Can a portfolio of personal projects outshine traditional qualifications when it comes to landing a developer job? Share your thoughts and experiences.
Follow the DEVteam for more discussions and online camaraderie!
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Top comments (6)
Companies are afraid to make a mistake when they hire so you need show them something that is reassuring for them that you are somewhat qualified and able to learn the rest on the job.
So show your work, qualifications, anything, show your work.
500% True.
I'm going to get a degree in Computer Science this year with a 100% scholarship. I've never failed any exams and holds the rank of university topper in all the branches.
And I'm telling you, it's 500% true. You don't need a degree to get a good job.
It will be challenging to learn all the core CS concepts by yourself, but it's not worth spending four years to get a degree considering other factors. It can help in networking, making friends, and learning to grow under pressure though.
You only need one thing to land a job: be genuine in what you do.
Short answer: absolutely yes.
Long answer: Personal projects show that you're actually interested in the work, that you're willing to learn, that you're motivated to create. However: If your portfolio consists exclusively of tutorial projects, it leaves a worse impression (with me at least) than having no portfolio at all. If all I see on your GitHub is just "Add These 5 Projects To Your GitHub To Land A Job!" projects, I dig maybe another minute or two to see how much was C&P and how much went beyond the tutorial, but I'm also likely to just close your application then and there.
I think that a strong portfolio says more than a thousand words, but in the other hand you have to ensure that the recruiter takes time to go through it and has the expertise to understand what you are showing.
This is a very tricky part and if they are used to reading and comparing CVs, you might not get the chance to show your skills enough.
That said, I went with the own portfolio strategy: made my own website incl. micro projects.
Of course! If you did it you have the necessary qualifications, simple as that is how science is made!
It's much easier for the dev to show what they made, and point the finger at the code and explain it and/or answer some questions about it, than for the recruiter to just see a label in the resume and somehow try to ascertain whether it's the truth or not.
Of course, the recruiter has to have background knowledge in the topics you're talking about.
This also distinguishes one company from another in the eyes of the developer.
However, some things cannot be shown. Some databases, ER models, for DevOps jobs you can't exactly show what you did, but you can describe it and talk about it. This would then be a good job interview.