You just finished loads of tutorials on how to do this and how to do that using a new language...

Nice!, you are already on track to becoming a world-class dev but it doesn't stop there, you have to prepare your arsenal. As a beginner, you should have it at the back of your mind that your résumé and portfolio are one of your greatest assets and are regarded as your arsenal in the tech community.

As a beginner, you should think about how to improve your portfolio in order to gain the attention of future recruiters.

I would like to share a list of projects you can build and add to your portfolio as a beginner so you can get that job and also, I would share reasons why such projects would fetch you the job.

Without further ado, let's begin.

1. Build A Brochure Site

What is a brochure site? — A brochure site gives a company or product a web presence and acts as an online version of a business card.

Why should I build a brochure site? — This shows your recruiter your level of design skills and also shows how well you can present information to your audience.
And of course, every business should have a brochure site. if you can wow your recruiter with your designs they might consider hiring you to rebuild theirs. these are what most beginner developers do as interns at their offices. once you get the job you can gradually display your other skills and secure higher roles as a software developer.

2. Build A Website that consumes a third party API

As developers, we all know what an API (Application Programming Interface) stands for. you can read more of that here: API - wikipedia

Why should I build a website that consumes an API? — This is a great project to build because every single company you would work for would be consuming an API at one point or the other to develop a solution, whether its e-commerce, finance, services, business solutions or whatever it is, they are going to definitely make use of an API and you as a developer would have to handle that integration. So, by building this project you are not only telling your recruiter that you can build fancy sites but you can also consume and integrate with whatever existing API they have of which they would consider being useful. So just find an API that interests you and build some form of CRUD app on it.

Here are some API that might interest you:
- Pexels API
- OpenWeather API
- CurrencyLayer API
- Jokes API

3. Build A Simple E-commerce Website

What is an e-commerce website? — An e-commerce website, is a website that allows you to buy and sell tangible goods, digital products, or services online.

Why should I build an e-commerce website? — By building an e-commerce site, you are able to flex not just your frontend skills but also your backend skills due to the fact that you would be handling operations such as Inventory, shopping carts, checkouts, payments, sorting, searches e.t.c...
Handling these operations in your e-commerce site would prove to your recruiter your dexterity in handling backend logics and data.
You can make your e-commerce site as simple as possible without any login or authentication part to it. But, if you want to totally wow your recruiter you can add maybe a customer portal with login and authentication to it. moreover, most companies you would work for would be selling something online, so your recruiter needs to know that you can handle selling something online and also receive payments for it.

4. Build Your Portfolio website

What is a portfolio website? — A portfolio website gives a prospective employer, recruiter, or client a sense of who you are, what you can do, and whether you are the person for the job.

Why should I build a Portfolio site? — Building your portfolio website is very necessary and you want to make it look as nice as possible with all projects you have done on it because when you apply for a job, the first set of people that are going to look at your resume would also look out for your portfolio and they are always people who would determine whether you get the job or not. try as much as possible to make your portfolio website captivating and the rest would fall in place.
That doesn't mean you over design and engineer your portfolio site, the reverse might be the case. Just make it simple, informative and it should say a lot about you and projects you have worked on.

Conclusion — Once you have these projects on your resume and portfolio as a beginner developer, trust me, you would get a job in due time.

My name is David Igbigbi aka Alindavidsin and I am a software engineer at The Bulb an Enov8 Solutions tech hub and you can follow or connect to me on Twitter @alindavidsin02, on GitHub and Linked In