Free Code Camp projects in portfolio

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice whether including the free code camp projects in our personal job hunting portfolio is a good idea or is it better to come up with something original? Also considering the difficulty level, would they be fine for an entry front end dev position or are they considered too easy?

Also would anyone have some samples of junior developer portolios that got them a job? I was searching through this forum for that but most of the links in older posts are not available anymore.

I have been studding coding almost every day since January and I feel like I will be never ready to apply for a job so I may just start working on my portfolio now before I loose the motivation.

Thank you everyone for contribution!
Anna

Hi @AnnaxT !

I am also working on my portfolio for jobs. :grinning:

A mentor once told me that a lot of junior developer portfolios look the same.
Same class projects.

Getting that first job is hard enough.
You don’t want to make it harder by blending in with everyone else.
You want to stand out.

I don’t think you need to create the next original billion dollar idea.
You just need an original spin on a common idea.

For example, you can create the front end part of an eccomerce store.
There is nothing original about the idea of an eccomerce store.
But your implementation can be.

Take common ideas and create an original spin on them.

I would just search within the past 6 months.

These were two of the searches that popped up and the links still work.

Good luck and hope that helps!

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Thank you so much for your advice and good luck with your job hunting!

There are a few things to think about.

If you look at your projects (both the code and the result) does it represent the best work that you are currently capable of? The idea of a portfolio is to show potential employers or clients “This is what I can do for you”. If you haven’t continued to work on a project since you submitted it, then you probably are not portraying your skills in a very flattering light.

Tutorial and/or assignment projects are very obvious. When I look at a portfolio or GitHub repository for an applicant, it’s pretty easy to see what projects were done for a class or by following a tutorial. It’s nice to see that they’ve actually touched those technologies before, but I don’t put a lot of stock in them in terms of the applicant’s ability.

I would rather see one “real” project than a dozen assignment projects. Regardless of what it is, I like to see a project that the applicant has chosen to invest time and energy into for a prolonged time because they cared about it. My excitement is proportionate to your excitement for the project. This can be one or more things that you’ve built by yourself because you want them for yourself (a home library inventory? a chatbot for your discord server? a date-night idea generator?). It can be a passion project that you think will either make you money or make the world a better place (I interviewed someone who made tools for adults with developmental disabilities, for example). It doesn’t even have to be your own passion project. If I see that you’ve been a regular contributor to an open source project, I’m impressed. These projects tell me more about you before we meet and give us some really good stuff to talk about in an interview.

I’m not saying that your curriculum projects are worthless. Besides being useful learning tools, some of them are probably work that you’re genuinely proud of. My point is that the more you can emphasize your own projects over assignments, the better. As I mentioned before, seeing them there shows me what languages you’ve at least taken a course on. Think of these as that “Other previous work experience” section that you put at the bottom of your resume after all the relevant stuff.

All of this applies in various ways to a portfolio website, GitHub profile, and resume.

:star2: The views expressed here are my own and do not represent universal truths.

5 Likes

Thank you very much for your insights! This is very helpful!

That gives me some hope! Thank you!

1 Like

Thank you for this info!

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