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Five Reasons You Need A Software Development Portfolio

Greetings prospective employee! Thank you for applying for the job opening that we have posted. Let me take a quick glance at your resume.

Hmmm. Nice. OK. Good. A little light over there, but looks like some solid strengths over here. Not bad.

What else ya got?

It is awesome that I read your resume because that means that you made it past the initial weed-out. Now as a hiring manager I am going to set your resume down in a stack of dozens of other very similar resumes and go on about my day.

Let’s get on the same page about one thing right now. It is going to be extremely hard for you to impress me or rise about the rest of the crowd just by what you put down on one or two sheets of paper.

Sorry to burst your bubble. There are no magic words, images, formatting, or pixie dust that you can sprinkle on your resume to make it wondrously stand out.

Also, even if you are sitting there sprinkling something on your paper resume in hopes that it will help, please be aware that I haven’t handled a paper resume in years. I prefer PDFs.

Now this is not to say that the resume is not absolutely critical in uncovering the second layer of YOU.

The resume is the first layer. It needs to contain basic information about you, what you have done, and the technology that you have experience with.

If I am picking between automated, computer-based systems then that is all I need. I compare feature/experience lists, compare costs, and pick a system that will work best for my current needs.

Unfortunately, when hiring a human for an open position, much more is needed.

As a hiring manager I am building a team. Of humans. That have to interact and work together. I need to be able to trust you to come up with amazing and reliable solutions. I need to know that you are going to fit in with us and what we are all working towards here.

The top layer of the onion, your resume, will not give me enough information to make that determination.

So not the burden is on you. What keys can you sprinkle around on your resume to unlock the deeper layers and help show me more about you. This is not focused on what you can do as much as it focuses on who you are.

This concept can be summarized in one question:

What does your portfolio look like?

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Key Reason #1 – Prove That You Can Walk The Walk

While I am a firm believer that you do not have to code in your spare time to be a successful Engineer, there is one little problem with going complete cold turkey outside of work.

Most, if not all, companies aren’t really excited when people take their code from work projects and use it as examples of their brilliant genius outside of said work. You know, like examples in a portfolio?

Therefore, it would be highly recommended to take the time to build a few examples of your work that showcase your abilities.

In other words, prove that you can walk the walk.

When a hiring manager looks at your resume, they are making a huge assumption based on trust that you can do what you claim to be able to do in a work environment.

One of the best ways to back up your words is to show it.

Don’t copy and paste code that you are doing for work. That is immoral at best and potentially illegal in most situations.

Instead, create a sample project. Heck, create a sample snippet of code. Let’s say that you just got done building a huge website at work with lots of custom controls based off of open source libraries.

Great! Now, in your own time, whip up a quick example of a site for your 3d printing hobby utilizing these same open source libraries. New code, same concepts. Except this time you dump it into a public Github repo and throw that link onto your resume.

Your portfolio just got a lot stronger.


Key Reason #2 – Remember Your ABCs: Always Be Coding

There are many ways to approach the “ABC” mentality.

Many successful writers state that they force themselves to write a specific number of words a day in order to keep their writing moving forward and to hit deadlines.

That is certainly one way to keep current, but not everyone wants to force themselves to bang out an extra couple of hundred lines of code each and every night after doing that all day at work.

The point with this reason as it relates to your portfolio is to show a willingness and ability to keep up with the rapid pace of technology.

Here, the term “coding” doesn’t necessarily mean lines of code that you have written. Here are two quick and easy methods for keeping up with technology in a demonstrable way that will help your portfolio.

First method: Comment on articles on a social media platform. LinkedIn would be a good target here.

The reason fordoing is simple. Show that you are staying up to speed on current trends and information. Posting articles with some comments as to why they are being posted achieves that goal nicely.

This is also why LinkedIn is recommended here. Sure, twitter is nice, but if you are mixing in articles about programming with personal, political, or pop-culture messaging then this is not the right channel. It send the wrong message.

Second Method: clone trending repos and get them to compile. Maybe make some minor tweaks. Have them posted in your public Github account.

This does the same thing in a more targeted fashion. Sometimes the best way to show that you are staying current with the latest trends in code… is through code itself.


Photo by Ahmed Hasan on Unsplash

Key Reason #3 – Remember The Happiest Animal

Have you ever heard the story about the happiest animal on earth?

As the story goes, that animal happens to be the goldfish. Depending on who is telling the story

Unfortunately, this story is not actually true, but the concept of doing something and then forgetting about it and moving on is a reality for each and every one of us.

While we aren’t an etch-a-sketch that is continually getting wiped, the fact is that unless you are constantly working on a project or piece of code your memory of that project will fade over time.

This fading of information isn’t just in regards to the project requirements and objectives. It is a haziness to the intent and thought processes that went into the creation of that code.

It also represents you at a different point in your abilities and knowledge. Does that code seem ugly and inefficient and ripe for a refactor? You aren’t the first to look back on older code and feel that way.

The point here is that you will lose clarity around some of the details of your work over time.

Therefore, create something with that knowledge right now and stick it in your portfolio. Show that you can actually do something with that technology or knowledge.

Otherwise, creating one project 12 years ago in Fortran and C++ for a college class won’t mean anything to anyone and is just taking up valuable space on your resume.


Key Reason #4 – You Are A Human, Not A Computer

Beep. Boop. Boop.

Just like a computer, it is really hard to show much personality in a one or two page resume.

Sure, that fancy dish might look good in the picture on the menu, but what does it really taste like in real life? What context and flavors are baked into the layers that don’t show in the picture?

Having a portfolio allows the expression of your personality in a way that a resume never can.

Don’t forget here that while you certainly want their job, you are also interviewing them to make sure that you can find happiness and fulfillment with this new group of people.

Expressing your personality, likes, and dislikes through your work and examples allows for an arguable more important fit than simply checking boxes from the technology column. How well will you fit into the culture?

Your portfolio is not just a technical dossier on what you can do, it should also express who you are.

This doesn’t have to be blatantly in-your-face. Maybe you wrote some interesting comments in your code in a public repository. Maybe your articles that you liked and noted include a few with a more humorous bent. Possibly your public repo list simply contains one with nothing more than a list of all of the science fiction books that you have ever read.

That is a good thing!

As a hiring manager if all I wanted was someone to check boxes in a list of technology then I could write a computer matching algorithm to see who most closely matched the boxes I want checked.

But that is not how things work. We talk. We interview each other. Ultimately, we want to end up in a mutually beneficial partnership for the long term.

There is no computer that I know of that predict the success of that partnership right now. So please, show me your personality so that we can make that decision together.


Key Reason #5 – The Culture Of YOU Won’t Fit Onto A Resume

Why is it that on an online dating profile we only talk about our likes and dislikes while posting some pictures of ourselves?

Why don’t people post that they taught themselves how to fix the dryer, create a 3d model, or that they can code in 8 different programming languages?

Compare that to a resume. That statement about ourselves will surely highlight those programming languages but will it have any reflection to how you like long walks on the beach and love to read books of all kinds?

Maybe we need more stuff from a resume on our dating profiles.

We definitely need more of our dating profile in our portfolios.

Culture is defined by Google as “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.

Right now you are a group of one, looking to join our group of many.

You have customs and achievements outside of the technical realm.

Bring out that context!

Do you donate your time as a Big Sister/Brother or at a local soup kitchen? That can show a high level of empathy, social consciousness, and emotional intelligence. Do you DM for a dedicated group of Dungeons and Dragons players? That can show creativity and leadership.

That substance of you is nowhere to be found in the dry, and frankly boring, recitation about how 5 years ago you wrote a C++ app to move data from this system over to that system. Fun.

Your portfolio is your culture. Your work. Your experience. Your interests. Your personality. You.

Don’t be afraid to show that! You are much more powerful than any resume can ever describe.


Good luck and thanks for reading!


PS – Attribution to the main post image goes to Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash. One minor edit was made to add a jersey on part of a painting to ensure that it is fully family friendly. All credit goes to Mick who has some beautiful photography up on that site. The jersey overlay paint.NET hack was mine. Also, as this blog is part of my portfolio the jersey choice reflects part of my own personal culture. Go Pack Go!

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