Importance of Projects for IT Freshers to Get Hired

Projects Are More Important Than Marks For IT Freshers

The IT job market has become very different over the years. Companies no longer look just at degrees or grades when hiring freshers; they also look for skills and evidence of working with technology to solve real-world problems. Projects provide the single greatest opportunity to demonstrate this to potential employers. With projects, NIT Freshers can show their practical application of technology and demonstrate their ability to build something, utilise the tools and technologies they know. For example, if you take a coding class in Python at college but do not have a tangible project to showcase what you are learning, nobody will be able to evaluate your ability to do anything with Python until you have had an opportunity to complete a project.

 Completing projects will set you apart from many thousands of other IT Freshers who are likely only able to demonstrate theoretical knowledge. Three to four good projects on your resume will let a recruiter know you have motivation, interest and a working understanding of the technology you are applying for. The majority of all NIT Freshers who struggle to find employment lack the industry experience needed for the position. By using your projects, you are effectively creating testimonials for yourself to prospective employers. No matter what field of IT you are pursuing (software development, testing, data science, cloud, DevOps, UI/UX, Cybersecurity), your projects are going to be your best source of exposure to potential employers.

Why are Projects an Excellent Resource for Developing Employment-Related Competencies?

Nearly all reasons for creating projects are that they provide valuable, real-world job-related abilities that business organisations look for during the hiring process. Specifically, when you create a project, you become proficient in programming skills necessary to write quality code, learn how to troubleshoot coding problems, control and organise programming files, work with various types of software libraries, and integrate other coding tools, which most people do not acquire from typical textbooks but rather through real-world experience creating projects. Furthermore, projects provide you with a comprehensive understanding of essential IT-related Problem-Solving Skills, which are considered the highest-value skills in the IT Industry Sector.

For instance, suppose you create an e-commerce website as part of your project. You may experience various types of technical problems when developing the e-commerce website, such as database connection failures or login issues, user interface problems associated with the alignment of web page elements, and problems with programming interfaces that use the Application Programming Interface (API). In addition to building technical skills through experience identifying and resolving these issues, your project will provide you with first-hand experience working with industry-standard workflows, including using Git and GitHub for source control and versioning, creating and maintaining a structured project directory, developing and implementing Agile task management methodologies, performing testing of applications, deploying completed projects, and maintaining documentation throughout the entire project development process.

How Projects Help You Build Practical Skills That Companies Look For

As you complete multiple projects, you will begin to develop familiarity with various programming frameworks and libraries, including React, Django, Flask, Node.js, and Spring Boot (for front-end and back-end development), as well as with different Machine Learning (ML) Libraries, including NumPy, Pandas, and TensorFlow Libraries. Additionally, business organisations prefer candidates who have prior experience using many of these tools and Technologies.

Finally, projects help you identify areas of interest. Many new IT job candidates are uncertain whether they want to pursue careers as developers, test engineers, business analysts, cloud engineers, etc. Building many different types of projects will allow you to determine which types of work you enjoy and excel at completing relative to your personal interests, skills, and abilities.

The most essential projects for any IT fresher

Not every project will provide the same benefit. To be a competitive candidate, freshers must create projects containing a rich amount of technical knowledge, an example of understanding how to solve problems, evidence of their creative thinking ability, and an example of real-world application. The beginner-level type of project should include examples of their technical skills, such as a calculator, a to-do list application, a personal website, a basic CRUD application, a login system for customers, or a simple automation tool. Building beginner-level projects will help you develop your foundation of technical skills. Moving forward, intermediate-level type of projects should consist of an eCommerce website, an education platform, a Human resource management application, a student management application, a Task management application, a Chat application, a Dashboard, a Machine Learning predictive model and RESTful API services. Intermediate-level projects demonstrate your knowledge of working with Databases, Authentication, APIs, User Interface/User Experience, and real-world workflows.

 Types of Must-Have Projects Every IT Fresher Should Build

 New IT professionals interested in Cloud or DevOps should create projects using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Deployment, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) Pipelines, Docker Containers, and Basic Terraform configuration. New IT professionals interested in Cybersecurity should create Vulnerability Testing Labs using tools to Test Password Hashing, and to scan for vulnerabilities. New IT professionals interested in Data Science should create a Data Cleaning Application, a Visualisation Dashboard and a Predictive Machine Learning (ML) Application. New IT professionals interested in Testing should create a Repository of Test Cases, Automation Scripts and a Framework for Test Automation using Selenium. By creating a minimum of four strong projects (Simple, Intermediate, Advanced, and Based on Dream Career Domain), you will have developed a Portfolio of Work that demonstrates readiness for Work at the Industry level.

Guide to Presenting Your Projects in a Resume, GitHub, and Interviews 

 A recommended approach to effectively convey the project information is to utilise the listed bullet points for various project-related categories, including the type of technology used in building the project and how you addressed the difficulties experienced in creating the project itself. For instance, instead of saying “Developed Student Management System” in the resume, it is preferable to say “Developed Complete Student Management System Using Django, SQLite and Bootstrap”, which offers potential employers a clear understanding of your level of experience and expertise with this type of system.

Many employers will likely have questions about your Student Management System project, such as, “What were the biggest challenges you faced in completing this project?” “Which debugging methods did you utilise to address issues with this project?” “What prompted you to choose the technology you did to develop your project? You should give honest answers that describe how you have personally built this type of system. If you can, you should also take advantage of providing your prospective employers with a link to an online demo of your Student Management System that will allow them to experience it in action.