When it comes to job hunting (and bragging rights), you need a professional-level portfolio to put yourself above the competition. Nowadays, most companies even ask for a portfolio link out the gate.
A good portfolio will display your skills and your personality. Just make sure that you know what to avoid before you create your own or edit your current one.
- Not Having One: The online portfolio is the new resume. Mistake number 1 is thinking you shouldn’t make a portfolio and missing out on a chance to have an expanded, in-depth look at your work.
- Thinking They’re for Creatives Only: Portfolios are not reserved for displaying creative work alone. Content marketing campaigns, developed apps, and data projects are also ideal. Research your industry and see what others are doing for their portfolios.
- Providing No Context: As we said, portfolios are more than visual dumping grounds for creative work. Explain projects so a viewer knows the exact type of work you did.
- Not Telling Your Story: Make it personal! It is, after all, your portfolio. Include some sort of background on yourself where you can.
- Not Making it Mobile-Friendly: Duh, right? With any site, you want it to be responsive. If it’s a custom site that means some more leg work, but Behance and GitHub will make it easier on you.
- Not Updating in Realtime: Everyone falls into this trap of only updating their resumes, LinkedIn, and portfolio when they are job hunting, not before. Update your portfolio as you complete work so the backstory and work to display are fresh!
- Not Thinking Through Your IA: Your information architecture/site navigation should take some consideration. Do you group work by project? Type of Work? Or not at all? It all depends on your work.
Check out the full post by MakeUseOf for more portfolio tips.
