Tech Prep - Choose your Projects Wisely

• Todo Apps

• Weather Apps

• Calculator Apps

These are all excellent choices for learning how to code and retaining skills but those projects will not inspire a recruiter to reach out to you. A hiring manager won’t decide to offer you a job because of them.

They are basic and don’t belong on a portfolio. The projects that belong on your portfolio should be something you get excited talking about during an interview. It should be something that you can discuss in detail: the frustrations, the challenges, and the triumphs.

And to do that, it must be important to you. Think of an idea that you have always wanted to build. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be fleshed out. It's just something that keeps churning in the back of your mind that you need to get out.

For me, it was a stock dashboard.

I have always been interested in the stock market and it made perfect sense for me to build around that.

This is the final product.

It didn’t always look like this. It was once an idea in my mind but once I got started (which is all you need to do), the momentum snowballed and my mind could not stop racing. I added tabs that can give you financial data. I added a section where you can see similar stocks in that field. I used a library called Chartjs to compare the volume of stocks.

And all of this began because I decided to start. My project is not perfect but it is something that I can discuss readily in any interview. I can tell you that I had trouble implementing ChartJs. I can tell you that my greatest success was getting the API to return the financial data.

And these are the things that you need to speak in detail about. You probably can’t do that with generic apps.

So, think of anything you want to build and build it!

Because if you are proud of it you will be able to talk about it during an interview. The passion and perseverance that you display in those interviews will resonate with the audience. It could be the deciding factor that gets you the job.

So, build what is important to you!