You have almost all your job search materials ready to go. Today's mission is all about the last item you'll need for your job search quest. This is none other than the portfolios.
During the CNC2018 Get a Job challenge, participants set up their portfolios by selecting three projects to put on their portfolio sites. They shared a link to their portfolio site or a screenshot in the CNC2018 Facebook group or any social media using the #CNC2018 hashtag. If you are doing this challenge in 2025, you can post your challenge homework in the comments in this post as well as any questions you have.
Mission 7 is being split into two parts. Today's post will concentrate on part one which is all setting up your portfolio site. Newbies will be using today to get a spot on the web for their portfolio site. All participants will be using this post as a chance to pick the three projects they will put in their portfolios and create descriptions for each project they picked.
Part two will focus on how to talk about your portfolio. Next week you will pick technical challenges to describe each project you picked this week. Then you will publish the URL to your portfolio site on the web.
Portfolios are important resources every job seeker needs in today's market.
A portfolio is a place that holds everything you've made or done inside it. In the past job seekers would carry a big leather binder or notebook that held certificates they earned, projects they made, important documents, and anything employers needed to see. Today job seekers have portfolio sites that have links to projects on the web, videos, and more.
The goal action of any portfolio is to show employers what you can do and you have the skills for the role you want. You can think of portfolios as the job search movie trailer for you. You are giving employers are preview of what they are getting if they hire you.
If you watch a movie trailer, they don't reveal everything so your portfolio needs to do the same thing. That means you need to be very selective about what projects make your portfolio. These are the highlights and the evidence employers will be looking at to see what you know and how it was applied.
Portfolios that get candidates hired show more than tell. Hiring managers and recruiters might not spend a lot of time on your site or look at every project, but by the time they leave they will have an idea of what you bring as a candidate. So you want to make the best impression as you possibly can.
Find a spot for your portfolio.
If you don't have a portfolio site yet, you need to figure out where you want your portfolio to be. There are plenty of places for you to choose from, but you just need to pick one. As you continue throughout your tech journey, you can add multiple places as you go.
Code Newbie identifies two places new job seekers can start with for their portfolio sites. These options are:
- Github pages . Github pages is great for newbies because they can see a preview of their work for free.
- Your own website. This is great if you have the coding skills and time to build your site. Developers can also use a WordPress theme or Bootstrap to help. Squarespace and Wix are great options for portfolios because they are hosted and have templates available you can use.
Already have a portfolio site? You can use this step as a way to check if you are happy with what you are using or make the switch to something else.
Pick 3 Projects
Once you have a spot for your portfolio, it is time to pick the projects that will go inside it. Hiring managers and recruiters will only spend a few minutes on a portfolio maybe less depending on how many candidates they are looking at. Keep this in mind because they are your target audience and you want to make it easy for them to find everything they are looking for.
Portfolios that get candidates hired focus on the highlights instead of posting everything. So you will want to pick the best projects or ones that show the skills you can do. Take this time to go through everything you've done in the previous missions (i.e. the job descriptions, informational interviews, research on companies) to see what skills you want to highlight.
Don't have a lot of projects? That's ok too. Use what you have. As you continue in tech, you will build more projects and have more to put in your portfolio.
Once you have decided what 3 projects will go inside your portfolio, add these projects to your site. If you already have projects in your portfolio, use this time to go through your project and see which ones will be the main focus. Code Newbie recommends these participants spend 20 minutes looking everything over and picking which ones will work best for your portfolio.
To help participants figure out which projects would work best for their portfolios, Code Newbie includes a list of questions they can use as they look at each project.
- Is your portfolio easy to navigate?
- Do you have screenshots?
- Do you have source code?
- Is your source code clean and, when appropriate, commented?
- Do you still understand it?
- Are you prepared to talk about his project in an interview setting?
Describe each project.
While portfolios focus more on the show, it does help to provide a little bit of context to hiring managers and recruiters on what they are looking at. You will want to provide a brief description of each project you picked. Code Newbie says that a project description doesn't just need to be brief, but get to the point right away.
So you will need to think a lot like a hiring manager and recruiter for this step. That means listing languages, frameworks, and tools that were used to build every project. You will want to make sure everything on a potential hiring manager and recruiter's checklist can be found easily on a list.
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