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I just read that a portfolio with 5-7 projects gets the most recruiter views
I was updating my site last week and found a study from a design blog. It said recruiters spend an average of 2.5 minutes on a portfolio, and the sweet spot for project count is five to seven. I had twelve pieces up, thinking more was better. Now I'm going through the painful process of cutting it down to my strongest six. Has anyone else trimmed their portfolio down and seen a real difference in response rates?
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miles_roberts222mo ago
Cutting down to six pieces forces you to only show your absolute best work, which actually tells a clearer story. A recruiter seeing twelve projects might just skim, but with six, they have to engage with each one. It's like a chef's tasting menu versus a giant buffet. You're guiding their attention to your strongest skills, like that complex web app you built, instead of letting it get lost in a bunch of smaller logos.
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lilyt9016d ago
Hold on, I see it the other way. Cutting down to six means you might leave out a project that shows a different skill or a different kind of problem you solved. If I'm a hiring manager for a small team, I want to see range, not just your top three things. That simple CRUD app you built for a local non-profit might show you can handle real-world constraints and talk to clients, which is more useful than another fancy dashboard. With twelve pieces, I can scan and pick out the ones that match what my team actually needs, instead of being told what to look at. You're betting that the recruiter's taste matches your six favorites, and that's a big gamble.
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