Last year this time… I was in Maine… I’m no lobster connoisseur, but this one was pretty good!
This morning as I was going through my email inbox for the first time I noticed an email that had an interesting looking subject line. It included something about a portfolio review…
The staff at The Iron Yard has been working through portfolios and resumes of each student in the last number of days, so it came as no surprise… but I was interested to see what was going to be in it.
After watching the video review/critique of my personal portfolio/resume I went for another cup of coffee.
To be totally honest… it stung a little bit. I’ve been working on my portfolio site and trying to create a resume for the past week or so. Once it was where I kind of felt good about it I tweaked some things and made some changes. It became my “baby.”
Having someone poke holes in my work has never been something I especially enjoyed. Removing myself from my code or project is difficult. I actually think it’s one of the hardest things I’ve been working on learning in the past four months or so.
It’s so easy to get tunnel vision and lose focus of what my app/project is supposed to be doing. Or even simple little things like making it very simple to navigate through my site. Those little things may be little – but they are important.
Having someone who has not been a part of the design, development or implementation look at an app or web page can be super helpful. They tend to notice the little imperfections that I accept because I built the thing. Many times they also approach it with a perspective that is totally different from my own.
Honest feedback from someone who you look up to and respect can take a project from all right to a whole lot better.
After I got my second cup of coffee and returned to my desk I watched the review again… taking notes. It was very obvious that the critique was spot on and exactly what I needed to hear and focus on.
Resume/portfolio 2.0 will be better because of the feedback…
Here’s to more quality critiques!