Front-end developer since 2016. Focused on React with GraphQL while studying software architecture, design patterns, emotional intelligence, and leadership.
I appreciate how well strctured and deep is this article. It gives you a wider scope about who can look at your resume and how you can have a more accurate impact using a resume fit for the job.
What do you think of a portfolio/presentation page as a part of a resume to show data in a more interactive way?
Previously at Uber, Skyscanner, Skype/Microsoft. I love to help people grow and share what I learned. I write longer articles on software engineering at blog.pragmaticengineer.com.
As a hiring manager, I hired generalist web engineers, where we didn’t care about the portfolio: knowing a programming language (JavaScript / TypeScript) was more important. This mirrors companies - especially larger ones - looking for generalist engineers.
Portfolios, in my view, are more important when applying to smaller companies, possibly agencies. However, hiring managers and recruiters won’t click through to links in a resume if:
There are a LOT of applications: they’ll just shortlist the most promising ones based on resume contents. Then check those resumes in more depth
If the recruiter filters, and the hiring manager instructs them to look for certain technologies (eg React, Resux, JavaScript) and X years experience.
So yeah, portfolios won’t hurt and can also help, but your resume first needs to pass that “first scan” and fit the checkboxes the screener is looking for.
My honest view is that there’s a lot of advice on create a great portfolio that comes from non-hiring managers (people who ended up getting a job) amd people really want to believe the portfolio will help a lot. It’s a purpose that keeps you busy, helps you practice: but it will probably play less of a role than you expect.
I say think of how you can stand out from the crowd: yes, build a portfolio, yes, learn new skills while you do it... but push yourself further. Eg have you thought of contributing to a popular open source framework? Now that could make a resume stand out 10x more than any portfolio at companies that are big on code quality or contributions to open source.
(Hint: to you can contribute to dev.to codebase and claim that your code is used by 500K devs on your resume: now that is something!)
Previously at Uber, Skyscanner, Skype/Microsoft. I love to help people grow and share what I learned. I write longer articles on software engineering at blog.pragmaticengineer.com.
As a Hiring Manager and Hands on Engineer I look into the details of personal websites and github repositories of the candidate, and I often include question in their interviews of their own published work, I find it very useful.
Previously at Uber, Skyscanner, Skype/Microsoft. I love to help people grow and share what I learned. I write longer articles on software engineering at blog.pragmaticengineer.com.
It comes to show how hiring managers and recruiters have very different approaches, especially based on the company size.
If I started a a startup, I’d do exactly the same. If I got 10 applications for a posting, I’d still do the same.
At a large company, where there are many inbound applications and/or there is a conscious effort to not have bias that impacts people with no personal projects negatively (eg they don’t have additional time to do these or cannot publish them), hiring managers/recruiters might just skip what another person would look at.
You can only have an upside with your side projects: you learn for sure, you practice, and some hiring managers will pay additional attention. You’ll just (unfortunately) never know which ones!
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I appreciate how well strctured and deep is this article. It gives you a wider scope about who can look at your resume and how you can have a more accurate impact using a resume fit for the job.
What do you think of a portfolio/presentation page as a part of a resume to show data in a more interactive way?
As a hiring manager, I hired generalist web engineers, where we didn’t care about the portfolio: knowing a programming language (JavaScript / TypeScript) was more important. This mirrors companies - especially larger ones - looking for generalist engineers.
Portfolios, in my view, are more important when applying to smaller companies, possibly agencies. However, hiring managers and recruiters won’t click through to links in a resume if:
So yeah, portfolios won’t hurt and can also help, but your resume first needs to pass that “first scan” and fit the checkboxes the screener is looking for.
My honest view is that there’s a lot of advice on create a great portfolio that comes from non-hiring managers (people who ended up getting a job) amd people really want to believe the portfolio will help a lot. It’s a purpose that keeps you busy, helps you practice: but it will probably play less of a role than you expect.
I say think of how you can stand out from the crowd: yes, build a portfolio, yes, learn new skills while you do it... but push yourself further. Eg have you thought of contributing to a popular open source framework? Now that could make a resume stand out 10x more than any portfolio at companies that are big on code quality or contributions to open source.
(Hint: to you can contribute to dev.to codebase and claim that your code is used by 500K devs on your resume: now that is something!)
Freudian slip? ;-)
Hahaha, I missed it: now I'll leave it and pretend it was deliberate :D
As a Hiring Manager and Hands on Engineer I look into the details of personal websites and github repositories of the candidate, and I often include question in their interviews of their own published work, I find it very useful.
It comes to show how hiring managers and recruiters have very different approaches, especially based on the company size.
If I started a a startup, I’d do exactly the same. If I got 10 applications for a posting, I’d still do the same.
At a large company, where there are many inbound applications and/or there is a conscious effort to not have bias that impacts people with no personal projects negatively (eg they don’t have additional time to do these or cannot publish them), hiring managers/recruiters might just skip what another person would look at.
You can only have an upside with your side projects: you learn for sure, you practice, and some hiring managers will pay additional attention. You’ll just (unfortunately) never know which ones!