Mine hasn’t been that way, but in my experience those publicly visible artifacts tend to be high noise signals anyway.
Over time I’ve generally converged on a few criteria for the resume stage: (1) does this person have a minimally credible claim of being able to deliver projects at the level of the position? (2) if the job requires background knowledge, do they have a relevant background?
If they have a public Github profile, I might go look at some PR’s created by them to confirm that they’re generally respectful to others and that their actual code looks not-insane.
Once you actually watch them work and talk to them, you will get a better sense for them as a candidate, but CVs really don’t tell you much, so it’s best not to pretend that they do.
I think side projects can be valuable when you want to demonstrate competence at something, and you don't otherwise have experience to draw on. If you're a barista who's learning to code in their spare time, or you want to understand a hot new technology, sure. Otherwise, I'd rather ask you about your actual work.