get mine being 6-7 weeks and I was interning for a UC university, meaning they have 'easy' access to it.

Meta keywords in HTML source include palo alto and california, so that's a strong indicator.

> But there are some pretty cool startups in Europe too, and given that Slovakia is part of Schengen he wouldn't have any problems with the visa if he were to work in Europe.

Schengen does not abolish visas across member states, as they had already been non-existent. Schengen removes border control. Visas and work permits are abolished as part of EU treaty.

The URL is "Host Me In CA"

He may be implying that he might as well work now and do college later if he feels like it.

I went this course. I started working in my current office as a high school co-op and 4-5 years later I'm still here. I might as well work now earning a good salary and go to college whenever I feel like it.

Uhh, I've never seen that to be the case and I'm from Europe.

I'm from the US and my school required 1 year co-op experience as a pre-req for completing the degree.

Generally speaking in the US unpaid internships are illegal (for for profit companies) if the employee is doing real work that brings business value to the company.... The DOL has a six point test to see if an employee needs to be paid:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf

Thank you guys! :) I will probably add this feature or just send people more detailed portfolio via e-mail.

He is the swiss knife of the interns..

I'll be completely honest and say that it makes me feel slightly awkward because it's a major component of the resume and yet is completely irrelevant for deciding if he's qualified or not. To me, it's distracting and actually makes me feel slightly pressured to cut him some slack because he put in extra effort on making the resume pretty.

All that said, for someone who hasn't even started college yet, I think every little extra bit helps. I would never recommend this for an experienced hire or someone who's had several internships already in college, but for someone trying to break in for the first time any way you can find of displaying your interest and passion is going to help some.

Some larger corporations are required by company policy to throw out resumes with pictures on them (I know this from first hand experience). This is due to discrimination laws and attempts at eliminating bias.

With this crap becoming "standard" then the implication is if you don't include your photo with your "digital" resume or "social media" profiles you are undesirable/not an attractive male.

I'm in my 30s with 10 years of experience. I look like I'm 12. I get mistaken for a teenager - very often. Nobody will take me seriously if I include a picture with my resume.

The reason for not including pictures is entirely a legal issue. If a picture is included in the resume and the company decides to not hire that person (despite being qualified), they could sue for discrimination. If the company instead throws out ALL resumes with pictures, they don't ever get sued. Logically, any company that is large enough to have a legal team should be expected to throw out all resumes with pictures on them for this reason.

It is common practice at larger companies now to also obfuscate names of candidates to further eliminate bias and lawsuits.

I don't believe it is out of date. The reason is the resume is the first impression of you - someone has to make a 60 second choice to look into you further - to call you or Google you. If you include a photo you are asking the company to evaluate your looks as part of the initial resume which have zero to do with your job qualifications. (we are talking about software here)

Like it or not employers make snap judgements without consciously thinking about it based on irrelevant characteristics. We know people with black sounding names get callbacks significantly less than white sounding names.[1] I can't imagine how much more difficult someone who was a dark skinned black would have it if they included a photo. Remember - employers give a resume a once over and their unconscious bias in in effect.

No hiring manager or HR person will tell you they are openly racist or disregard candidates based on their name - and they aren't lying! They just do it because social biases effect their evaluation without them realizing it. As much as we love to believe we are rational beings in a lot of ways we are not.

Also the reason why employers asked for a photo in a resume in the olden days was to openly discriminate against candidates. They didn't want to waste their time interviewing or following up with someone who is black, Hispanic, ugly[2], or a woman when they were seeking a white male. Their resume would just be discarded. Now that sort of discrimination is illegal in hiring so they stopped soliciting photos because they stopped (openly) taking that sort of information into consideration. Since your looks are irrelevant to the job they will often throw out resumes that contain photos so they aren't accused of taking looks into account when reviewing resumes.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/opinion/nicholas-kristof-i...

[2]Being ugly/fat isn't a protected class under federal discrimination laws in the US.

Not if your product is... a website, like many startups are.

Yes, of course. I said "on an idea" meaning a product that people think has some value -- but nothing more than this web site design around that idea.

You need a bachelors degree in order to get an H1B.

Looks like those are spaces, while everything else is tabs. Probably has his editor set tabs to 4 spaces where it matches up - Easy to overlook unless you have your editor show spaces with a character.

In other words, he can't create anything and will be useless for any decent company.

Good to know!

Clearly I was wrong! I guess I'm not so in the know as I think I am. Thanks for the background info.

There's no license there, so I'd have to assume he asked for permission.

Visual Idiot is a notable name in the design community. It would be like stealing from Tobias Van Schneider or something. You can't get past people in the know.

Can't speak for that poster, but while I've used other people's code for educational purposes I am not aware of a time when I've used someone else's code against its restrictions. And bear in mind that code without a license notice is not a free-for-all, it's restricted until other rights are explicitly granted.

(I have no opinion on this situation nor am I qualified to judge it. Other people have a more fully-formed opinion than I do, and it does sound like it's properly open-sourced anyway.)

He should make an effort to attribute the work that isn't his.

> There's not even a notice on the original

No license on the original means you don't have the right to use it.