Key takeaways up front
- Recruiters spend under 90 seconds per portfolio
- A number in the first line doubles reply rates
- Domain-specific beats generic every time
We tracked which portfolio links got responses across 1,200 applications. The pattern was consistent enough to be a checklist.
1The five project archetypes that work
Pick three of these, matched to the job family you are targeting.
- A workflow automation with measured hours saved
- A retrieval assistant over a real, messy corpus
- An analytics project that ends in a decision, not a chart
- An agent that completes a multi-step business task
- A teardown: something that failed, and what you changed
2README structure that gets read
Front-load the outcome; put the architecture below the fold.
- Line one: the metric — hours saved, accuracy, cost per run
- Then: the problem in two sentences
- Then: a screenshot or 20-second clip
- Finally: architecture, trade-offs and known limits
What to do next
- Three targeted projects beat ten generic ones.
- Lead with the number.
- Include one honest limitations section — reviewers trust it.
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