Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the...Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders.If you aren't trying to do your own thing (which, let's face it, is the most exciting prospect), at least try to impress CEOs or product managers, or -- my goodness -- at least hiring managers. I heard a fun anecdote of Evan Spiegel attending an LA hackathon maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Some nerdy engineer showed him that he figured out how to get around Snapchat's spam filter. Spiegel offered him a job on the spot. Could a recruiter ever do that? Hell to the no.