How to Make Your GitHub Profile and Projects Stand Out Effectively

Hey guys, today I'm going to show you how to make your GitHub stand out and also how to document your projects the

right way. I've gotten a lot of opportunities and offers thanks to my GitHub. I've even been in interviews

with companies like Verscell and Amazon and GitHub was one of the first things they brought up. So before we start,

like this video and subscribe already if you haven't. It really helps me keep making these for you. All right, let's

go. So first of all, we need to create an account. There are different ways to do that. You can sign up with Apple,

Google, or just email and password. I'm going to use Google Signup, so give me a second. All right. Now, I'm setting my

username. GitHub gave me a random one based on my Google account, but I'm going to change it to Mariah Tech123.

And we're signed in. Perfect. This is what GitHub looks like after you log in. It's super basic right now. Just a

reminder, this isn't a full GitHub tutorial. We're only focusing on making your profile stand out, not going deep

into every feature. Okay, now let's start setting up our profile. Click on your profile picture in the top right

corner. Then click on your profile in the dropdown. Now we're inside the profile. Before we edit anything, let me

quickly show you how my main profile is set up. You see, I've got a profile image, my location, the current time,

and two links. One is my link tree, and one goes to my LinkedIn. I also have a personal readme and pinned projects down

below. So, let's start building our own. [music] First, let's set our name. This is what people will see. Next, let's add

a [music] bio. I personally don't use one on my main profile, mostly because people know me from LinkedIn and other

platforms. I'm not saying I'm famous or anything, just saying I skip it because it's already out there. But, if you're

new or still growing, it's definitely a good idea to have one. So, I'll just copy mine from LinkedIn to save some

time. Now we add the location. You don't need to put your full address. Just your city or country is more than enough. You

don't want random visitors showing up at your door. Next, there's an option to show your local time. I recommend

turning that on. It's super useful if someone wants to message or email you. They'll know if it's like 3:00 a.m. your

time and maybe wait till later. Now, you can add your email, but I'm skipping that because I don't want spam. I've had

that happen before. And if anyone wanted to reach out, they can just go to my social accounts [music] like LinkedIn or

Instagram which are already linked in my profile. Let's move on to the link section. Here I've added my link tree

and my social accounts. Perfect. Now [music] let's click on save. There is also a status section. You can set

something like learning, open to work, or focusing. I'm just going to write focusing and add a little melting face

emoji. So now we've got name, bio, location, time zone, links, and status. Now, let's add a profile picture, also

called an avatar. [music] To do that, click on the image area, and you'll be taken to settings. There's a lot here,

but we're only touching one thing, your profile photo. Click the pencil icon next to the avatar. Choose an image you

like and upload it. Once that's done, you'll see a message that says, "It might take a few minutes to update." And

it actually does take time, like 2 to 4 minutes. If you go back to your profile immediately, the new image won't show up

yet. All right, let's move on to the most important part, your personal readme. This is the part that shows up

right at the top of your profile. To create it, we need to make a new repository. Click the plus icon at the

top right and select new repository. Or you can go to the homepage and click create repository. Now, here's the key.

You need to name the repository exactly the same as your GitHub username. >> [music]

>> That's how GitHub knows to display it on your profile. You can also add a short description if you want. GitHub gives

some suggestions and which is nice, but I'll skip that for now. Now, make sure to check the box that says add a readme

and then [music] click create repository. And we're done. It already comes with a line that says hey there

inside the readme. To edit it, just click the pencil icon. Before we start editing, I want to show you how it

actually looks on your profile. And yeah, it's super clean, simple, and wellplaced. Okay, let's go ahead and

edit it. You'll notice GitHub already added some markdown formatting, and honestly, it's helpful, but a lot of

people delete it or ignore it completely, and they end up writing messy readmies. Here's the thing. When

you write your readme, keep it simple, clear, and short. Any recruiter or hiring manager who lands on your profile

should be able to understand who you are in 10 seconds. That's it. You don't need fancy graphs, tons of badges, language

heat maps, or giant anime banners. That might look cool to you, but it's not recruiter friendly. Most recruiters

aren't even technical. You want a readme that's straight to the point. Who you are, what you work on, what tools you

use, and how to reach you. That's a good readme. If you want to go the extra mile, you can earn badges over time by

contributing to projects, completing challenges, or being active here on GitHub. Badges show you're involved.

Follower don't matter. They don't show your skill set. But badges, they do. And that's it for the profile setup. In the

next part, I'll show you how to document your repository, which is honestly the most important part of this entire

video. This is what really makes your profile stand out. All right, so now let's talk about how to document your

project properly. Let's say you already created a repository and have an empty readme file. From here, what you need to

do is think like you're writing this for your team, not just for yourself. Ask yourself, if someone new joined my

project today, would they understand this? That's how you should approach documentation. Let's take a look at one

of my projects, my Exalaw clone called Ninja Sketch. This project has a full readme, and I want to show you how it's

structured. First, I have a description at the top what this project is. Then I added some tags or badges on the side

like React, TypeScript, [music] Canvas, testing, all that. And now the read me. We start with a short intro followed by

[music] technologies I used, features, what users can do, keyboard shortcuts, the [music] process, how I built it,

what I learned, how it could be improved, how to run the project, and [music] finally a video showing it live.

Yes, I know it's a lot, but honestly, it's so worth it. You learn so much by explaining things clearly. You also help

other developer or recruiters understand the depth of your thinking. Now, let's look at something more minimalistic,

[music] but still super effective. Here's my project called Anime Scene Gallery. This one's way shorter, but

still does the job. [music] It has a short description, the text stack, a few key features, a short paragraph on the

process, how to run the project, and a small video preview at the end. That's it. And you know what? That's totally

enough. If you're wondering how much should I write, let this be your answer. The anime scene gallery readme is the

bare minimum of what you should include if you want your work to stand out. Okay, there you have it. That's how you

make your GitHub profile and your project stand out. Thanks for watching. Please leave a like and subscribe if you

learned something. Also, drop your GitHub profile in the comments. I'll be checking them out and replying to as

many as I can. Let's connect down there and I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.

[music] >> [music] >> Hey,

[music] hey, hey.