Homelab

My advice as someone who is in a hiring position is to elude to it in your cv but don't get to into detail then when asked about it in the interview talk about it enthusiasticly. I personally will hire a person with a good homelab story ahead of someone with huge educational experience

As someone who hires IT staff, ABSOLUTELY put it on your resume. Don’t go crazy, just a one-liner, as a talking point for your interview.

Absolutely. I stood up a HA k8s cluster from scratch, and had it all working with ingress, SSL, etc… plus I can transition the conversation from k8s to microservices architecture

I read a lot of mixed things about putting it on my resume or not. I decided to make a hobbies section on in and put a few things on there. To my surprise it came up in every interview and I believe helped me land my current role.

As a hiring manager I would love to see it. It tells me you’re passionate about IT outside of work and how you’re constantly learning.

If you confident in the technologies used mention then in the resume

Oh! My home lab was one of the reasons I stood out against the competition. They wanted to hear details of what I was doing with it. It’s a great thing to bring up in interviews if you get to interview with IT people.

Yes I did. I applied for an entry level security researcher role and I had zero security experience and def put my home labs on there. I had an Active Directory lab for pentesting as well as Docker containers running vulnerable web apps. They said my passion and drive demonstrated by the home labs and my blog is what got me the job

I didn't put it on my resume but my setup did come up in a recent interview. I'd like to think it helped seeing as they called me less than 24 hours later to offer me the job.

I don't, but I make sure to bring it up in the interview.

However, I do include some extra curriculars on my resume. For instance, I've been coaching a high school robotics team for about 14 years now, and it's a significant enough portion of my life, and is adjacent enough to my career that I make sure to put it after my work history. It is absolutely the main thing that got me my current job.

If you are working in IT, one of the implicit requirements is ongoing learning. Homelabs probably address that. It's good to see an indication that you are actively learning on your resume. Homelabs aren't the only way, but in some cases might be the best way.

Yes. I’ve had several people who own IT companies tell me they will usually hire someone with a home lab over those that don’t.

I've almost always been asked about my home network in interviews and I always make sure to ask this question when I'm the one doing the interviewing. Myself and my colleagues take this particular question very seriously because we of course want people who are really interested in what we do.

My homelab has me on track for a more senior position at my current job. It does wonders what not only using your homelab for learning new technologies, but also telling your boss that you're doing that will do for you.

Not in the resume, but the interview. First interview the boss mentioned, that they used kubernetes for everything, asking if I used it before (I hadn't). Second interview I started out with the fact that I now had setup a cluster in my home lab

In an interview for sure. Someone on the panel had a home lab, making a difference, gaining allies, teammates is part for the course

Definitely should be on your resume

Yah it is in the hobby section

Years ago when getting into IT after a career change, listing my home lab impressed my CIO and ICT manager. It displayed knowledge and demonstrated an understanding of the technologies. They asked me a few questions about the lab which I was able to speak to and I got a call with a job offer an hour after leaving .

As a manager whenever someone mentions their home lab I instantly know they are the kind of person who likes to problem solve and figure things out. Because in their home lab people usually experiment or will try a tech stack if I mention it in the interview. Highly recommend mentioning it.

I always ask when I interview ppl. If they have it they can explain it, if they have nothing it's a minor flag that they might not be technically hands-on, something to follow up on.

At least mention it in the interview. When I find someone that can explain their lab to me in an interview I will usually make an offer. It shows the commitment to learning technology. My firm gives retired servers to IT employees.

I don’t have it on my resume/cv and when hiring wouldn’t give it a second glance tbh

Better off working it into your answers to questions so you can talk about naturally in the context of a problem they’re asking about

Maybe it can help if you are at the start of your career, when there simply is few to put on your CV. If you have a few years of professional experience, then it's weird to put this on there. You probably worked with much larger systems meanwhile.

Mention it in a section for hobbies and interests. I try to intentionally hire techs that homelab. It shows you’re passionate about learning!

I did. I don't have a ton of relevant experience so I listed that and some other projects at the bottom.

In my "About me" Blurb at the top of my resume, I speak to my professional experience, passions, and things I do in my spare time. That blurb swings from what I do in my job and career today, to also encompassing my homelab, 3d printing, and general tinkerings of various bits.

It seems to work. I get a lot of questions about it

I would 100% find a way to mention it and use it to describe your problem solving skills.

At home people have a choice to sit back and let the internet entertain you, or they can try to do something weird and risk breaking everything. I want the person that can fix things because they have broken so many things.

Don’t put it on, but talk about it. Not about having one, but why you have one. I roll around a lot in eve-NG, to lab designs out, test and verify behavior, replicate outages and just study in general.

LOL we interviewed and hired one guy because his home lab was literally similar to our environment. And it wasn't. Case of bragging he knew exactly what he did and why things worked.

No, but frequently in interviews. My rack is right by my desk, so sometimes it's a "show and tell" type deal

Absolutely. My home lab and other side projects i did in my spare time is how i landed my current job

I would not mention it on my resume, but during the interview, I would say it's a must. If you can remotely log in to your lab and perform a demo during the interview even better.

Yes.

Talk about it through the lens of deploying on-prem business services for SMBs and it feels more like professional experience to the interviewer.

My homelab got me my last 2 jobs and the one I'm switching to for significantly more money.

I gave it a passing mention in my resume and a couple of sentences in a cover letter. It got brought up in interview and I was able to talk through all the tech I had experience with, which sold them on me and got me an offer. Job I'm moving to, we only had a casual interview where I discussed my lab, and it turned out 90% of what they use, I've played with at home. Got an offer the same week.

Hey guys, I’m a hiring manager and owner of an IT company. I would absolutely encourage you to make some sort of mention on your résumé that you have a home lab though I wouldn’t go into extensive detail. I had one gentleman who said I have a home lab and I would love to talk with you about what I do, and that peaked my interest because that told me that even at home he was learning and playing around with the same technology for the position he was applying for.

It’s not on my resume but I always bring it up in interviews. I actually ask candidates I’m interviewing what their home network looks like. It gives me an idea if they have any passion for tech or not.

Resume? no.

In the interview? Every time.

It’s not on my resume but I recently did a Teams preliminary interview that was over webcam. I made sure my rack was visible in my background.