How to Evaluate Side Projects on a Candidate's Resume
Ask any strong engineer or designer how they got good, and side projects usually come up fast. When no one’s asking you to build something, and you still do it anyway, that’s a strong signal. It shows curiosity, initiative, and creativity. These are exactly the traits you want on your team.
But not all side projects are meaningful. If you're hiring, you’ve probably seen plenty of demo apps, tutorials, and AI-flavored experiments that never really shipped. You need to know how to spot the difference between a resume filler and something that actually shows that someone is a builder.
Why Side Projects Matter
Side projects reveal how someone works when no one's watching. There’s no manager, no sprint, no tickets. Just motivation. You see what they choose to solve, how they solve it, and whether they finish.
Strong side projects show:
- Curiosity: A big part about side projects is that it's an outlet for devs to try out new tech or work on problems they don't encounter at work, this means your dev is open to wear many hats.
- Drive: Side projects usually don't make any money, this shows that the candidate is passionate about building and not just building for the money.
- Taste: Most side projects are one-man shows, this shows that the candidate is not only a great developer but also a great designer and product manager.
- Problem-solving skills: Devs with proper side projects don't just mindlessly follow instructions, they spot and solve problems on their own.
Red Flags: What to Watch Out For
- 🚩 Overly ambitious, but broken projects: Shows that the candidate is in over their head and might be bad at estimating the complexity of their projects.
- 🚩 Bootcamp projects – Something like a calculator app or a todo list is a sign of a junior who only recently learned how to code.
- 🚩 Blatantly obvious AI generated projects: If a project looks like you've seen it 50 times before, it's probably not a real side project and just AI generated slop.
- 🚩 Landing pages with no product: Frontend-heavy devs like to ship impressive landing pages, but if there's no product behind it, it might not be worth your time.
- 🚩 It's not deployed or not easily accessible: For web-based projects, those should always be deployed, if the project is e.g. a devtool a well documented GitHub repo is a good sign.
None of these are inherently bad, but if the project is the only thing on the resume and it has one of these red flags then the candidate is probably not a good fit.
What Strong Projects Look Like
A good side project doesn’t need to be complex or large. It just needs to be real. Signs of authenticity:
- ✅ It can acutally be used or downloaded: Try to sign up and click through the app. If it's not user friendly or doesn't work, it's not great.
- ✅ People have tried it or given feedback: Check the candidate's social media or blog to see if they've posted about it and if so, check if people have interacted with the post.
- ✅ There are signs of iteration: Check the candidate's socials and watch out for "launch posts" or "update posts" where the candidate is talking about how they're improving the project.
- ✅ It's unique: If there's some design quirks or non-standard functionalities that's a good sign that it's not just an AI generated clone.
How to verify that the candidate actually built it?
Verifying whether a candidate’s project is real can be tricky. This is where 0cred can help. Every project a dev shares on 0cred is verified by our foolproof verification process. This means your applicant is not just telling you they built it, but they can actually prove it.
When you’re hiring, side projects are one of the clearest windows into how someone thinks. But only if they’re real. Look past the polish and check for signs of ownership, iteration, and intent. And if you want to take the guesswork out entirely, use 0cred.
Philipp Parzer
Philipp is a fullstack software engineer, designer, entrepreneur and co-founder of 0cred. Philipp has extensive experience hiring outstanding international talent for big companies. He built 0cred to fix his own hiring needs.