> Judgements like "I'd expect dev to write it themselves" come across as arbitrary.

I feel like this depends on the type of dev. If you write C code for microcontrollers then who cares, but if you do web dev then using a generic template not authored by you seems like a bad sign, no?

Part of my concern is: judging a resume is fine, since an applicant is explicitly submitting this. But rejecting based on things done for fun and publicly shown seems 'unfair'. (It's 'unfair' since I'll be judged right now for crap I haven't glanced at for 5 years or whatever, and haven't maintained to the best of my professional ability).

But part of why I consider it arbitrary is it's easy to come up with contradictory criteria, each of which might make sense. (-1 for using latest technology on a personal website, since it shows they buy into hype/resume-driven-development. -1 for not using the latest technology, since it shows they don't know the tools of the trade). I think this bleeds from trying to judge someone's professional capabilities as part of a team, from something produced in their spare time.

> But rejecting based on things done for fun and publicly shown seems 'unfair'.

Portfolio sites are used to showcase the developer's work. If the developer's work sucks then it doesn't matter if it was done just for fun or as an extension of his CV.

Why would you expect a webdev to do a designer's job?

If it accomplishes the minimum functional requirements without additional time/money, isn't that the point?

It's actually a better thing to have a template to start with and then customise it to reflect what you want it to show.

If anything, writing my own website sounds like a waste of time, especially when there are so many good tools out there like Hugo, Jekyll, etc. and templates to use as a basis for any personal blog or portfolio.

Hell, I can’t even find time to pick a template and design the look and feel or choose what content to put on my own website.

Depends on the position. If a web dev is running standard out of the box WordPress Blog that should be some sort of a flag.

Please, explain why then? That really doesn’t make sense to me. If someone setup their personal blog/website it’s something they do in their free time. Using the default template is a good way to spend their limited time on what matters, the actual content, instead of creating something that random people will find or not “personal looking enough to be worthy of the job position”.

You get zero signal from the fact that someone decided to use a default template.

If your profession is to create new, compelling, functional front ends and you opt for the easiest default you can imagine for your personal project, why wouldn't you opt for the most easiest thing on your work project?

If I want just someone to write simple stuff I have whole of India to choose from and they are way cheaper than you. If I'm looking for a web dev from western market I'm looking for highly talented people and if you can not showcase that talent then what good are you for?

From my experience thous who have no personal projects of passion that involve programming to any extend usually aren't that good at their job. That obviously doesn't mean that you can not or shouldn't have other hobbies that are not computer related, but again if it comes down to two candidates and one has proof of work in their github profile then the choice isn't that hard to make.

Expecting a dev to reuse code for a personal website is not reasonable.

A personal website is not a software development project. It is not something to use to evaluate a developers technical skills. When you have a real project on the line, then you will see the real skills come out.

For a personal website, I’d expect a developer to give a fuck enough to develop something on his own.