Sometimes you decide building a project to showcase and demonstrate your skills and expertise for whoever will visit your portfolio especially potential recruiters, but when you think about what to build you get stuck for what to build, you want to build something unique and intuitive, and at the same time showcases your skills.
I’m here today to tell you what that project that will amaze anyone who sees it.
Okay, the long story short, build something you love that you need and will really REALLY benefit from.
How is that? Let me tell you.
You, as any human on this blue and beautiful ball, you have hobbies and things you are interested in, and of course when it comes to these things I bet that you have many ideas that if applied they will improve your experience doing the thing you love and make you have a lot of fun with your passion.
Why is that?
When you think about an application related to something you like, you will mostly think of a problem you have and want a solution for it, for instance, if you think about an app for listing the movies and TV shows, you will mostly say “I wish if that certain feature exists in this app”, or when you think about certain hobby you have you may say “I wish if there existed an app that does this certain thing in the <thing-you-love>”. And of course when it comes to an app related to something you love, you want it to be a good and fun experience using it.
Also, since it is a thing that you want to use it at least on daily bases, you will need to make it visually appealing (and certainly you will make it).
So, if you want to build an app you like, the requirements will require you to build something very specific and has particular features, which implies it be a unique project, so it will certainly require you to learn new and more advanced things.
Live examples..
Let me give you some examples of people who have built the things they liked to build.
Me
Let me tell you a bit about myself, at some point I wanted a system that help me managing several aspects of my life and Notion was over complicated for me, also I wanted something in the style I want and like. So I decided to build my own system and built the MandelbrotCMS, a system that has parts for managing daily missions, learning, entertainment, and goals.
Furthermore, the thing that I really wanted from that system(I don’t know if exists in Notion), is that all parts are connected in a way that make me have a special experience like it is my own domain where I can reach everything instantly and connect anything to anything, I even built a web extension for it.
As a result, I have a big system that consists of several apps and each app can be a full portfolio project and has it’s unique features and use cases.
If you visit the website cms.saifchan.online , you may not like the UI/UX that much, but there is no doubt that this is an advanced system (especially the introduction page in terms of frontend) that demonstrates my skills and ability to build advanced things, but unfortunately, the code of the project is pretty much spaghetti and messy code and needs to be refactored.
Wouldn’t you recommend me to show this project in a resume or portfolio?
Bruno Simon
A guy who is known for his portfolio, he just built the thing that he wanted to build in a way he wanted. And now, everybody in the field knows him and how he is a great developer because of his portfolio.
Kenny Gunderman
He is a developer who shared on his Youtube channel a video about a fitness mobile app he has built, and he said in the video “Now, do a million of these already exist? Absolutely, do I care? Not at all.” and said “The point is to just build something, something that I can really sink my teeth into…”, and the result was something impressive, If I were him, I will definitely use it as a demonstration.
It is not an issue of if the thing you like is good to make a portfolio project about or not, after all who displays your project wants to know more about you and if you are a good fit for their business or not.
And most important, if you build something you love, absolutely you will be proud of it and want to show it to everybody even if it was an Anime related project, because you had put your soul in it so you came with a wonderful project.
In conclusion, everything said in this article is from my opinion perspective, you may have a different view from me and I would love to know it and what you think about my thoughts, so we learn from each other.
