It's not unfair gatekeeping, it's incredibly dumb gatekeeping. You're definitely going to miss out on interviewing good candidates.
If the candidate can show code and you're willing to look at it because it saves everyone's time, then sure, go ahead. But there are plenty of very good reasons a candidate might not be able to do so.
Point me to a metric that you think is fair and it would probably take me 10 minutes to systematically demolish it as equally stupid gatekeeping.
Furthermore, he didn't say it was his only metric, he said it was a possible metric.
What if I use having a bachelors degree in computer science as a strong metric? I could just as easily turn the tables on that requirement: some of the best programmers I've ever known didn't even have university degrees at all and were completely self starters.
And there are plenty of diploma mills that hand out degrees in IT like they're candy.
For sure, but I cant really think of another low friction way to detect high quality candidates.
CVs are easy to bullshit as the OP points out and ascertaining performance on a technical interview comes at a high cost.
Search costs matter. Other than "I worked with this guy" (which doesnt scale) I dont know of a quicker method of uncovering an obviously decent programmer.
Search costs matter, and GitHub browsing is low friction, but extremely low signal on a very narrow bandwidth.
A lot of the best (technical-wise and ethic-wise) collaborators I've had had and have no public profile, some even not on LinkedIn. You won't find them there.
shrug this is the exact opposite of my experience. All the really great people I've worked with have had at least something there and I've never worked with somebody with a great github profile that wasnt also a great programmer.
Having a decent profile is rare enough that it cant be your whole hiring pipeline but IMHO it's a great reason to let somebody skip an assessment stage or prioritize them for interview.
If the candidate can show code and you're willing to look at it because it saves everyone's time, then sure, go ahead. But there are plenty of very good reasons a candidate might not be able to do so.