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198 How Do I Make My Portfolio Better? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: How do I make my portfolio better?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is a question I was asked on the suggestion site, and it's one that I want to tackle in today's episode of Dev Questions.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have some thoughts because I've been going through developer resumes and portfolios recently, and there is a list of things that I think could make portfolios better.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, number one, have one.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I hear this excuse a lot.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I worked on everything everything I worked on was was confidential.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't put anything in my portfolio.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's not your employer's job.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your employer's job is not to give you some of your code to show off.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it might be detrimental to do so.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: How many people here work in an environment where the code's a bit of a mess?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You want to do things differently, but you're conforming to a system or you're doing the best you can, or you're so rushed that you're writing not great code because it's fast code.
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  SPEAKER_00: That happens a lot.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you might not want to put that in your portfolio and say, that's my best work.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So having a portfolio is important, but that does mean you might have to do some work outside of work in order to put something in your portfolio.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal: you should be learning and growing outside of just what you absolutely need to do at work.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And even then, if your job says, hey, we need you to build a minimal API, and you've never done that, you should practice it first, right?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, where do you practice it?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You should not practice in production.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Stop that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So where should you practice?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, practice in your own little GitHub repo.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then make that part of your portfolio.
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  SPEAKER_00: That practice where you've learned things, you've tried things out.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, make sure that you put things in that portfolio that are relevant to what you want.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk more about that in just a minute.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, number one, have a portfolio.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, focus on the job you want.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want a job in.NET 8 and you're currently working in.NET Framework, your portfolio should have.NET 8 content.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do I know that you understand how.NET 8 works or how to build apps in.NET 8 if you only show me.NET Framework projects, or even worse yet, you show me React projects.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's not helpful.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So show me how you know to solve problems in the area you want by showing me things that are relevant to the job you want.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So build that minimal API in.NET 8 and try some things out and put that in your portfolio.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, your portfolio, solve some problems.
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  SPEAKER_00: Show off how you've solved problems.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not just, you know, bland, hey, I built a to-do list, but solve some kind of problem with your code.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you do that, you tend to write better examples, better code.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now make them small, but when you do that, what happens is you start to do things more than just tutorial-like.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: You start to create something that has all the features that you would need to solve that actual problem that actually has some logic to it, not just a boilerplate API that has, you know, get data from a database, update data to the database, delete data from the database.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's boring and doesn't really show anything.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Solve a problem.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Build some logic there.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Number four is take out your old projects.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you this doesn't really apply if you have GitHub necessarily, although it might.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: On GitHub, if you have old projects that you're kind of embarrassed about that they don't really represent who you are today, maybe take them off.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Make them private or delete them.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: But especially if you have a separate portfolio, take out the old projects.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Focus on the stuff again that you want for the job you want to get.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a bunch of.NET framework stuff, but you have some.NET 8 stuff too, well, focus on that and take away the old stuff.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: That way your potential employer isn't looking all over and seeing.NET framework stuff and getting confused that you don't know how to do.NET 8 work.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, don't just add tutorial code.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I see quite a bit.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you follow along with a tutorial, which is great.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's great to do.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you've built something.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But that probably shouldn't be your your portfolio because it's not you who did it.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you followed along, but that's not really the same as building something yourself.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not really showing off what you can do.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's showing that you can type what a person says to type.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or even solve little problems inside of a framework you've been given.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Create something that's your own, don't just add tutorial code.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me wonder if any of this code is yours.
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  SPEAKER_00: Number six, add a README or a space to explain your portfolio.
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  SPEAKER_00: Explain what the various pieces are.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you have, like say, running web apps, cool.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then put links in there to the actual running version of the web app.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to, but that's kind of cool and it's kind of helpful to see the end result.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Put pictures in if it's a desktop app.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure that in one place the potential employer can read through and see what this portfolio is about and how to navigate it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then number seven, make it look good.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean you have to have a great design eye and have this really ultra-designed portfolio.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just make it clean, organized, and easy to read.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make it cluttered.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make it a joke.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make put joke things in there.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I came across a tutorial a portfolio where I think they were having fun with some old technology, but I can't tell.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't add to the experience and actually took away from experience.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It made me wonder are they just so out of touch?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can't tell.
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  SPEAKER_00: So don't do that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Make it look good.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Make it look clean, organized, and easy to read.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
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  SPEAKER_00: Those are my seven tips for really elevating your portfolio and really standing out from the crowd.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's that's the whole point.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: You want to stand out from the crowd, and there are ways you can do this without adding a whole lot of effort.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest thing is that when I say you should practice, you should practice.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're learning something new, you should practice.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, you can reuse that practice in a portfolio.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you have the ability to not add any extra effort or very little extra effort and yet build out your portfolio if you are practicing appropriately.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you are just watching tutorials and then going right to production, you don't have that opportunity.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So don't skip steps.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Practice and use the practice things that you've built that maybe a little bit more complex.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Put those in your portfolio and show off what you can do in order to get the job that you want.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So those are my thoughts on how to make a portfolio better.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I am Tim Corey.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 8:40
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• 8:47
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• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 8:59
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