I'd argue that if an employer cares about public repo commits to personal repositories, one is probably better off not working for them (at least from my perspective of an ideal employer). If an employer thinks all their developers are infallible and instantly experts in everything they're learning, that sounds like a pretty awful culture. I know I've made silly/trivial commits to my github and it has yet to hurt my employability. I'd much rather work for a company that knows its employees aren't perfect and development can be a trial/error process at times (these kind of places do exist and I live and work in the Mid Western US).
I do agree somewhat about game scrutinization, since it's active process by an employer verses employers passively looking at your github profile.
>If they care about X, it's better if your don't work there.
Not speaking about private repos per se, but whether it comes down to a close call between you and another candidate, or one person on the hiring team is looking to make a quick decision, it's just smarter to avoid meaningless points of contention.
Sure, it's likely you'll never be hurt by this, but it would be sad to miss out on a great opportunity because of some flotsam... and you'll never know why.
I see this argument a lot and it does have some merit, but it ignores the fact there might be an idiot hiring manager standing between you and the job you want. Just because a company might hire a few bad apples doesn't mean they aren't worth working for, for pretty much the same reason a person can still be worth hiring, even if they make a lot of commits for something simple, etc.
Perhaps, but how many hiring managers are able to scrutinize commits in that great of detail? I'd figure anyone that could, would be in a more technical role and likely a developer/developer manager versus HR.
I do agree somewhat about game scrutinization, since it's active process by an employer verses employers passively looking at your github profile.