# Choosing Projects That Show Real Skills — Resume & GitHub Portfolio

Source: https://www.skillbyai.com/en/resume-portfolio/p-choose

> Go beyond tutorial clones.

## Solve a real problem, add your own decisions

Following tutorials is a fine way to learn, but a portfolio of only tutorial clones (a to-do app, a weather app, a copy of a famous site built step by step) shows that you can follow instructions, not that you can make decisions. Stronger projects **solve a real problem** for you or someone you know, involve **choices** you can explain (data model, trade-offs, libraries), and include engineering basics like tests, error handling and deployment. You can start from a tutorial and then **extend** it significantly: add authentication, a background job, caching, offline support or an API integration, and write about what you changed and why. Two or three solid projects usually beat ten shallow ones.

## Projects are evidence you can inspect

A few well-chosen, well-explained, running projects show more than many unfinished ones.

![Three ideas: choosing projects, READMEs that explain a project, and deployment with live demos.](assets/figures/resume-portfolio/section-6-map.svg) — Figure 6.1 — Project choice, README structure and deployment.

## Turning a clone into a portfolio project

Fictional example.

```text
Starting point: a tutorial to-do app (React + local storage)

Make it yours by adding decisions you can explain:
  - Real use case: shared chore lists for a hostel floor of 12 students
  - Backend: Node.js + PostgreSQL API with authentication
  - Feature: recurring chores with a scheduled background job
  - Engineering: input validation, error states, unit + API tests, CI
  - Deployment: live demo with a seeded test account
  - Write-up: why Postgres over local storage, how recurrence works,
    what broke and what you would do next

Interview-ready story: problem -> decisions -> trade-offs -> what you learned
```

## Pick projects near your target role

If you want backend roles, build something with an API, a database and background work; for mobile roles, ship an app with offline handling; for data roles, build a pipeline with clear data quality checks.

**Quiz:** What most improves a project that started from a tutorial?

- [ ] Removing the README so no one knows it was a tutorial
- [ ] Renaming it and changing the colours
- [x] Extending it with your own features and explaining your decisions
- [ ] Copying a second tutorial into the same repository

*Answer:* Extending it with your own features and explaining your decisions. Decisions and extensions show real skill.