Capstone, your first portfolio piece
A concrete task you can solve within Level 1. The output sits in your folder and looks professional.
You worked through the six lessons of Level 1. Time to build something concrete that you can show. Career-changers always get asked "what have you actually done", here's your first answer.
The task
Pick a small topic from your life or your former job. Examples:
- A colleague had a question about Excel formulas, you spent three hours googling.
- You're organizing a private event and need a schedule.
- You're applying for a job and need a letter for a specific position.
- You're planning a trip and want a route with budget.
Solve the problem fully with the help of ChatGPT or Claude. Not "AI helped me", but "AI was my work tool for this task".
What you should produce
Two files:
-
The result (PDF, Word, spreadsheet, whatever you need). Not raw AI output, but reworked by you.
-
A short making-of (one A4 page, Markdown or Word). With:
- Which problem it was.
- Which prompts you used (the most important 2-4).
- Where you spotted hallucinations or bad outputs and what you did.
- What worked best.
- What you'd do differently next time.
The making-of is the actual skill proof. Anyone can use AI. But describing how you used it critically, that's the difference between layman-clicking and professional work.
Length
Two pages total. Not more.
What's strong, what's weak
Strong:
- Concrete prompts quoted with reasoning.
- One spot where the model was clearly wrong and you corrected it.
- A paragraph where you took a decision against the AI recommendation.
- The output is good enough to be used in real life.
Weak:
- "AI did everything for me, awesome."
- No visible prompts, only results.
- No mention of errors or hallucinations.
- Generic topic without personal angle.
Where this piece belongs
Folder portfolio/level-1-capstone/. The capstones from Level 2 and 3 go in there too.
When you later activate the talent pool, you link this folder on your public profile under /u/your-slug. Companies looking for operators see your capstones first.
Time frame
60 to 90 minutes total. If it takes longer, the task is too big.
Wrap-up
When done, take the Level 1 checkpoint. If you pass, you're ready for Level 2.
And if you feel like it, post your making-of in the Academy community on Discord. Other career-changers benefit more from concrete examples than from any tutorial page.