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**5 things you need to know to build a professional portfolio**

📈 Having a professional portfolio increases the chances of being hired in a selection process,  receiving an invitation to be part of a community 🤝 or being recognized in the industry to which you belong.
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In the technology and software development industry, it is common to want to show our work, either to apply for a job offer or to have a digital presence and although we strive to make a nice resume with academic information, technical and soft skills, tools and technologies, languages, this is not enough to show what we do or demonstrate what we know how to do, which is why many referents in the area recommend making a portfolio.

**What is a portfolio?**

It is a digital (or physical) space that allows you to organize, classify and display all academic, work, professional, and contact information in a creative way.

**Do I need a portfolio?**

If your goal is to be contacted by companies in the industry (without having to send thousands of emails), consolidate your personal brand or simply share your work, then the answer is Yes ✅

**What should a portfolio carry?**

This point may vary according to the author, but after researching the subject and seeing other portfolios, I recommend including the following.

✅ **Personal information:** short paragraph in which you describe yourself and make your interests known in a general way.

✅ **Good quality photo:** If you decide to include a photo in your portfolio, make sure you look natural, not too formal, or a crop of your face taken from a group photo. Make it look sharp and with a neutral background.

✅ **What you do:** Describe the main activities you do or the services you offer.

✅ **Training:** includes academic information, courses, and certifications that support your profile.

✅ **Experience:** Include the last three jobs you were in and highlight how your job positively impacted the company. It is also important to highlight if you have held leadership roles.

✅ **Projects:** if you are a designer or developer, you have surely done or participated in various professional or training projects, all are valid. Show the best projects you have done so far and indicate what your contribution was to each one. ➕ add points if you add the link where it is located, image gallery, to or repository in case it is open source.  👀 If the project belongs to a company you've worked for, check before sharing any information.

✅ **Articles:** If you like to write, you can share articles on topics you're passionate about or about what you're learning. With this,  you also contribute to the community and bring valuable content to those who read you.

✅ **Contact:** Include the means by which you would like to be contacted by someone who has been interested in your work. They can be a contact form or through social networks in which you have a professional profile, these also help to complement your information and promote visits to your profiles: GitHub, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

✅ **Location:** indicates the country and city of residence, it can be useful for recruiters who visit your profile to validate if you apply for a vacancy limited to a certain region. Some people do not recommend including location to avoid xenophobia. But it's a personal choice.

**What should a portfolio  DO NOT carry?**

❌ **Unrelated basic training:** Do not include initial and basic education. Or the one that has nothing to do with your profile. Ex: If your profile is DevOps, it is irrelevant to add Professional Makeup Course.

❌ **Unrelated work experience:** If your portfolio represents a software development profile, don't include jobs that have nothing to do with it. Ex: Purchasing assistant in company X.

❌ **Skills represented with percentages:** if you want to show your skills, technologies you master, languages you speak, or soft skills you have, do not do it through a progress bar, this information is ambiguous and it is for interpretation of whoever reads it.

❌ **Personal photos:** Unless you dedicate yourself to photography, do not include a gallery of your own photos, selfies, etc. (except for your avatar).

❌ **Personal contact:** for your safety do not make your email address and phone number public, as they can be used for other purposes or send spam.

**What platform do I use to build my portfolio?**

This will depend on many factors such as time, budget, tastes, and goals. There are many alternatives and combinations of these, but in this article, I will mention three.

🖥️ **Third-party software:** Use cms, or a platform that allows you to build a website without advanced programming knowledge. Ex: Wix, Google Sites, or WordPress.

🌐 Register in a platform dedicated to creating profiles of this type. Ex: Dribbble, Behance.

🎨 Do it yourself: if you have design and programming skills do it yourself, using the technologies of your choice.
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💡**PLUS**

✔️ Update your portfolio content constantly, add your most recent projects, new courses completed, new jobs, and blog posts.

✔️ Add the link of your portfolio to your social networks and include it in your resume.

✔️ Optimize SEO so you can appear in google searches.

✔️ Take care of the details in the content: spelling, redacción, format, and style are elements that speak of you and your work.

✔️ Make your own creative design according to what you want to convey.

✔️ Define a standard for colors, fonts, icons, and images.
 





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Having a professional portfolio increases the chances of being hired in a selection process, of receiving an invitation to be part of a community.

Ana Hernández

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5 things you need to know to build a professional portfolio

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5 things you need to know to build a professional portfolio