Career · 2026-08-22 · 12 min read

Personal projects and GitHub on a CV: which ones count

Which side projects to list, how to write them, and which GitHub URL to paste. Cloned tutorials do not help. ClarCV.

Personal projects on a CV count when there is a problem, your role, and proof (repo, demo, users). A cloned YouTube tutorial, an empty README, or “various GitHub projects” do not. The tech hiring manager opens the link in screening. If the repo is a fork with no commits, you have spent a bullet. This guide rewrites the section you already have; it does not ask for a portfolio from scratch. Stack frame: CV for tech. If there is no contract yet: first job and no experience.

ClarCV leaves GitHub and the bullets as parseable text. Free: 3 analyses and 2 downloads / 30 days, no card. Pro €7/month. We do not analyse your code or invent stars.

One live project with 40 real users beats five Netflix clones. Quality, not quantity.

Which project survives a screen

Before: “Projects: todo app (React).” After: “Habit tracker (2025): React + FastAPI, 3 collaborators, 80 beta users, deploy on Fly.io — github.com/ana/habits.” Same person. Only the second has stack, scope, and a URL. If you are design or data, change the artefact: Figma + case, notebook + dataset, not an empty repo.

• Name, year, your role (author, not “the team”).
• Stack in words the ad uses (Django, dbt, Figma), not a logo.
• Outcome: users, PRs merged, time saved, dataset published.
• Link: a specific repo or demo, not only github.com/you if the profile is a junk drawer.
• Client confidentiality: describe the problem without the name if the NDA blocks it.

GitHub: profile vs repository

The profile in contact (github.com/ana) works if it is curated: pinned repos, an honest profile README. If you have 40 course forks, do not paste the profile: paste two repos. ATS looks for “GitHub” and sometimes the URL; the human clicks. No QR. Late-night commits are not an achievement; a CONTRIBUTING.md and closed issues do count for juniors. Header-URL logic: LinkedIn on the CV — same idea, different domain.

What to cut from the file you already have

Bootcamps: one well-described capstone, not eight katas. Udemy courses: which count. Seniors with recent employment: two side projects max; the rest dilutes the job. In ClarCV you trim to one A4 column. You check that the link opens; the model must not invent a GitHub.