Professional Portfolio vs. Personal Hobby Site

Yakoob on 27/1/2012 at 01:12

I am revamping my e-portfolio at the moment and could use some input and advice. It's basically divided into 3 separate sites: cinematography, programming and web design. My goal is to "combine" them into a single site so ALL my professional info is in one place (right now if someone stumbles upon one they have no idea of my other skills; that wont matter in 99% of the cases but it's the 1% I want to account for).

I also want to add a Hobby / Blog section where I can put up other stuff - typical rants, maybe some coding tutorials, random photoshops I do/have done (for those who've seen my old site may get an idea), flash animations etc. Not exactly professional showcase material, but something to generate content, work as SEO and be *fun* to do.

So the question is: do I keep them separate, but linked ("view my blog >" and "view my portfolio >") or do I just keep them together as one site (just add a "Blog" link next to the Cinematograhpy / Programming / Web)

* FOR combining:
- If a user stumbles upon my blog they will instantly see my professional skills without having to click "view my portfolio" link (hello SEO)
- There is some content overlap in the areas (for example videos/coding count as both professional and hobby, not sure how to deal with that, but at least I avoid duplication)
- I can keep ALL my shit in one place instead of managing two separate sites

* FOR separating:
- Some of my hobby content may not exactly be pg-13 so either I am going for "that's my e-persona, deal with it" or I need to self-censore
- I can use different CMSes for the two sites (WordPress for blog and my current framework for professional, since it's a pain implementing highly customized page layouts in WP)
- I plan to have my full name and contact info on each page of the portfolio, but I dont necessarily want that visible on the blog. Yes I know I can hide them but it's confusing if it keeps showing up or disappearing between pages

I'm still sorting how I want to manage my content but the basic sitemap is looking like:

- Professional
--- Cinematography
------ Reel
------ Other Film Work
------ Resume
--- Programming
------ Games
------ Applications
------ Resume
--- Web Design
------ Showcase (websites done)
------ Flash
------ Resume

- Hobby
--- Blog (Rants, Gaming, Film, Web, Programming Thoughts etc., not sure if I should keep each category as separate link)
--- Photoshops
--- Flash Animations
--- Photography

One thing I hate is that I have 3 different resumes (albeit the Programming/Web Design can be combined so I am using just one for both), but the formatting and relevant skills are completly different so I cant merge them. Also, since there is some overlap (i.e. professional flash vs. hobby flash) I am also thinking instead of separating my site into "Professional" and "Hobby" if I should just have it all merged into relevant sections (i.e. look at Angry Video Game Nerd and how its both).

Thoughts and considerations welcome.

Digital Nightfall on 27/1/2012 at 01:53

If your goal is to get a specific job, all of the advice I was given was to make a portfolio site as focused as possible. All the usual tips: Catch their eye with your best work in 5 seconds, don't present yourself as scattered or unsure, and the most cynical of all... it avoids alienating employers who hate their employees having lives outside of work.

But if that's not your goal, by all means make it a collage of all of your interests. As soon as I got my job, I redid my website from very focused to be more like you're describing.

Yakoob on 27/1/2012 at 03:35

Yep, which is why these are separate now for film/coding/web, but there is so much overlap in the tech world now (mobile gaming = web + coding, web series = web + film etc) I feel like I may be missing out by not presenting my full array of skills. I tried to pick just one, but decided I like all three equally and just branded myself as "cinematographer, programmer, web designer." Now I want to add a hobby/blog section for fun, to amuse others and generate more inbound links.

It may sound a little bold / stupid, but I've been getting some attention for both my game and web side of things (which are actually on the same page right now, with just film being separate) so I suppose it's somewhat working. And as for

Quote:

it avoids alienating employers who hate their employees having lives outside of work.

Those are not the employers I want to be working for. Hence why I am thinking of just merging my stuff together and just presenting myself as who I am; I feel like if you want to be pursue careers that suit you, present yourself honestly. And luckily, all three fields are fairly laid back in those regards (with web being slightly more formal, but that hasnt stopped the recruiters yet!)

Muzman on 27/1/2012 at 05:49

It isn't necessarily that you'd work for someone who doesn't want you to have a life, but covering a particular base on the 'People are generally idiots when it comes to hiring" index (who have all kinds of prejudices and voodoo beliefs that have little to do with getting the best person).
Wanting to ignore all that is perfectly legit. I'm just saying that's mostly what it is.

I don't think it matters all that much anymore what you put on your site and so on. I mean, the picture is probably a bit different in places where there's a reasonable amount of work in these areas. But generally the impression I get is that smaller outfits all over, and that's kinda what I expect you'll be seeing a lot of with that array of skills, have no idea what they're doing when it comes to advertising and employing people generally and really just want to avoid it. So they end up hiring just friends of friends.
Don't get me wrong. Larger places have no idea what they're doing either, generally speaking (mostly my experience suggest that interviews and resumes references are such pointless ways of telling who'll be good at a job and above a certain low threshold you could pick applicants at random and get roughly the same hit rate. Which is why probations, work experience and so on are pretty much universal now, I'd say). But they kinda have to throw things open wider anyway, sometimes for transparency and accountability reasons.
At smaller scales, particularly in tech-creative areas it seems almost entirely "networking" based now.
So depending on what you're really after, checking out groups and clubs etc in those areas could be the best avenue.

Scots Taffer on 27/1/2012 at 07:57

Quote Posted by Muzman

This is it. If you get your foot in the door with a company - which is a challenge in and of itself, if you recall the comments in your short lived thread about recruitment companies, Yakoob - then it's the time to lay yourself bare about what you want from a job and employer, and what they can expect from you. Doing that before you're even being considered by way of letting recruiters and potential employers see the "real" you ranting in blogs and so on is destined for failure. Of course, equally none of it might matter because they won't look or care.

Yakoob on 27/1/2012 at 08:50

True true. However, pretty much all the calls I am getting are from CareerBuilder, I only got a few in the past year or two from people stumbling on my site (and if my statcounter is an indication, barely anyone stumbles upon it). The only time anyone sees my site right now is if I specifically email them a link with my application or give my card. Hence, putting the blog on the site (instead of separate) is supposed to increase the chance of the "random browsers" seeing my stuff.