Hi coders. I started learning here at FCC in January 2022, and drum roll … I think I’m ready.
I would greatly appreciate your unfiltered feedback on my portfolio. You won’t hurt my feelings, I need to see what you see.
https://main--timmurphywebdev.netlify.app/
My resume is linked in the info drawer of the landing page, and, here.
Quick context: The bulk of my employment history is direct-care of special needs and disabled individuals. I completed an accredited online Full-Stack Software Dev course last year. I’m currently working through a comprehensive React course on Udemy. I work as a data integrity specialist and manual web tester for convention registration products, i.e. how you sign up + manage your registration for large events. I do not work with our company code base directly, I do however use SQL regularly.
I have some text content and links to add to a few project slides, and spacing/position adjustments to make, but all-in-all its nearly done. No component libraries were used. Please kick the tires on the mobile size if you can.
Thank you.
If you are seeking feedback here as well, share the link so I can contribute!
The portfolio on mobile is not a good experience. I would really look into this, granted it could be my connection but everything else is working fine. Half the time I scrolled the page just went blank, loaded weirdly, overall was not pleasant. If I was an employer and noticed this I wouldn’t give it a second look. I would spend some time going over that, as I didn’t stay on the site because of all that. Again, it could be on my side so if others say its working fine then I wouldn’t worry about my comment
I’m not a recruiter or expert, but here are my initial thoughts on your resume:
- Mixing fonts and colors and bold and italics makes it difficult to read and therefor easy to toss out.
- I’ve been told that an initial blurb is outdated and just a waste of limited space.
- I personally hate “technical skills” portions of resumes. When I am reading a candidate’s resume I ignore this section and only look for specific languages and technologies that are referenced in the experience section(s).
- For me, the first almost-half of the page would be skipped.
- You have a typo: “Lead” in the first bullet of your call center should be “Led” (unless you were a very dense metal).
- When you say things like “improving accuracy and efficiency”, it’s really powerful if you can give specific metrics.
- “Implemented”, “Coded”, “Completed”, “Constructed”, “Devised”, “created”, “Developed”, “Deployed”, “Crafted” looks like you were afraid of reusing words and got carried away with the thesaurus, resulting in some weird word choices.
- Put the web developer job in the employment section. I initially thought that you had no professional development experience.
- Treat each technical project like a job history in terms of the way you write it up.
- Put more focus on the technical experience. Expand on those bullet points and try to be specific. If you run out of space, condense your older work experience (for example, it’s not really exciting to a tech manager that you gave a presentation or did proofreading)
Good to know thank you. What device and what browser did you use?
iPhone 15 using safari. This is what I usually get after trying to scroll on the site
Oof yeah thats pretty flawed, thanks. Its working fine on my wife’s iphone SE with safari, and my Android A20 with chrome. I may have to use a tool like BrowserStack to see an array of devices. Chrome dev tools responsive preset views are really unreliable.
Seems to be working better this morning. I can go through the entire thing later today, but I would get rid of the words athlete and introvert at the top. You want to make sure that you are highlighting your skills as much as possible. Your site may only get looked for a very brief time, and athlete has nothing to do with you being a developer or what job you’re aiming for. Introvert when I read that would make me think you would have trouble communicating with others in a team. Those two things really don’t highlight you as a developer
I took your advice. I was trying to add a personal twist to it based on examples I’ve seen elsewhere, but it didn’t translate well. Thank you.
Is the mobile experience flawed for you in any way now? I added vendor prefixes for multi-browser support I’m guessing that worked in your instance.
Thank you for the feedback. Do you have any thoughts on the portfolio?
I may trim the intro paragraph to two sentences and I will tone down the bold/uppercase/font variations. solid points 
I’m trying to adhere somewhat to the structure provided in a resume writing course I took. The technical skills grid is largely to overcome keyword scanning practices, especially ATS. I adjust it when possible based on the job posting to align with their requirements.
My web dev experience is brief; I changed the layout and styling of the org’s weebly site, so its was almost a no-code task. The other task was code related, at least. I feel like trying to milk it for more bullet points is going to backfire when I’m asked about it in interviews. I will move that section to the top of my employment , though.
I didn’t actually look at the portfolio. I very rarely look at applicant portfolios (only if I need to kill time right before the interview starts).
So much of that resume is dead space that could be better used. Put your skills in the bullets under your job descriptions. Don’t rely so heavily upon hyperlinks as your resume may be printed or converted to a raw text file. I’d prioritize the resume.
Also, I’m fairly certain your website doesn’t really follow accessibility best practices.
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I don’t doubt its shy of accessibility standards, I have it at the bottom of my to-do list, is this an important issue for a portfolio project considering my anticipated audience?
For the resume, I can try moving the tech skills into their respective project sections, I like that idea - thank you.
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I am grateful for the resume feedback I’ve received, though I’m still seeking any feedback at all on the portfolio.
A few sentences or bullet points from any of you will give me something to work with. Thank you!
