Tech giants all over the world rely on GitHub as a repository to make their work available for the best minds all over the globe. GitHub also comes into the picture when these very tech giants look to hire freshers or experienced personnel for development operations. It is very important for potential hires to display their contributions to projects during their career, and this is where GitHub enters the fray.
The GitHub platform is so incredibly amazing and efficient, as it allows any developer or individual in the world to view and work on code at any time that they want, without carrying it with them on their laptops or hard drives. The best method to showcase your projects and contributions in a professional manner is undoubtedly GitHub.
Not only this, being well-versed with Github is even more important these days because the whole industry is now working on various platforms. These platforms include Gitlab, BitBucket, and many others. As a matter of fact, many of us believe that Bitbucket is much more flexible than Github. However, because of the fact that userbase of Github is huge and that most people are already there – Github is where you need to be!
So, how to make your profile stand out from the rest? Here’s some tips on creating an awesome profile on GitHub.
An active profile is the way to go
After you create an account on GitHub, enter your personal details, and do the needful, it is time to start taking steps to improve your profile. GitHub has tools to analyze profile activity, and it is used often by recruiters or senior executives in order to screen hires. Therefore, the first and foremost step towards getting yourself an amazing and enviable GitHub profile is to update code constantly. Make contributions on a regular basis, even if the time period is a little farther spread out in the beginning. You have to start somewhere, don’t you? Once you get in the groove, you will find that making contributions daily almost comes naturally to you, and this is what recruiters want. This is the first step towards making your GitHub profile enviable and attractive to anyone who views it.
Document your code, always
Good code is always appreciated- but what’s appreciated even more is well documented code. The source code itself does not represent 100% of the effort that has gone into your project. Therefore, proper documentation is a must whenever you code. This helps third parties such as recruiters and other developers understand what you are trying to achieve with your code, and how far you’ve progressed. It is advisable to create a readme file with every project, which clearly states the goals that you aim to achieve. Oh, and obviously- indent and comment your code!
Keep your repositories up to date
If you don’t upload whatever interesting you work on onto GitHub, then what is the use of it? Creating an awesome GitHub profile is all about the interesting work that you’ve done, or are doing. Therefore, always keep your repositories up to date. This has twofold benefits- making your profile more attractive and useful, and also letting you work on your projects from remote locations.
Add course projects and side projects to your GitHub, if you’re a student. If you’re a developer, and have worked on open source, then most definitely add that to your repository! After all, open source is what GitHub is known for.
Collaborate and contribute
Most of all, GitHub is a community. Brought together by the love of code, GitHub allows developers and programmers all over the world to come together and collaborate on some truly amazing projects. Thus, if you want your GitHub profile to look awesome, collaborate and contribute as much as you can in all possible projects! This can be as small as fixing a bug in the code, or as huge as adding a new functionality. Recruiters when looking at your profile will surely see if you’ve collaborated on a project or been part of a team. Since GitHub is all about the collaborative spirit, embrace it, contribute as much as you can, and do not forget to mention all this in your profile and repositories!
GitHub is an amazing platform for top techies to look for some serious talent all over the globe. Therefore, having an attractive GitHub profile is key to cracking that interview, or getting into your dream internship program, like the Google Summer of Code. Contribute regularly, collaborate, document your code, and keep your repositories up to date- that’s all it takes to create an awesome GitHub profile!
Learn more about the projects that you can use the Github repository for, by clicking here.
