Operation SiteKill : How To Market Yourself Without All The BS
Much as I adore my pretty portfolio website, I’ve been thinking for awhile now that it’s more than a little useless to me AND is a drag to upkeep. So I’m KILLING MY WEBSITE and linking www.startheredesigns.com to my work-related Tumblr blog.
The Portfolio
Although I’ve been taught to show between 5 and 15 of my very best works in my portfolio, I’m finding that the nature and pace of my work make this pretty useless.
As a freelancer who sometimes has lots of projects and sometimes works on one really cool thing for a year or so, my output is inconsistent. When I work on one really cool project, arguably where I learn the most, I don’t have a lot of finished work to show.
As a freelancer who works with small startups, I tend to wear a TON of hats - and trying to list them all on a homepage just makes me look like a liar.
Findability and The Contact Form
I spend a lot of time turning down people who send me project proposals via my website. Right now because I’m contracting long-term, but also because I don’t generally find jobs through the usual routes - I get most of them through friends. I don’t need a contact form.
The Resume
My resume also seems completely useless at this point. Education - yeah. I know people who make twice as much as me in the tech field who never went to college. Useless.
Yeah, I worked full time at a couple of companies once, but the only other entry in there is “Start Here Designs: 2008 - Present”. I COULD list every client I ever worked with, or even just pick the best, or I could just talk about what I do every day and people who want to hire me can take my word for it.
I’m over it.
Maybe this’ll come back to bite me in the ass later, but I don’t feel like I need a resume, or a portfolio, or a contact form. I’d rather talk about what I do on the regular via Tumblr and show my qualifications through my insights, glimpses of my work, challenges I’ve had, and things that I find important.
I’d rather be a personality than a pile of screenshots.
What’s weird is that I think this actually makes sense for where I am in my career. Really I’m only 6 years out of college, but I don’t feel like I need all the trappings of my portfolio class from ‘06. I don’t go to interviews. I don’t answer bullshit questions like “tell me about a time when you messed up”. I will never again slave over a leave-behind. I don’t make cold calls. I don’t print out resumes.
I am privileged. And I’m going to abuse that.
The trick, I think, will be actually making an effort to make this blog less of a “check out these minimalist posters” and more of a “look what I did today” project.
