Hacker News Reader

one approach i've seen and used to make hiring decisions:

do a great open source project to show you have the skills w/o the experience. ideally something relevant to potential employer.

what they really want to know is if you know the shit, not how long you sat in a desk. people lie about such things so years in a job is a proxy for truth

View on HN

or alternative to working on OSS is to create a product and try to sell it. If it sells you dont need a job at all and yout are sitting on a money making startup. And if it doesnt then you can use this product to show case your skills to the potential employer.

YES! Great point! And having known the business inside and out, plus the tech, plus showing what a hard worker you are - you'll be a triple threat!

Yep. That worked more than once for people I know.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com