Portfolio website: making information public VS what should be kept private
im halfway through designing my portfolio website and since im approaching this too be sort of my resume im noticing that my resume has a lot of information that in general they are not advised to put in public websites where everyone can see, for example on my linkedin i changed the settings so only logged in users can see my profile and only potential recruiters can see details like my university, location and other personal info, now i know that you still need to provide information you cant just be anonymous and hide most of information especially for someone like me unknown and i need to present myself hence why im designing the website to be a brief interactive resume
so i want to know in general, what informations: "Must be in", "good to have", "what is preferably avoided " and "what must stay out"
i dont expect you to make a tier list of all possible personal information, just anything you can help with is much appreciated, thank you
7 Replies
Your portfolio should give info about your work, not necessarily about you, that's the job of your resume.
So if you don't feel like putting private info in your portfolio you can always not. You should have a way to reach you (like a redirect email or something) so someone that comes across your portfolio not from your LinkedIn or resume would still be able to contact you if they want to hire you.
i guess the second question is: does more information = better result
You're overthinking it
You could have the best resume in the world and it's useless if noone clicks it
Just include whatever you're comfortable with that allows people to contact you
people wont contact me if they know nothing about me, and people wont spend time on me as long as im a nameless unknown dev, thats why im designing my website to provide all the info in one page without hiding anything behind clicks or make them work to see details since they wont spend time on me
1 third of the page width will be reserved for information about me and contacts and etc.., the rest 2 thirds is where they can scroll thro past projects and work
It's anecdotal but I don't think most HR / recruiters who you give your resume to care enough to click your portfolio is what I'm trying to say
And all of that personal information should already be on your resume
Your portfolio is moreso just a way to show your personality and some past work you've done to the 10% who care enough to click the portfolio from your resume
I used to think that as long as my portfolio had 'good seo' and a pretty design it would be enough to get people interested... it's not
All your opportunities will come from networking and you putting in the hard work of sending out 100s of resumes
Sorry I know it's a bit off topic, I'm just trying to drive home the point that it's not that practical to overthink what you put on your portfolio - so just add whatever you're comfortable with
99% of working devs are unknown devs, honestly only youtubers give af about portfolios in this industry, I know maybe 2 devs with a portfolio
Portfolios can be good if you plan to work as a freelancer, but frankly, most clients don't care about who you are they just want the job done
So what I'm trying to say is:
- Portfolios are almost useless
- About me pages/sections are basically useless, no point in spending much time nor space in those sections
Privacy is important, there are millions of crawlers going around gathering info from websites, which includes your email/phone number etc. it's not a MASSIVE problem but easy to avoid AND just for the added benefit of actually knowing what you're getting contacted about it's easier to just put a form on your website for clients to contact you through that, as opposed to giving your phone number and having people try to call you or message you without specifying why and now you have to guess if it's some telemarketer call or an actual client
i think i get the point
i will prioritise showing the work in the first place, and leave contacts and personal info to the resume
thanks for the advice, much appreciated