What is considered a "decent" project to show in an interview?

Question

I am a Computer Science student beginning my final year. I heard you need a good projects portfolio to showcase in a job interview.
My question is what is considered a good project? I assume building a calculator in java doesn't answer such criteria...

Answer 1

If you are interviewing for a job placement of an OS developer, a portfolio full of fancy web codes may be less relevant. Likewise, if you show your robotics projects to someone who wants to hire you as a front-end developer, you may have difficulties elaborating on how your experience in those projects would help you take on the job.

Make sure you understand what kind of interview you are attending and what skills may be required of you. Based on that, you can find projects you've been a part of, which showcases those skills. It doesn't have to be technical skills, but rather soft skills such as teamwork, time management, project planning, communication, pre-development research, etc. As an interviewer, I would want to hear you elaborate on projects which have given you a tough time, and how you managed to solve those issues and complete the project. Ideally, it wouldn't be too small of a project (calculators, tic tac toe, etc), since those do not really confer much credit from any sizeable hardship.

Answer 2

It really depends on your current skills. Just build something that reflects your current skills. You don't have to go out of your way building something you can't finish or you cannot do efficiently.