What technical skills should you include in your portfolio to impress employers?

1 Know your audience

Before you decide what technical skills to include in your portfolio, you need to research your target industry, company, and role. What are the most relevant and in-demand technical skills for your desired position? What are the specific tools, platforms, and frameworks that the employer uses or prefers? How can you align your technical skills with the employer's needs and goals? You can find this information by reading job descriptions, company websites, industry blogs, and online reviews. You can also network with people who work in your field and ask them for feedback and advice.

2 Choose your best work

Once you have a clear idea of what technical skills the employer is looking for, you need to select your best work samples that showcase those skills. You don't need to include everything you have ever done, but rather focus on the most relevant, recent, and impressive projects that demonstrate your technical skills. For example, if you are applying for a web developer role, you might include a website, an app, or a plugin that you have built or contributed to. If you are applying for a data analyst role, you might include a report, a dashboard, or a visualization that you have created or analyzed. Make sure your work samples are of high quality, well-documented, and error-free.

3 Highlight your impact

Besides showing your technical skills, you also need to highlight your impact and achievements in your portfolio. How did your technical skills help you solve a problem, improve a process, or create value for a client, a team, or an organization? What were the results, outcomes, or benefits of your work? How did you measure your performance, progress, or success? You can use numbers, metrics, testimonials, or awards to quantify and validate your impact and achievements. For example, you can say that you increased website traffic by 50%, reduced data processing time by 30%, or received positive feedback from 95% of customers.

4 Add context and details

To make your portfolio more engaging and informative, you need to add context and details to your work samples. You need to explain the purpose, scope, and objectives of each project, the technical skills and tools you used, the challenges you faced, and the solutions you implemented. You also need to provide links, screenshots, videos, or demos of your work samples, so that the employer can see your technical skills in action. You can use captions, annotations, or narratives to add context and details to your work samples. For example, you can use

tags to highlight the code snippets you wrote or modified.
###### Organize and update your portfolio
Finally, you need to organize and update your portfolio to make it easy to navigate and relevant to your career goals. You can use categories, tags, filters, or menus to sort your work samples by technical skills, industries, clients, or types. You can also use a portfolio platform, a website, or a blog to create and host your portfolio online. You can also include a resume, a cover letter, or a bio to introduce yourself and your technical skills to the employer. You should also regularly update your portfolio with new work samples, technical skills, and achievements, as well as remove outdated or irrelevant ones.
######Here’s what else to consider
This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?