Looking for job search advice & feedback on Portfolio

Career Advice
#1

Hello all,

I started working through the FCC curriculum in December of last year(the only programming experience I had previously was a bit of Visual Basic), and finished the Front End Certification in August. I just recently purchased a domain & put together a portfolio website(LaneAnderson.net) and I would love to hear some constructive criticisms on how it can be improved.

I have been using FCC, Codecademy, and Treehouse to learn Web Development, but it somestimes feels like I’m years from the skill level I feel is needed to start applying for Dev jobs or start freelancing. Has anyone else experienced this feeling? I have a fairly good grasp of HTML/CSS/JS but job postings want Angular/React/Django/Ruby on Rails/Node.JS, etc. It sometimes feels like drinking from a firehose trying the get a handle on the myriad web technologies.

I work full-time(45 hrs/wk +) and have a family, so I have to be pretty focused and selective with how I spend my learning time. So I suppose my question is am I selling myself short with the skills I’ve developed over the past year? Or do I have quite a ways to go before I can seriously consider a career transition?

Thanks!

-Lane

#2

Clean, effective site. Sets the appropriate tone for a beginning-career dev portfolio.

Everything goes off center when I toggle your site on various devices with smaller screens. Are you using media queries at all? You advertise that you are great at responsive design, so your site must be a case in point.
EDIT: This is a problem with Google Dev tools, it seems. I apologize. Your responsiveness is fine.

Honestly, I was a little disappointed with your About section. I wanted to know more about you, and what you wrote is more like a Services Offered/self-advertisement section (you said you’re interested in freelancing, so this too has its place on your page). You should include a photo and some intriguing bits of information about who you are.

Your portfolio is a little sparse. Aren’t there at least any other FCC projects you could include?

Also, nothing on your GitHub. (I went there hoping to find the code for your portfolio site.) Nothing on your LinkedIn. It would be nice if you actually included the job at which you work 45+ hrs/wk. All experience is relevant.

It’s completely possible that you could be hired with only what you’ve got now. My advice is to ask yourself if you feel comfortable enough with where you are to sell yourself.

It’s helpful to just search for something like “web developer portfolio” and you’ll get a variety of results like this, which can be helpful: tips on how to create a stand-out portfolio, examples of superior work, etc.

As far as progress in learning web development goes, I am just about where you are. It’s funny you say the experience “feels like drinking from a firehose,” 'cause there’s actually a (way overpriced, in my opinion) boot camp Firehose (named for just what you describe, I believe) with whom I did the advertised two free weeks (nothing at all to write home about).

1 Like
#3

Thanks for your recommendations!
The Git repo has been uploaded to GitHub for viewing the source files. And yes I can include more FCC projects, I just chose to showcase the very best on the site.

I really went back and forth about whether to include an “about me” section on my page, as it seemed difficult to not come off sounding hokey. But I can see the value in adding more personal info, so I’ll give it a shot.

As far as LinkedIn goes, I assumed putting my current job(completely different industry) would do more harm than good?

Thanks again for your feedback, it is much appreciated!

#4

Looks good … but i ran it through this to see how it rates for different aspects and iti highlights a few things to improve good news not difficult to sort out … and your site will be quicker loading when done https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=LaneAnderson.net

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#5