Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode
of Data and AI with Mukundan. I know it's been
a while since my last episode. I think it's been
about two months. Well, since then I've been
taking a break to focus on my personal stuff.
I had family come over so I was busy on that.
So it's just like there's a bunch of things going
on. So I just took a break there and you know.
I just promise to be back every week. So just
be on the lookout for a new episode every week
in the data and AI space. And yeah, you will
get an idea about who I am as well in addition
to these episodes. So today's episode, I just
want to talk about like a personal topic, just
like every other episode. But this is when...
you know i was like really down this particular
day so my portfolio basically was not i mean
i was just thinking about a lot of things during
this particular time so it's not just the tech
my life my work my career growth so a lot of
things that i was contemplating during this one
day and support something that built during this
rough patch I was applying to jobs as usual non
-stop and the resume it was already there was
a github as well so this was about it's a bit
September to October I would say of 2024 I had
my resume ready github was also you know having
all the code necessary all the projects necessary
So nothing was happening on the job site. Like,
I mean, everything's ready to apply and nobody's
giving me a call back, right? Like no interviews
scheduled. Nobody's reaching out saying that
they like my resume or something. So no feedback
or anything, just, just the radio silence. So,
and I was thinking around this time, what, how
do I overcome this? and around this time i also
started to get into ai tools so i started to
i thought like well let me try to build something
here right um it's not because i had some really
big plan but i was just tired of this complete
silence that i get from recruiters or hiring
managers where it was basically a lot of self
-doubt that I started creeping in that you know
maybe I'm not enough and I don't know about you
but a lot of people go through this thinking
that they're not enough and especially during
this particular time as well I know that a lot
of my peers who are still looking during this
particular time when nobody's really hiring me
right so it's it's been a very challenging uh
work environment to be in especially if you're
looking or for jobs so what i did i wanted to
take control of this at least well you know it's
only so much you can do but what i wanted to
do was i wanted to be a little more proactive
and i decided well i want to build my own way
forward so i built an ai that would read my resume
scan my github as well and understand the jobs
that i wanted and also tell me the truth so this
episode is about what happened when i did when
i did just that so let's talk about portfolios
now we all know we need them like a portfolio
for a job we we should need them Like a future
hiring manager should be able to see our work.
But here's the thing, nobody tells you. A portfolio
is not a list of projects. It's a signal, like
a story about you. And most of us, including
me back then, we were telling the wrong story.
So personally, I thought if I just keep adding
more projects, surely it will work. i believe
i was wrong i was just showing too much and when
i say that i mean i was just being very weak
very general i didn't know which projects mattered
like which ones really mattered and i don't even
know what hiring managers were looking for i
didn't know how to explain my work in a way that
would actually care about and that gap between
what i'd done and how i told the story was costing
me i needed help but not from a coach or even
a course you'll see multiple online courses and
everybody's always like oh you know you're not
finding jobs maybe you know go apply for a course
maybe do an online course or something but I
mean I have done courses in the past and they've
not really yielded the results which I wanted
so again I wouldn't advise in my in my opinion
at least it's not something that I look at too
much I don't like to do courses it's not for
me I'm sure if it you know if it helps you that's
great it's a good from a learning perspective
for sure But if I would say like at least when
it comes to like actually looking for jobs, it
hasn't helped me. So what I wanted was a system,
something that could read my resume, understand
the job that I wanted, look at my GitHub and
tell me what's working and tell me what's missing.
Here's how you can explain it better. So I wanted
something that would tell me that So I built
it like a simple app Which uses AI the GPT -4
and Python based streamlit the front -end where
we can just drop a resume add the job goal select
select github projects And then it would analyze
everything and give you which are the top projects
that you should highlight to the hiring manager.
Which are the skills that you're missing. And
also a complete rewritten project summary as
well. Now it's like having a very brutally honest
hiring manager who... was actually reviewing
your work and caring for you and for the first
time in months i felt like i was getting real
feedback that really helps me so here's what
the ei told me so let me read you some of what
the ai uh in this case my gpt4 told me word for
word so your best project is buried under fluff
you're missing projects that show understanding
of llms and experimentation rewrite this project
to focus on business outcomes and not the tech
stack so i usually apply for data analysis data
science roles and i don't know about you but
like it's easy to get lost in the tech stack
right like oh i used looker i used tableau or
use python sql dbt but are you telling what what
was the outcome like what did you gain out of
it right Did you drive any measurable business
outcome? Did you maybe drive sales by X percent?
And that would be like a numeric number, right?
And everybody knows this by now, like you need
to have a result based point, a bullet point
in your summary of the project that you worked
on for the role. But yeah, mine, not every point
was like that, I think. It was just that some
of them were still focused on the tech stack.
So another thing the AI gave me was like a rewrite
of one project where it said, use Python and
ML to create customer churn, which helped improve
retention strategy by 35%. And that line alone
made me rethink everything. it was clear it was
impactful and well recruiter friendly so suddenly
i realized i wasn't bad at what i did i was just
bad at telling a story so here's how the app
works it's a quick breakdown so what i did was
first use python to build this app streamlit
on the front end side of the streamlit is a Python
based library which helps you to give like a
visual look to your app so it's like your HTML
but like more fancier than that but basically
what you see on the front end of your app is
because it's a Python based app here you can
paste or upload your resume paste in a job description
or upload it or just you know add your career
goal as well it connects your github via public
API or what I had done was more simple ways just
click to paste the URL as well so that was also
working and it runs your input through a custom
GPT -4 prompt Right and it shows you what to
highlight what's missing and how to rewrite your
best project And then you can export the whole
thing as a PDF It's just that simple But it is
exactly what I needed Here's what I learned I
learned that more projects doesn't mean better
Doesn't mean it's great. I learned that most
resumes they focus on what you did But portfolios,
project portfolios, they show you why they matter.
And I learned that clarity beats complexity every
single time. Well, at least for me. This was
my learnings and it could be different for you.
So what I learned again was GPT -4 when prompted
right can help you reframe your work in a way
that makes people actually care. What this app
did was it gave me back confidence and I used
that clarity to apply for three rules that I
normally hesitate to go after. And for the first
time in a long while, I felt like I was actually
showing up as someone who is true, like as a
version of me that I wanted recruiters and hiring
managers to see. well here's how you can try
the app now upload your resume add your job target
goals you want to achieve professionally pull
in your github projects and get clear ai power
feedback well even if you don't code just use
this prompt in chat gpt here's my resume and
three project descriptions i'm applying to x
job what should and place the job description
here what should i highlight and what am i missing
and can you rewrite one project to sound stronger
it works that's it like it's basically it's just
is repeated again here's the prompt i would use
here's my resume and three project descriptions
i'm applying to x job and x job is replaced by
the job you want to apply to the job description
basically for that job what should i highlight
what am i missing and can you rewrite one project
to sound stronger it works it helps and it's
free like i said so this was one of the most
useful tools i've ever built not because it's
fancy but because it gave me the clarity i needed
at the time so if you're feeling struck or if
your portfolio just isn't getting attention try
this let the ai tell you the truth and then Use
that truth to create something more powerful.
A story that you can tell through the work you've
already done and the value that you're ready
to bring next. Thanks for listening. See you
in the next one.