If I had to name the single most underused portfolio strategy, it would be side projects. Not certifications. Not endorsements. Not a flashy website design. Side projects.

A good side project tells a hiring manager three things at once: you care enough about your craft to do it in your spare time, you can finish what you start, and you can work independently. Those three signals are worth more than most people realise.

What Counts as a Side Project?

The definition is broader than you might think. A side project is any self-directed work that demonstrates professional skills outside of your paid employment. It could be:

• A personal app or website you built from scratch
• A data analysis project using publicly available datasets
• A blog where you write about industry trends
• A volunteer engagement where you applied professional skills
• A small business you started on the side
• An open-source contribution
• A community event you organised
• A design challenge or hackathon entry

The key qualifier is that it was your initiative. Nobody assigned it to you. You chose to do it because you wanted to learn, build, or contribute.

Why Hiring Managers Love Them

I’ve spoken with dozens of Australian recruiters and hiring managers over the years, and side projects consistently come up as a differentiator. Here’s why:

They demonstrate initiative. Anyone can do good work when they’re being paid and managed. Side projects show you’re self-motivated.

They fill experience gaps. Especially for graduates, career changers, and people re-entering the workforce, side projects provide concrete evidence of capability when paid experience is limited.

They show current skills. A side project from last month is more relevant than a job you held three years ago. They prove your skills are up to date.

They’re great conversation starters. In interviews, side projects generate the most natural and engaging discussions. Candidates talk about them with genuine enthusiasm, and that energy is contagious.

Choosing the Right Side Project

Not all side projects are created equal. The ones that add the most value to your portfolio share a few characteristics:

Relevance. The project should connect to your career goals, even loosely. A marketing professional building a personal finance tracker app is interesting but doesn’t reinforce their professional narrative. A marketing professional running a social media experiment with documented results does.

Completion. An unfinished side project is worse than no side project. It signals that you lose interest halfway through. If you’re prone to this, start small. A completed weekend project beats an ambitious six-month one that stalls at 40%.

Documentation. The project itself is only half the value. The other half is how you write about it. Document your process, your decisions, what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d do differently. This documentation becomes the case study in your portfolio.

Visibility. A side project nobody can see doesn’t help your portfolio. Publish it. Share it. Put it somewhere accessible. If it’s code, put it on GitHub. If it’s design, put it on Behance or your portfolio site. If it’s writing, publish it on a blog.

Getting Started Without Burning Out

The biggest risk with side projects is burnout. You’re already working full-time. Adding a side project shouldn’t feel like a second job.

Here’s my recommended approach:

Time-box it. Commit to two hours per week — no more. That’s enough to make steady progress without consuming your weekends.

Set a deadline. Give yourself a clear end date. “I’ll finish this in four weeks” creates healthy urgency. Open-ended projects are the ones that die quietly.

Start with what you know. Your first side project shouldn’t require learning a completely new skill set. Use your existing skills on a new problem. The learning-while-doing projects can come later.

Tell someone about it. Accountability helps. Tell a friend, post about it on LinkedIn, or find a community of people doing similar work. External accountability keeps you going when motivation dips.

Presenting Side Projects in Your Portfolio

When you add a side project to your portfolio, present it with the same professionalism as your paid work. Include:

• Project overview: What is it and why did you build it?
• Your role: What specifically did you do?
• Process: How did you approach it?
• Outcomes: What were the results? (Downloads, users, feedback, personal learning)
• Links: Where can people see, use, or explore it?

Don’t apologise for it being a side project. Don’t prefix it with disclaimers about it being “just something I did on the weekend.” Present it confidently alongside your professional work. The best hiring managers won’t distinguish between paid and unpaid work — they’ll evaluate the quality of your thinking and execution.

Pick one idea. Give yourself a month. Build it, document it, and add it to your portfolio. That one addition might be the thing that tips the next hiring decision in your favour.