The 4 portfolio projects that actually get college students interviews

Recruiters spend seconds, not minutes, on a portfolio. That means the project itself matters less than how legible it is: what problem it solves, what you built, and what happened when real people used it.

Pick projects with tension. A to-do app has none. A tool that scrapes your university's course catalog and warns you about schedule conflicts has plenty — constraints, edge cases, and a user who isn't you.

Then write it down. One page: the problem, your approach, one decision you'd defend, and one thing you'd change. That page is what gets you the interview; the code is what keeps you in it.