Whats Missing in my Portfolio?

Hi, I have been working hard developing my portfolio and getting my resume in the right shape so that it impresses an Employer, I just need your suggestions on what’s missing in my portfolio whats the next thing I should be learning or adding to my portfolio.

portfolio: https://maheshmnj.github.io
at the bottom of the page, you can see my resume as well,
I Would appreciate your suggestions on the same.

thank you

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Hi! It looks like your ‘skills’ tab does not work. Otherwise, the page looks pretty impressive to me.

Grammar man. Its really important with first impressions.

I and my friend’ - should be - ‘My friend and I

There are other cases in your portfolio you can check as well. Even if English is not one of your strongest points it really matters to readers (HR, Recruiters, CTOs etc) that you are demonstrating your ability to effectively communicate. Communication is huge on development teams.

It looks presentable though. I can benefit from improving on my own portfolio as well. I wish you all the best.

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Browsing on mobile:

Some of the css breaks
Clicking on the dropdown menu and then clicking on another item doesn’t close the menu

Projects Section:
Your projects should be in a git repo and linked in the git repo you should show your work with screenshots

Skills Section:
Just put a small section of your skills.
When I’m browsing someone’s portfolio I don’t need to see a paragraph of where they are at with it the projects section / git repo should show me your skills.

No education section?
No work experience section?

The top 1/4 of your portfolio page should include:
Linkedin, Github, Phone Number, Email, CV

Lots of broken English (I can understand if its not your native language just beware that it can make the difference between getting a job and not getting one) Maybe try to limit the use of English until you are more confortable with it?

Overall if you built this on your own its pretty good to look at. Templates are good to use as well so you don’t have to deal with css breaking lol.

Best of luck.

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ok thanks for the reply

ohh I see I will fix it

I always start by stating my experience in development is not extensive, but I do have reasonable design/brand experience to help in regards to how you present yourself.

1. The “type writer” effect of your ‘about me’ section is long winded, most potential employers probably don’t have the time to sit and wait for this section to type out in order to read it, I would suggest limiting this effect to “Hi, my name is Mahesh.” If you intend to keep it.

2. Your skills section takes up a lot of space. The images and descriptions are nice, but it’s very unlikely that someone viewing is going to read through it all, maybe consider scaling down the skills images, and limited the information on each to a few bullet points; it’s more likely to be read this way.

3. I strongly suggest you don’t label your skill level in each technology: “Beginner” “Intermediate” ect. Leave this up to the employer/CTO to decide during an interview, don’t handicap yourself with labels!

4. Show your projects with images/screenshots on your portfolio (you can use some of the space from your skills section if you decide to shrink it up) as well as a link to the possible source code, or at least some snippets on github. Your projects are more important than your skill section, as they back up your claim of said skills, and show people how you actually use them. Put more emphasis on projects, as oppose to your skills section.

5. Fix up some of your grammar and English. I know it can be tough if it’s not your native language, but even if you can get a friend or someone who is more versed in the language to proof check and fix up these errors, it will go a very long way.

These are largely my opinions, however I do feel these changes will help your portfolio catch more eyes and the attention of employers.

TLDR…
-Use less characters in typewriter effect.
-Make your skills section smaller and remove experience labels
-Use new space on page to show your projects with images, and links to source code
-Fix the page grammar (even if you get a friend to proof read/fix it)

I hope this helps, and you have success in landing an awesome job. Be sure to keep us updated on your progress!

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The most striking thing is also the easiest. Call a friend or hire a freelancer to review and edit your site. Make sure they are a native English speaker or have at least lived in an English-speaking country for many years. No people who learned English in school and never spoke it again. Buy them some pizza or beers and get them to go over it properly.

I appreciate that doing this kind of thing in a second language is super hard. Unfortunately not everyone who visits your site will bring the perspective of a language learner. Spelling and grammar mistakes make it look like you will be hard to communicate with, are hasty or careless in your work, etc. This will be the easiest thing to fix and probably the most effective.

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thank you very much for those suggestions, I totaly agree with you I will surely work on them,
thanks for taking your time

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My pleasure, always happy to help. Best of luck in your job hunting journey!

Hey Mahesh,
I like the overall colour-scheme of your page and the form is pretty neat as well. :slight_smile:

Couple of pointers for further tweaking:

  • the :hover transition from white to grey on the cards enlarges the grey area beyond the card container on the edges. I don’t know if that’s intended, but it doesn’t look good when there is container overflow.
  • put a max width on the card images. They have a good size on mobile, but on a 1920x1020 screen they get so large that they look pixelated and it gets worse on a multi-monitor system. Assume that recruiters first check your site on a larger screen, not on mobile.
  • “Lets Connect” is not centered properly within the container (height-wise, not width-wise)
  • from a fellow fccamper perspective: I think it’s great that you want to explore more languages like PHP and are learning JS just like me :slight_smile: From my background in personnell selection I’d advise to also consider how you are presenting yourself: Ideally, you want to use your site to build a strong case for hiring you. This means: Everything on the site should be designed to showcase your strengths and the benefits your skills can provide to your employer. How can your skills make the life of your employer easier/better and make their organization more successful?
    Highlighting the fields where you are inexperienced thus might not be the best strategy.
  • Your site puts a lot emphasis on skills, and little on realized projects using those skills. That’s the impression I get from the space allocation of the skills section compared to the projects section.That can work, but showcasing your skills by presenting one or two projects for each skill might be a more convincing way to go about it. Ideally, when someone visits your site, they should get the impression “Wow, Mahesh did a lot of cool things!” and your use of graphics and space should work towards that imho.
  • Clear profile: What career track are you working towards? mobile app development? Front end design? It’s hard to tell for me, so it might be for people less accustomed to programming as well. Depending on what you wish to become, I’d restructure the content to emphasize all information relevant for that job.
  • as others have already pointed out: grammar, syntax and punctuation. English isn’t my native language either but as Lewis pointed out, this may seen by recruiters as potentially problematic when they look for employees with good communication skills. What helped me there was finding things that I enjoy and pursue those in an english speaking field (ie. reading books in english, watching series in english, communicating online with others about interests/hobbies etc in english.) - learning programming is thus already a good step in that direction. Create an additional list of things you can do to up your english skills by just revisiting parts of the language syntax (e.g. 1. Capitalization in the english language: when to use upper case. 2. The use of " 's " etc.) - treat it as just another side project to dive into and i’m sure this won’t be any issue in no time :slight_smile:
  • Put the contact buttons for fb, twitter etc. near the header as well as near the contact section.

Best wishes,
Michael

To me, if I was an employer, I’d think that you are claiming too much and showing too little. Also, and I really can’t emphasise this enough, it’s really important in the job market to decide on a specialism. There are NO JOBS for people with a bit of Python, a bit of Java and a bit of C++. You need to pick one language or one area (front end, back end, data analysis etc), get really good at it, build 10 apps to prove it, and stick all the code on GitHub.

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thanks for the feedback I fixed few of them Working on the rest too

Not a grammar whiz myself, but even I can see that your typewriter about me paragraph is full of grammar problems like punctuation errors and odd capitalization. That immediately gives off an unprofessional air.

As some people have suggested, spend a little money and have someone edit and proofread it for you if you cannot find a friend to do it.

Be less colloquial in your project description, assume people don’t have time to read it all. Convey the most important thing in as few words as possible. I don’t need a story for each project. Tell me what you used to build it and how you use those technologies.

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At fullHD screen it looks not well. Maybe body max-width will fix that.
http://joxi.net/a2X4ZoBuwQqO42

Typewriting feature is cool! But it’s hard to read it - words appear every time closer to the right border. Comfortable to read self appearing words at the same place. Take a look at this app’s principle:


Words always appear at the same place and it’s help to read faster.

I see image pixels, better use bigger/better quality images: http://joxi.net/V2VDLoPfdBbnnr

You should highlight current block link. When I click “About” nothing happens, but it looks the same as other links and I assume it should lead me somewhere else. Skills and Gallery links doesn’t work. There is no section Gallery at all.

There are already too much typed about grammar here. But… I’d recomend you to make it in your native language and to use any library, that will add a button which user can use to automatically translate it.

The content wrapper is too wide on wider screens. Make it ~80% at most I’d say.

Also, center the form and have only one element per line.

Smoothen the animations when hovering the skill cards (Skills & Web Development sections).

Little things, but worth improving.

First off, really good job. Here are a couple of thoughts.

  • you need to do proper spacing in all of your text. Lots of errors.

  • I would move your Projects section up a little and vertically center your first text.

  • in your projects section I would make it 3 across and lengthen them instead of the way you have it to make it look better.

  • in your Skills and Web Development section I would make your images smaller so that they look balanced with the text.

  • I would also vertically space your sections a little further apart so that it doesn’t look so cramped.

I hope this helps you.

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