Why your technical portfolio isn't getting results

This article goes through common pitfalls candidates are falling into when they are using their portfolio to get their foot in the door.

Introduction

Over the past few years I’ve reviewed a lot of technical portfolios for other people, it’s very clear the projects that stand out versus the ones that don’t. The ones that stand out are built with quality in mind. It’s not enough to make something that looks nice, companies want to know you care about the code you’ve written.

In this blog post, we will cover the 7 most common things I see that aren’t added to someone’s portfolio, that could add a lot of value if they were.

First things first, do I think you need to have a portfolio?

Not necessarily, for example I don’t have one and many amazing engineers I know don’t have one. However, I caveat that with already having enough years of experience to allow us to not need to rely on a portfolio. Some of us had other ways of entry that we were able to use to our advantage at the time and acknowledge that the market is different now to what it was 10 years ago.

If you are wanting to use your portfolio to get noticed and to get your foot in the door, I would say that these 7 focus areas will help you stand out and get noticed. They will also help you in most technical tests that you do have, because developing software in this way is desirable.

Without further ado, let’s get into it:

1. No Readme

Not having a Readme is the quickest way to kill a project. If no one knows what your project does, or how to get it started themselves, they’re not going to bother trying. If you’re relying on your portfolio to get you through the door, you need to assume those looking at your portfolio are going to want to have a look and use it themselves.