This is something I’ve gone back & forth over as I’ve contributed to some projects online but have been hesitant to mention it when applying for jobs. Typical reasons such as wanting to keep work/personal life separate.
Let’s say you are applying for an engineering position and you want to mention that you contribute to an open source project. Mention the software stack used, maybe the number of downloads, and your focus on the project. Explain it in general terms. If it gets asked about in the interview, just answer questions without providing the name of the project.
As an interviewer, a lot of the value I get out of the accomplishment is that I can look at the PR and see what the applicant is like. That would be diminished if they refused to link to the project.
I hear you, and that’s great if it’s something the applicant wants to share. But none of the development work they’ve done at previous companies is work that they’ll be able to share. We take their word on that work. Not taking their word in the same way on other projects seems like a bit of a double standard to me.
I wouldn’t call it a double standard:
Work done at other companies is usually property of those companies. If the applicant tells me they’ve done work in the public domain, I’d like to see it, unless there’s a reason they can’t (mostly licensing, or if it’s for a project my company may not want to be associated with).
Wouldn’t that come off as suspicious?
Why would it? How would they know about the personal one?
Suspicious as in: You’re lying; the project doesn’t exist or you haven’t contributed to the degree you’d claim to.
Maybe I have the wrong take on this. In my mind you have two accounts. One account for projects you are working on that are intended for general public consumption. Potential employers see that one. The other account is for projects that you want for personal use or a much narrower consumption. I never intended either to contain the work of others or to not accutually exist.
If you’re proud of the work, I’d explicitly name PRs that you made. I’ve been in a hiring position, and I eat that shit up. Especially if it’s close to our tech stack.
WRT keeping personal/work separate: most of the places I’ve worked have explicit clauses in the contract saying they own everything I produce. I need to get explicit exemptions for hobby projects that I publish. In all cases they’ve been granted pro forma. But, if you want to follow the letter of your contract, you’ll be telling HR about that anyway.
That’s why I have multiple accounts on platforms. One for professional stuff and one for personal.
That’s typically how I approach things, but this is asked in the context of having done stuff under a personal account that could help advance you professionally, but you don’t want to share your personal handle as it’s, well, personal.
