What Should I Have In My Portfolio? What Makes For Good Portfolio Content?

Your portfolio shows off what you can do. So what should you have in your portfolio? Should you put your class projects in it? How about the code from the tutorials you watched? What if you can't think of a project to create for your portfolio?
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[@rimmongeorge3587]

When it comes to your videos, I feel I cannot watch and walk away, I should write at least a thanks word. You have been always my mentor and I really appreciate the high-quality content that you provide in your videos. I am thankful and grateful to you. You have helped people more than you think. Wish you always a great life ❤️

[@IAmTimCorey]

I appreciate that, thank you.

[@Artavazd.kirakosyan]

As always: wonderful content. Thanks.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@jacobenon1930]

Thanks for the video, been struggling for months on what to do and this has been a fantastic help!

[@IAmTimCorey]

Glad it helped!

[@sarahsid3765]

Wow... You're wat of presenting things is so captivating, like I feel I'm sitting on the ground hearing my grandparents teaching me lessons about life, just that you're teaching about other topics in your case. Thank you so much, I'm so glad I found you!

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@wilso572]

Find a business solution. Look at marketing or accounting or purchasing and i bet those departments operate out of 1000 Excel files. Automate a few of the tasks they do and you'll get noticed.

[@bibinlouis4927]

Fantastic 🔥🔥

[@IAmTimCorey]

Great tip, thanks for sharing.

[@pete9049]

Will definitely share this one to my programmer friends. Keep them coming Tim! Thank you as always!

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thank you! Yes, please share.

[@russellkemmit73]

Love these new type of videos, great job man. I hope you continue to succeed. I do not see why you would not hit a million subs.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks!

[@bigs2469]

Awesome tip, I do the same thing with the notes app on my phone. Used to save my life in college when we needed to build an app for a course, I already had tons of ideas on deck!

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for sharing the idea.

[@mirragemelkyr]

That's a great video, most of the time as you said we think on ultra big projects that maybe just won't be finished. I tend to be out of ideas most of the time, so I use the same concept and reuse it again and again and again trying to extend or change it with tutorials etc (it's a little sequence number game).

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for sharing

[@byoungmn]

Excellent conversation and guidance, alot of young developers really need to see this particular video. Will add to my list of things to add to my website before deployment.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thank you

[@mariekiecoetzee3682]

What a great video and tips. I created a profile page a while ago, nextup is creating little projects for github to showcase my skills. Being unsure of what to do, or where to start, I stumbled across this video and again, Tim to the rescue! Thank you so much Tim for the great advise!

[@IAmTimCorey]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ademineshat]

Very useful. Thank you ✌️

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome

[@marklord7614]

Well done and so true.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thank you

[@kabiruokeleye7523]

This was really helpful thanks Tim corey

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@cemkaya4448]

Great ideas as always. I was wondering if anyone had such a portfolio.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thank you!

[@Dame4Lyf3]

No BS, I usually get in the dumps thinking I can't do PWA/web dev as yet, but Tim's here to remind you to keep going. big ups

[@IAmTimCorey]

Much appreciated! I have seen junior developers blow past more senior developers because of having a better portfolio. Keep at it!

[@AmritPalSingh-gv5im]

Really helpful, i have a CS background, worked in IT Infrastructure , jumped ship , worked in banking , didn't like it and am determined to break in to the development world. Am learning c# through your foundational course. Really great stuff, just reached battleship project.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Very glad I can be of help.

[@dmytrohryshyn]

Once a time, Tim asked me about what is my biggest issue, on which i feel stuck. I told him story from my life. Currently I am trying to change occupation, and trying to join to software developers world. Tim give me real gold in his answer. But today his is blow my mind. This episode almost 100 % covered my topic and my biggest issue on software developer road. As always thank you very much.

[@IAmTimCorey]

I am glad it was helpful. I take the topics from emails and put them in a list. When a common one comes up, or when I hear about something multiple times, I tend to create a video on the topic. Thanks for helping me out.

[@louburias9650]

Hi sir tim! Hope you gave a sneak peak on how you compiled all your projects and how did you presented it in the past. Thank you for inspiring us!

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@Albileon]

My portfolio exists out of a custom built ORM, which I use in another project. And the nice thing about an ORM is that you can make it as small or as big as you want and use it for other smaller projects. You have your coding, database, automated testing, so it shows multiple skills. Of course, one could debate why not use Entity Framework for your projects, that's what companies use, saves time, et cetera. Sure, that works too. But making your own ORM teaches you so much, and you can create it the way you enjoy it. You have to keep yourself motivated when working on a project for your portfolio.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Great tip, thank you for sharing.

[@mihaimyh]

This is an awesome video, I always wondered what should my portfolio include. Currently I am building an application using AspNetCore Web API which exposes and endpoint to listen for Docker Hub webhooks. When a new Docker image is pushed on Docker hub the API will receive a webhook notification, publish it to a Kafka topic from where a worker service app will pick it, find the corresponding kubernetes pod and restart it to update the to latest image.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Great!

[@madalincernat1638]

Hi, Tim! Have you considered doing a portfolio review episode?

[@IAmTimCorey]

I have and it is on my todo list.

[@Alite4daday]

I took a C# course back in college and I never learned 1/5th of what I have learned from this man so far. Thank you.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thank you, I appreciate that.

[@simplyforgetful]

Really great content, I'm trying to find more things to learn and add to my learning path. Do you have any recommendations for advanced learning (software design/development for web)?

[@IAmTimCorey]

It depends on what you already know and what you consider advanced. If you want to learn about web design, check out my Blazor Server In Depth course: www.iamtimcorey.com/p/blazor-server-in-depth

[@simplyforgetful]

@@IAmTimCorey Thanks Tim, do you also have content that talks about advanced topics for backend development?

[@MrDmac09]

Hi Tim. Thanks for the valuable video. I was wondering about when doing these small projects you suggest with documenting our learning path, were these small projects supposed to be something that actually runs- or just blocks of code showing what we have learned? Thanks.

[@IAmTimCorey]

They should be able to compile and run but they shouldn't "do" anything special except show that what you learned actually works. So if you learn about an "if" statement, create a small console app that checks if a variable contains "Tim". If it does, say "Hi professor" and if not, say "Hi unknown student". Something like that. No fancy UI. No input to change the name. Just a manual little app to test out what you learned.

[@MrDmac09]

@@IAmTimCorey Got it thanks. Couple more questions. I assume when you use the term portfolio, you are referring to a web page with your info and with links to projects and Github repos? Also. I was curious how the forum on your site is coming along?Thanks.

[@MrDmac09]

Sorry one more question I thought of. I'm wondering how much do I need to have in my portfolio to be considered ready to apply for jobs? Thanks.

[@ShoC0019]

Hi Tim, Do you have a video or plan to make one about functional programming on c# ?

[@IAmTimCorey]

No, but I can add that to the suggestion list. When looking at functional programming, I would probably lean towards using F# rather than trying to force C# into functional, which it wasn't designed for really.

[@russellkemmit73]

@@IAmTimCorey Ya F# man!

[@RalfsBalodis]

well.. thank you. I feel like my questions are answered. Very relevant at this time. Don't know about learning 100 things tho. Even 50 in short span of time. I mean I could learn about them but not to learn them of you know what I mean... Sure. That's better than not knowing at all.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Employers are looking for folks constantly expanding they skills and trying new things. The point is you need to be able to show you are growing your skills.

[@CodeFreak1981]

Great video! I was just thinking about this the other day. Is there a good site that I should be using for my portfolio? What's the best way to accomplish this?

[@matthewcunningham2278]

If you haven't already, try setting up a git account and dump your projects there

[@IAmTimCorey]

I would recommend creating a GitHub repository for your projects.

[@kj2w]

I totally agree. Find a (small) problem, then code a solution. For example, when working on a user story in Azure DevOps I will call my feature branch the same name as the story. Problem is, the story is usually in the format of '##### - Lorem Ipsum I am full of spaces'. Well git branch can't contain '-' nor ' ', so create a piece of software/app/solution that will read that string in and create a feature branch of dev like '#####_Lorem_Ipsum_I_am_full_of_spaces'. And I would think, this would be a piece of code to showcase on your portfolio (github, gitbucket, Azure repo). Just create a ReadMe.md that explains your code concept well. You could do this via PowerShell or Python VS Code Extension Visual Studio Code Extension Console app Broswer Extension many possible avenues to do this...

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for sharing.

[@zegichiban]

The notepad saving issue I used to have, until I realized that notepad ++ solves that exact problem. I think its not quiet perfect, I once had the machine crashed and it lost all the unsaved tabs in notepad++, but I always use it over regular notepad.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Yeah, it is definitely better, but it is also more complicated. I, too, have had the issue with it not saving open documents, so it also isn't perfect. There is definitely room for a different/better solution to address a certain audience.

[@russellkemmit73]

Suggestions: 1. MLNet 2. Q# 3. Data Structures, Algorithms.

[@IAmTimCorey]

I will add them to the list. Thanks for the suggestions.

[@littlejibari]

sir, can you make a video on when and why use a class with private constructor over a static class? i usually use static class since this type classes doesnt require to have an instantiation, but what about classes with private cons? i could understand the examples in the internet. too much jargon. i believe you're the guy that could explain it clearly to a beginner like me

[@IAmTimCorey]

You would use that in a Singleton ( kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZjUm4mrf5WalZo ). Singletons are different than static classes in that they can have interfaces applied to them and they can inherit from base classes.

[@MatthewMcGuff]

Great pro tip to build projects that solve small problems. I also really liked the idea of building a Github repo that contains a list of all the things you want to master. Question for you or anyone else that wants to take stab at this question: How do you go about creating that list of the 100 or 200 things you want to learn about .Net. I think a lot of aspiring developers would say I want to learn .NET but how do you break learning .NET into 100 or 200 bite sized segments? Thoughts?

[@IAmTimCorey]

One thought is to look at my list of videos and select topics from there. Another is to look at .Net books online and scan the chapters/topics for the things you want to learn. I'm sure others reading this have ideas... Please share.

[@MatthewMcGuff]

@@IAmTimCorey Thanks. I will do that.

[@MatthewMcGuff]

Keep up the great work on your content. Its know it makes the world a better place.

[@bobclemens8065]

I'm wondering where to store your portfolio and how to make it available. You briefly mentioned Github. Is that the best option?

[@IAmTimCorey]

GitHub is a great option, since it allows you to show off your code in an industry-standard way.

[@pierreplourde]

ConsoleUI is my friend. 😁

[@bibinlouis4927]

Lovely, your info and guidance is really good ✌❤ , I'm struggling with project ideas which can be accepted by MNC's, can you suggest some tips?? (Platform- > .net core with angular in visual studio 2019)

[@IAmTimCorey]

Build an interactive resume. Click on a skill to have it highlight everywhere you used that skill. Click on a role to have it expand to show off all you did there.

[@dyakobaram]

Those are great point once I wanted to make a simple program that interacts with windows wifi card to disable and reenable it if there is no connection (i have an issue with it and that's how it get fixed ) when I tried to make that software with c# my anti-virus went crazy and kept deleting my executable for an unknown reason then my friend told me those things are Powershell's job so I gave up. I would love to know how to do those things with c# since I don't want to learn Powershell just to interact with windows' API if there is a way please tell us because I think knowing how to use those APIs might take our next desktop projects to a new level and maybe we might be able to make that simple application you mentioned about deleting unwanted files in the download folder. That's how things get automated right? with operating system's API?

[@OmegaLol21]

If you want to use the windows api, just use the DllImport attribute, look up “use windows api in c#” and you will see some examples on how to use it in c#

[@IAmTimCorey]

Personally, I would recommend calling a PowerShell command from C#. I know it is a bummer to learn two languages, but PowerShell is the language of the OS. Trying to work with it directly with C# will be messy. You will need to learn more than just learning the PowerShell commands (you don't need to learn all of PowerShell).

[@dyakobaram]

@@IAmTimCorey I will try to learn powershell and see what that takes me

[@bojiun1377]

Do I have to practice algorithm questions such as LeetCode for getting a C# job? or only C# knowledge?

[@IAmTimCorey]

It depends on the job. Some depend on tricky questions, while others depend on more practical evaluations.

[@queenstownswords]

To add just a bit to Tim's video, if you are an aspiring QA Engineer, write a simple project then write a test suite for it. This will get you far in the interview as very few QA Engineers do this.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Great Tip! Thank you.

[@brianpk7206]

I have a question about weather an application I made belongs on my portfolio. I made a WPF application to help me test my multiplayer games external from the game Editor. I set a time limit on making this project because I was busy and told myself I would only spend 2 days on it. Because of that, the code is sloppy and doesn't reflect how I actually code. However the project does what it needs to do with no problems and I am glad I speed ran making it. Can I put this on my portfolio? Or is that a bad idea since the code is sloppy?

[@IAmTimCorey]

Good question. I would include a writeup on the project with screenshots and a description of what it does but I probably would not include the code. If a potential employer wanted to see the code, I would share it with them with your disclaimer.

[@brianpk7206]

@@IAmTimCorey thx!

[@cyriljermy246]

Hi Tim, really hope you help me here with my question, I am a .net developer, its been 3 years working professionally. What has happened is my knowledge about code is not much, everyday its kind of i am just learning a technique to do the things and not understanding the root. So my base is not strong. And now i am really getting frustrated everyday. When i switch jobs salary is increased so as the responsibly increases and i kept going so in a nut shell i kept making floors of the building but the base is not that concrete. What should i do now? I really want to learn code and not the technique. Also what should i do if i have to change the job? Should i settle for salary like junior? Or should i learn while in the job? Pls help me

[@IAmTimCorey]

That is exactly why I built this course series: www.iamtimcorey.com/p/complete-foundation-in-c-course-series It is called Foundation in C# because it is designed to give you that firm foundation to build upon. As for changing jobs, it depends. Having work experience doing C# development does give you the option of going for a higher-level job. You know more than you think you do.

[@cyriljermy246]

IAmTimCorey thanks alot,

[@lifetraveler8008]

Hi Tim, I am self taught( you tube videos, Thanks) , aiming to be a c# Asp.net core MVC full stack developer . I have a question . I am about to start building project for my portfolio . I was told to breakdown my project into following 1. Class Library projectName.Application projectName.Core projectName.Infrastructure 2. Asp.net Web projectName.Web I want to know if this is this the right appraoch ? . or should everything be in Asp.net core Web Application. as is taught in the tutorials ? Thank you

[@IAmTimCorey]

I prefer to put everything possible in the class library. That is the better approach. So the breakdown you were told is correct.

[@lifetraveler8008]

@@IAmTimCorey Thank you for replying!!

[@dyakobaram]

Mr Tim cant you make your list public? so we can upvote items in the list and make the community decide which video should be covered next?

[@IAmTimCorey]

I've considered it. I need to build a system to help me do that, though.

[@dyakobaram]

@@IAmTimCorey sounds like a great project tutorial

[@vinzer72frie]

New background looks more pro

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks.

[@hqcart1]

Would love to see someone who made a github portfolio, Anyone?

[@IAmTimCorey]

I'm considering doing a review of portfolios. Would that be of interest?

[@hqcart1]

@@IAmTimCorey Of course! Thank you so much

[@YoloMonstaaa]

IAmTimCorey yes

[@arturpomadowski6586]

6:47 it's called Notepad++ :P

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for the tip