
Ask HN: Hiring managers, describe the best developer portfolio / personal site - zabana
What should they include ?<p>What are the most common mistakes developers make when talking about themselves ?<p>What do you look for ?<p>Are there things that can influence you favorably ?<p>I&#x27;m curious to know your experiences, thanks.
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Traster
>What should they include ?

Languages, technologies used, with relative experience in each, as well as
projects you've worked on and what YOU contributed.

>What are the most common mistakes developers make when talking about
themselves ?

1\. Not being specific about what the 'team' achieved and what you contributed
for a given project you're describing.

2\. Listing too many things, if I want a specialist in one area you're
damaging your chances if you come across as too much of an all rounder.
There's value in being able to pick up new things, but you don't want to look
like you only work on each thing for 6 months.

>What do you look for ?

Technical competency in the area I'm looking at (completed projects), followed
by the ability to communicate what you've actually worked on to demonstrate
you understand the design decisions and trade-offs and how it actually works.
It's not a bad thing if you've just plugged module A into module B, but that's
not something you should be spending time telling me about if there's nothing
interesting you've done.

>Are there things that can influence you favorably ?

Good organisation of the information is key.

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ponyous
> What should they include?

What are your expertise areas. Such as specific framework and languages.
Detailed experience of recent work places.

> What are the most common mistakes developers make when talking about
> themselves ?

They think 1 person will read the resume and decide. It usually goes through
at least 2 levels: \- HR, they usually focus on keywords and filter the bulk
\- Developers, they usually are interested in more details to see if you can
fit technologically

> What do you look for?

Proven track record of delivering projects. Whether be professionally or as a
side project.

> Are there things that can influence you favorably?

Rare achievements that you don't see on every resume. Something you consider
personal or even a team win. Random example: Our team managed to improve the
initial load time from 10s to 0.5s which also improved our bounce rate.

My greatest tip would be that you make your resume specifically for the 2
types of people I mentioned above: HR and Devs. Since HR are first and get
more resumes, make the first page keyword heavy `X language - Y years of
experience`. On the second page go into details of specific jobs and tech
decisions.

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kleer001
Aside from the expert suggestions here don't forget that job hiring is, on the
whole, a subjective process. Every company wants what they want for their own
reasons. And they may just not want what you've got at the moment you apply,
no matter how good you are. My point is that there is no _best_ #1 portfolio
in the world, only the best they can find at the moment.

Check out the Secretary Problem:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem)

And yes, of course, follow the advice in the rest of the comments here. Take a
while and dress up your portfolio to the best of your ability. Absolutely. The
competition is fierce.

Best of luck to you!

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Jemaclus
Depends on whether you're hiring for an agency or a non-agency (startup, etc).
Agencies generally want a wide variety of websites that you've worked on. I
haven't worked for one in years, so I'll leave it at that.

Personally, as a hiring manager for several startups over the last several
years, I'm mostly interested in two things: can you write code (bare minimum
required for the job) and a sense of who you are. For the former, I'd hope to
see some code in a public repo. Maybe some snippets that demonstrate your
skills, maybe a full project with links to demos or live sites. Remember, for
a programming job, writing code is the bare minimum. I'm not going to give you
a phone call or bring you on-site unless I know you can do that. Your job here
is to demonstrate that not only can you write code, but you can do it well or
have experience to back up your skill set.

For the latter, the question I'm trying to answer is: Do I want to sit next to
you for the next six months?

A portfolio / personal site is a great way to your own personality into your
public arena. LinkedIn doesn't do that very well, and neither does a resume.
But with your personal site, you can mention things you like to do for fun,
link to blog posts that really inspire you, display some of your favorite
projects, etc.

In other words, who are you?

Are you someone hungry to learn a little about everything or are you an expert
who has gone deep into a single topic? Are you extroverted and a good
communicator, or are you the kind of person who would prefer to be given a
project and locked in a closet until it's done? Do you like building new
things or maintaining old apps? Are you only interested in programming or do
you have a wide array of interests? Can you talk intelligently about your work
or do you prefer to let the work speak for itself? What kinds of meetups have
you attended, conferences have you been to, or presentations have you given?
What's your favorite book/movie/song?

There's no wrong answer to any of those questions, but hopefully I have a
sense of who you are before I get on the phone with you. The more I feel like
I know you, the more likely I am to give you a chance.

In short: don't be a robot. Inject personality into your portfolio/site.

