Revamping My Creative Portfolio Journey

A Call with the Creative Director

This was the last call I had last year, one I didn't get a chance to share about.

It seemed like that story about the founder who invested in me was something out of a "wow" moment, but surprisingly, our last meeting turned into yet another mentoring session for me.

The insights I gained from our previous conversation became even clearer this time around.

💚 Yes, it's time to revamp my portfolio. This time, he even shared his screen to show me examples.

💚 Yes, I need to include creative projects in my portfolio that are unrelated to corporate work (in my case, DIY projects, stand-up comedy, blogging, and knitting).

He was quite surprised to learn that I had done stand-up comedy and that I had only mentioned it in passing on the 10th slide of my portfolio. He said that once he learned about this, I instantly surpassed 500 other candidates in his mind.

💚 But the most important realization for me was that I had been overly fixated on numbers and results. I thought I couldn’t include anything in my portfolio without backing it up with some figures.

He practically told me directly that he didn't care about the numbers or results — if he saw a great presentation, creativity, and an unconventional idea, it seemed to him that the next steps and how to monetize it would come easily.

Interestingly, through regular networking and job searching, I gained much more than I ever did from platforms offering free mentorship.

What I really regret is not recording both meetings and not adding any kind of AI assistant.

Actually, for the past week, I've been busy revamping my portfolio, and instead of a presentation, I'm building a website.

I’m exhausted — I spent over 12 hours on it just yesterday — but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thankfully, I have no other plans for the week, and it's been mostly rainy outside, even the tennis competitions were canceled today.