At the company I work for, we’re hiring for a web designer position. As the person who will be getting this person (or persons) up to speed, and handing over some of my non-coding workload, I have been evaluating the resumes and portfolios of work as closely as my boss has.

One applicant really took himself out of the running because of the lone picture of him on his home page (which served as his portfolio). The picture was of him at his computer, wearing something looking like a Mexican wrestling mask over his head, with sunglasses over the mask. It’s hard to do the picture justice in text.

EDIT: After going back and forth over it, I decided to post the picture, but only after copying it over to my blog instead of hotlinking directly to it (so as to not expose the poor guy’s homepage URL):

The photo really chased off my boss and the other designers. They’re very concerned about personalities of the “tech” people they bring in, as they had a very bad experience with the programmer they had before me (which is what led to there being an opening, and me stumbling into the job). We’re not a stuffy corporate environment; our office is decorated like a jungle, and I get to come into work every day wearing shorts and with my (well-behaved) dog, who spends the day curled up under the adjacent desk. So it’s a bad thing when the way you present yourself chases off this group of people.

OK, given that my last few blog posts include professed “love” (we’ll call it love) of the 17-year-old redheaded German curling girl, and a photo of the “sorry, no EBT” sign on the door of the nearby 7-11, I’m probably not speaking from high ground here. But think about what you put out there, especially when you’re applying for a job.