Portfolio Projects That Get Interviews

What hiring managers look for

When a recruiter opens your GitHub, they spend about a minute. In that minute they want to see:

1. Deployed projects they can click and use
2. Clean code with sensible names and structure
3. Real commit history (many small commits, not one giant upload)
4. A README that explains the project in 30 seconds

Build 2–3 projects, not 15

Pick projects that solve a real problem, ideally for someone you know or an industry you care about. Good junior projects:

Project	Shows
A booking or to-do app with login and a database	full-stack basics, auth, CRUD, SQL
A dashboard using a public API (weather, transit, sports)	fetching data, async code, UI states
A tool for a real person (a local shop's menu, a club's sign-up sheet)	product thinking, users, deployment

Add one thing that's beyond the tutorial: tests, accessibility, responsive design, error handling, or a feature a user asked for.

README template

# Plant Pal 🌱
Reminds you when to water each plant. Built for my mum's 40 houseplants.

**Live:** https://plantpal.example.com · ![screenshot](screenshot.png)

## Features
- Watering schedule per plant, with email reminders
- Works on mobile; accessible keyboard navigation

## Tech
React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, deployed on Render

## Run locally
npm install && npm run dev

## What I learned
Handling time zones for reminders was harder than expected...

Using AI on your portfolio

It's fine (and realistic) to use AI tools while building. But you must be able to explain every part in an interview. Interviewers often pick a file and ask "walk me through this" or "why did you choose this approach?"