All writing

Why case studies beat a project gallery

A grid of thumbnails tells recruiters you shipped things. A case study tells them how you think.

The old projects grid on my site was six colorful cards with one paragraph each. It looked great and communicated nothing. I could not answer 'what did you actually decide?' for any of them.

Rewriting each project as a case study — problem, approach, outcomes — forced me to remember the decisions. Some projects turned out to be more interesting than I'd credited them. Others turned out to be less. Both are useful data.

If you're a student writing your first portfolio: skip the gallery. Write four case studies instead. Recruiters read them.