Updated: Nov 13, 2021
If you don't have an online portfolio website yet, now is the time to create one.
Trust me, your portfolio website will play a major role in your career advancement and to bring new opportunities to you. In this world where there are tons of software engineers graduating from colleges, it can become hard for the companies to reach out to the ones who really fit the roles and perform responsibilities.
So you must separate yourself from the crowd and be unique.
This is my personal experience. I did not have an online portfolio website in the starting stages of my career and I did not get many interview calls. But after I made it and deployed it, I was surprised at how many HRs thought I will fit a role in their company.
If it has worked for me, it will work for you too.
Let's get started:
Goto my Portfolio website and have a birds-eye view of all the sections & details I have put there.
Visit the Godaddy website and buy a custom domain that matches your name. You can find YouTube tutorials that can help you with this step.
Signup to Github and create your portfolio website code repository with plain HTML, CSS and JS. You can refer to the source code of my portfolio if you want. It is publicly available.
Enable GitHub Pages in your repository settings and set up your DNS server records in Godaddy to point to your git repo. Read this documentation from Github. You can also watch my Youtube video for reference.
Make sure you enable https:// on your website. This is necessary because the recruiters and interviewers will try to check your portfolio website on their office provided laptops. If your website is missing SSL Certificate, it will be blocked in their VPN.
Ask some of your colleagues to give you Recommendations and Skill endorsements on Linkedin. They act as social proof that what you have put on your CV is probably legitimate information.
On the homepage of your portfolio, add links to all the social media profiles. LinkedIn should be the first link in that list. The HRs should be encouraged to click on your LinkedIn profile when they visit your website. On the other hand, make sure you add your website link to LinkedIn's featured section. With these connected links, you will navigate the HR recruiter to different places online and generate curiosity in you and they will feel like giving you a phone call for further discussion. You can always refer to My LinkedIn profile for reference. Stay active on Linkedin.
Update your Github profile readme and showcase all your skills over there. This is not for HR but this is for the Team leads and Technical interviewers because once they receive your profile after initial screening is done by HR, they will most likely click on your GitHub link present in your CV to see what projects you have done. One of my friends, Ankit has created an excellent readme file. You can refer to it if interested. Also, read this blog post for reference on how to do it.
Once you are done setting up your portfolio website, please prepare a good looking Resume / CV and include your website link on the top. When the HR receives your CV through some communication media, he/she should feel like clicking on your website link. So please highlight it and move the link to the top. Once they land on your website. You have gained 50% more chances to receive a phone call for discussion.
Don't hesitate to ask your friends, Linkedin connections for a job referral. It is incredibly effective. Some of the best opportunities I got in my life is through job referral. This is because, if a company receives your profile through an existing employee, it saves their time in hunting for a fresh candidate and they will have an established trust that you are legit. Trust plays a major role in recruitment because as much as you need a job in a good company, the company needs a good candidate like you.
There are a lot of qualified and talented engineers out there but only a few of them make it to the top. One of the distinguishing factors in their career boost is how well they are able to present themselves to the external world. Think about this, the world's most valuable company Apple is incredibly successful because of the way they present their products. From package unboxing to greeting, everything matters.
We, humans, tend to give our attention to things that are well crafted. We are artists after all. We value creativity and this is what separates us from the rest of the species on this planet. The same rule applies to your portfolio. Please give extreme attention to detail, describe yourself in a professional way and it should be interesting to read as well. Trust me, the more time you spend fine-tuning your online portfolio, the more it will be beneficial to you in the long run in your amazing career. I have experienced this happening to me over and over again. So I'm pretty confident this applies universally.
Good luck !
