You Have a Developer Portfolio If You Have No Experience: So How Do You Do It?

September Sun & Mesut Çifçi & Ahmet Akif Dere

Hello everyone with a brand new topic! In order to contribute to your technology career, we have added a new one to our publications:) In our new content, we look at another tool that a good software candidate should have in their team bag: the portfolio.

Let's state before we start, if you want to reach the video of this discussion from here you can watch.

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People who are trying to develop themselves as programmers in the world and in Turkey can have very different educational backgrounds. Some graduate in Computer Engineering, while others may graduate from a different field related to computer science that has no direct relevance to programming. Remarkably, many people who have graduated from social sciences are also currently studying programming. Even people who are not university graduates can develop themselves in the field of software, mastering certain programming tools.

This structure of programming, which does not have a formal prerequisite, has led to the formation of many alternative sources related to programming education. However, the same is not the case with the number and variety of tools or opportunities that will enable people to gain experience in the relevant field of programming.

Therefore, all these people with different backgrounds and who have been able to get to more or less a place in certain programming tools/languages have a common problem that they face when applying for jobs: the requirement to be experienced.

So that you can prepare yourself for this requirement of being experienced, we have a proposal that we also mentioned at the beginning of the article: portfolio.

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So what is this portfolio?

A portfolio is a selection of projects you've done and the work you've done through various platforms such as GitHub, or in website format. Most programmers create their own website and use it as a portfolio to be able to present their projects and work in the most effective way.

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What is the Importance of Portfolio?

The most important feature that differentiates a portfolio from your resume or LinkedIn-GitHub profile is that it is a tool that you can place directly on your productions. This personalised structure of portfolios that allows you to directly present your coding background and skills is a unique opportunity to objectively demonstrate to relevant institutions that you are the strongest and most suitable candidate.

If you do not have experience or if your current savings seem insufficient in the context of the specified time frame, the strongest connection you will make with the position you are applying for is the projects you make or participate in. The training you write on your resume or from platforms like Udemy will not reveal your competence and suitability for the needs of the position you are applying for as much as the portfolio. Therefore, the portfolio is a proven presentation of your knowledge and skills.

This structure of the portfolio, which allows you to share your skills directly, can be functional to help you exceed the experience requirement of the position you are aiming for. ‍

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Characteristics of an Effective Portfolio

The potential of the portfolio, which we mentioned above, actually depends on how the work you include in your portfolio is structured. The features of your studies give you the opportunity to express yourself and present your skills more than any other tool can.

Here are the fixed effective portfolio features with experience for you:

• -First of all, it is very important how you present your savings and the projects you are involved in in your portfolio. Therefore, the point that you will mainly pay attention to when creating your portfolio; It's about building your portfolio in a way that allows people who enter your portfolio to easily understand what you know, what you learn.
  

• Putting tasks in your portfolio only at the end of the training you have completed will not be enough on its own, because a portfolio can be perceived as a portfolio created using “only 'tutorials. '” Therefore, you should pay attention to the fact that the works in your portfolios are original.
  

• Especially projects that you design and implement from start to finish will ensure an assessment process in which all your skills are taken into account. You should include such projects and works with careful detail.
  

• You should pay attention to how your work looks, whether it has bugs, and whether your work is up to date. ‍
  

• You should adequately share your role in the projects you carry out with teamwork, the roles of your teammates, and the stages of the project in general. This will allow the people who evaluate your portfolio to make an impression on your technical skills as well as your social skills.

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Let's embody these features with an example.

Let's say you are someone who is trying to improve yourself in the frontend field and applying for various job positions in this role. You can put any design into your portfolio by including your HTML, CSS work. Thus, you present your projects with objectives, side tasks, 'challenges', previous and subsequent processes, and embody your skills. To demonstrate your React skill, you can put React tools by detailing a project you are using.

With all this, even your portfolio itself can become a learning tool for you. There are many programmers who improve their skills and design perceptions thanks to the recommendations that come to their portfolio. The officials of the institution you are applying to, or anyone who has access to your portfolio, can make suggestions for improvements to your portfolio. The bugs, bugs, or weaknesses that people encounter when navigating your portfolio and using links embedded in your portfolio can become a learning space for you as a programmer. With these suggestions or notifications, you can improve your technical skills and design skills as a programmer.

consequential Portfolio is not necessary to be a programmer. However, the portfolio is a very important tool so that you can effectively present the projects you carry out in your applications as an experience. Portfolio is one of the topics you should pay attention to the most, especially if you do not have experience or if it is below the market average.