As a video production recruitment agency, we deal with CVs, resumes and online portfolios on a daily basis. As a team, we’ve probably seen everything – from stunning work displayed on someone’s website to disastrous write-up on 5-page CV. Being post production specialists in London, we have observed and learnt what kind of resumes are most desirable in the creative industry and how our clients react to nicely run websites. That’s why we have decided to share this knowledge with you – whether you are working on your first resume or maybe trying to transform your old one, here are few tips on how you can create a knockout online portfolio.
There is a big chance you will be working on your online CV on your own, therefore choosing the right platform is one of the most important steps you need to take to create stunning website. Take your time to do your research, read opinions on forums and then choose the most suitable platform. You may also want to assess your own website-building skills first and if that is not one of your strength, try going for one of the platforms that is straight-forward and easy to use (for example has lots of ready to use templated and simple dashboard). If you are more of a master in HTML world, then you probably already know better than us which site will be best for you. Some of the platforms we can recommend to check out are certainly Wix, WordPress.com or WordPress.org and Adobe Portfolio.
This is your website – and the viewer needs to feel it! You may want to look at other online portfolios to get an idea how they may work and what are the best ways to present your work visually, but at the end of the day the design of your own online portfolio is fully up to you. Choose your favourite colours, include a nice picture and some interesting facts of yourself. As a post-production recruitment agency in London, we can guarantee that your potential employee will recognise the effort you’ve put in creating your website. So get creative!
If you have years of experience behind you, we know it may be tempting to include every single piece of your work in your new portfolio – but we strongly encourage you not to do it. Take your time in going through your past projects and picking best of your work, and display only the ones that you are most proud of. Another way of approaching this is adding to your portfolio pieces of work that reflect what you want to do in the future – if the person going through your portfolio sees only certain type of projects, it is more likely you will get the job in that specific area. Always remember the golden rule – it’s better to have a few outstanding pieces of work in your online portfolio than dozens of examples of just okay projects.
Once you have curated your best projects, you need to think about the best way of presenting them. Unfortunately, copying and pasting a link to the YouTube video you have produced may be quick but not very efficient. Your future website visitors will want to know the backstory of the project, the exact role you played when creating certain piece of work. The best way is then to present the full project first, and then go into more details underneath. Maybe you have some backstage pictures? Interesting or funny facts about the project? You don’t want to write two pages of description to each piece, so keep the words to minimum in a way that the viewers still could get a better idea of the project. If you an artworker or designer, you may want to include imagery for your work process.
You may be surprised to see this point, however the number of websites we come across that don’t have an easy access to contact details is alarming. Your online portfolio is your way of impressing a potential employer and getting a job – make sure then that your email, phone number and your social media profiles are very accessible.
Your portfolio needs to be live – it’s not something you can spend few hours on and then abandon. Keeping it up-to-date is crucial if you want potential employers to see your amazing work. Fresh content also helps with being more visible in search engines like Google. It is also worth to check from time to time if all your links work properly and that there are no dead ends on your website.
We hope that you found those 6 steps to create your online portfolio useful! Remember that your website very often is considered your first impression in front of a potential client, so make it personal and think carefully about the message you are sending. Have fun creating it, go through a path of memories when choosing the right projects to include and overall – get creative!
If you have any other good tips on how to make your online portfolio stand out, get in touch.
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