Welcome to the first part of 14 Steps To A Career-Boosting Portfolio Interactive Course - I'm excited to start working with you on this!
If you missed it, read the announcement here!
Table of Contents
- Introduction - Why Should You Have A Portfolio?
- Start Your Portfolio Faster With Hugo
- How To Present Yourself In A Portfolio?
- How Do You Publish Your Site Online?
- Yes, It's Time To Write Your First Blog Post
- How To Polish And Publish Your Blog Post
- Guide To Spreading Your Online Presence
- An Introduction To Building Your First (Tiny) App
- Ideate And Choose A Stack For Your App
- How Do You Analyize And Plan An Application?
- A Guide To Project Setup Using Web Technologies
- Getting Your Little App From Idea To Realization
- Show Your App To The World By Deploying It
- A Few Words About Maintenance And A Goodbye
Lesson 1 - Why Should You Have A Portfolio And A Blog?
Let me tell you right now - if you are a developer, and especially a Web developer, and you don't have a portfolio - you are missing out.
Let me tell you a story.
Recently I was involved in recruiting a developer for a project that I was working on. We were trying to find a good, intermediate level Front End developer. The recruiters provided us with a dozen of resumes and LinkedIn profiles, and we had to decide which of them to call in for an interview.
Almost none of them had an online portfolio!
In today's world, Internet is overflowing with information. It seems like you can find what ever you want on the Internet, just a few Google searches away. So imagine someone receiving your resume, and typing your name into Google. They want to learn more about you. And they find nothing but your Facebook and Instagram profiles! No blog, no portfolio, empty GitHub and StackOverflow profiles. What does this tell them about you? It's like you don't even exist in the online IT world!
Imagine, on the other hand, that they find a blog with several interesting articles, a portfolio with a few projects, or something similar. That makes you look good. It makes you look like someone who knows what he's doing, and is not afraid to show it.
So, we called a few people that didn't have anything but resume to show, and a few of the people that had a good online presence. And guess who got hired? That's right, both guys that had online presence - a portfolio and some Open Source projects on GitHub.
That's just one example. I got my first job because of my online portfolio. A company saw a little project that I created and they offered me a job without me even asking for it. No interview process, no nothing. I wrote about it here.
Since then, I've been getting called for interviews regularly by people referencing my portfolio and blog. One recruiter really liked an Android app that I made, and asked if I had plans to port it to iOS so she would use it. One recruiter said she contacted me because she read and liked my blog.
Hopefully you can see from these few examples how tremendously important it is to have a good online presence in your field. It is not yet a norm to have it in order to get a good job, but it clearly separates great candidates from good ones.
What are some concrete benefits of building your online presence and reputation? You will have many more job offers to start. You will have the basis for asking for a higher pay or a raise on your current job. You will grow as a professional, as you engage in writing blog posts and creating side projects. It will take time and effort to get there, but not nearly as much as you might think. You just have to want to do it.
Building your portfolio is the first thing you need to do in order to start advancing your career.
I have blogged about this before, so go ahead and read The Perfect Portfolio to get an idea of what you'll be creating. Don't focus on the technical details though. I designed this course to be as easy to get on with, even with people who don't have much programming experience.
Online presence
For a developer, online presence means being easy to find when someone looks for a professional in your field. But also, once they find you, it also includes how much of an expert you present yourself to be. And it's pretty easy to market yourself as someone who knows their stuff, you just need to know how to focus your efforts. Now of course, I'm not suggesting that you create an illusion that you know things when you don't. Marketing yourself as a software developer means connecting yourself with those who seek someone with your skills.
Here are some examples of where you might build your online presence:
- Personal portfolio
- GitHub
- StackOverflow
- Online Resume
Who is this course for?
This course is specifically designed for those of you who are struggling to find a great job. If you're fresh out of college or haven't much programming experience before, this course is tailored to you. I do expect you to have some prior knowledge of IT and to have done at least some coding in the past. But don't be afraid to jump in, as you can always Google something or mail me to ask for an explanation.
If you fit some of this points, this course will definitely benefit you:
- You are having trouble getting a good job.
- You want a raise at your current job.
- You want to be able to ask for higher pay when you interview.
- You have some programming background.
- You don't have much practical programming experience.
- You don't have a portfolio, blog or other forms of online presence.
Engagement
Here's how the course will work.
I'll post lessons twice a week, and sometimes less frequently, if they are more demanding.
The lesson will contain clear information and instructions that will help you accomplish a particular step in your journey of having a great online presence.
Each lesson will have homework at the end. You have to complete this homework in order to advance to the next step. I will ask you to send me the completed task at the end of each lesson. You will just hit "Reply" and tell me what you did, whether or not you had any difficulties in completing the task, or any questions. I will read each and every reply, take a close look at what you did, and answer any questions that you might have.
Results
If you do your homework after each lesson, at the end of this course you will have a powerful online presence, putting you in front of 99% of your fellow developers. You will create:
- Your portfolio
- Your blog
- Publish a first blog post
- Build your presence on popular developer websites
- Create a small project for your portfolio
Homework for you:
Take all the people you know who are developers. Research them on the Internet, pretending to be a recruiter. Write down how many of them have an online presence and what it is. Compare their online presence and the job that they have. Are they doing better or worse than expected? Could they have had better opportunities if they had better online presence?
Fill in this table and analyse it. Score each online presence medium based on how good it seems in terms of if it exists, how good is the provided information and the effort put in.
Then calculate the average online presence score and try to come to some conclusions about the importance of marketing yourself as a developer online.
| Person | Portfolio | Blog | StackOverflow | GitHub | Overall (avg) | Has good job? | Years of experience | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Person 1 | 10 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 5.4 | Yes | 1 |
| Person 2 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2.4 | No | 3 |
| ... | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
What's up next?
Next we take on actually creating your portfolio! It's gonna be exciting!
The next lesson is scheduled for Sunday, September the 17. 2017.
Thanks!
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