Introduction—Why Create A Tech Portfolio, If I Have No Work Experience?
If the walls of industry could speak, they would tell us how much industry values practical skills & results.
The truth is that industry challenges are business opportunities in disguise. When you learn to solve industry problems, you hit the jackpot and deliver valuable results at work.
But how do you practice your problem-solving skills in a profession or industry? The conventional path to learn a profession usually includes some sort of a formal educational degree, an internship in an organization, years of professional experience, and a climb up the corporate ladder.
However, if you’re a student or a professional with the desire to switch to a field in technology, don’t let the lack of formal work experience hold you back. There is hope for a career starter, and the good news is that anyone with enough determination and Wi-Fi can build an outstanding tech portfolio from scratch!
Are you excited yet about future opportunities you can tap into?
Read on for more on how to create a top-notch tech portfolio!
Identify Your Technical Interest
A Base For Your Tech Portfolio
To draft a portfolio that brings you the right opportunities, you need a plan that aligns your personal interests with the job market demands.
To create the draft, use this exercise:
- Write a list of technical skills you’re already comfortable with.
- Write a list of technical skills that interest you, that you’re eager to learn. What aspects of technology excite you? Take time to reflect.
- Research the profession and industries related to the inventory of skills above. For the research, observe job ads, Google Trends, and search engines, or seek career advice directly from professionals that you admire.
- Decide on a primary specialization related to the mentioned profession. This is a starting point, and you can expand your knowledge in the future.
Specialization is valuable, but versatility is also important.
Education—Your Competitive Edge For Awesome Tech Portfolio!
After you define a portfolio plan, you need to acquire the necessary skills for your chosen specialization. In today’s world, virtually any skill can be self-taught.
Self-education is more accessible than ever because of the abundance of information and learning resources on the internet:
- Free and affordable online learning platforms, for example:
- Coursera
- Udemy
- The Odin Project
- Educational channels on YouTube
- Open source documentation and tutorials, for example:
- GitHub’s Awesome Mechanical Engineering Resources
- Canonical’s Open Documentation Academy
- Microsoft’s Data Science for Beginners
- Envato Tuts+ Illustration and Design Courses
- Connect with tech communities, for example:
- Instructables.com for DIY engineering projects
- Dev.to for software development
- Kaggle.com for data science
- Core77.com for industrial design.
Projects As Building Blocks For Your Tech Portfolio
—To Showcase Your New Skills!
The projects you create are the building blocks of your tech portfolio. These projects demonstrate a progressive improvement of the skills you’ve learned, and sell your work harder than a resume ever could!
Use the project ideas that follow as a starting point:
- Personal problem-solving projects. The most compelling projects solve real problems you or others face. This shows a deeper understanding of user needs, as you are the real-life user. You could design a solution for financial management, recipe organization, workout tracking, or productivity hacks. The solution could be anything – an app, a website, an ebook… Outer space is the limit, get creative!
- Use existing projects as inspiration. Recreate an existing solution, but add your unique & innovative contributions to it.
- Contribute to open-source projects, or volunteer technical work for non-profits. This helps you learn to collaborate and network with experts.
Document Your Process
—From Problem To Solution
Well-documented projects strongly showcase skills to employers, clients, and industry peers, who can provide valuable opportunities and feedback. To document your project, take into consideration:
- Tell an engaging story about how you solved problems for each project. This guides viewers through your analytical-thinking journey.
- Include visuals like diagrams, wireframes (a basic outline of a website or app that shows its structure), graphs, and images to illustrate your ideas.
- Show concrete and honest examples of challenges you faced and overcame.
- Add before-and-after comparisons of the draft and the final project. This demonstrates project evolution and commitment to continuous improvement.
Tech Portfolio Platforms
Finally, choose a platform to display your portfolio:
- Personal Website, for full customization and ownership.
- Online Portfolio Platforms (Behance, Dribbble), for visual project display and community engagement.
- Content Platforms (Medium, Dev.to) for a written portfolio and more audience connection.
- LinkedIn, for professional networking and project visibility.
Tip! Besides projects, you can display testimonials from clients, collaborators, and past employers!
Types of Portfolios
At last, explore the diverse types of portfolios there can be—take some inspiration with you!
Conclusion
- Each project is a step forward, even if you feel stuck at some point. Focus on progress and persistence; ignore perfection.
Make your portfolio your strongest proof of experience—and leverage it for more job opportunities and client work! - Make sure your tech portfolio is up to date, and take industry trends into consideration. In addition, study strong portfolios in your field, for further inspiration.
- Many successful tech professionals began without formal training. For example, David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Ruby on Rails) and Karen X. Cheng (creative director) built their careers through self-education and public sharing of their projects.
- Do you have a portfolio you’d like to share? Do you have further portfolio tips?
Share in the comments below!
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