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

NO.

But I have slipped in references to it in the interviews. In at least one case I know it was a key factor in getting the job.

Be ready with links during an interview in case the opportunity arises.

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.

I’m a software engineering student and put it in my resume as a side project. Every interview it was talked about in a very positive way. It’s really useful to know Networking/Security, Virtualization and Containerization with hands on experience. In addition, with a homelab we gain a really valuable skill, being able to Google and fix problems.

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.

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.

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.

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

Yes.

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.

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.

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.

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

Resume? no.

In the interview? Every time.

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.