Private Portfolios - Good or bad?

slipsius

Hey all,

After a little conversation with some friends (and fellow polycounter), I thought I'd ask around to see what people think about private portfolios. In other words, sending potential employers non-released work. Stuff that is still under NDA. I know I've heard about people doing it before, and I can see ups and downs of doing it, and not doing it.

The plus side - You are able to show your most recent work, which is more often than not, your best work.

The down side - employers may toss your application right out the window because it breaks your current NDA.

But, I've still heard about people doing it, and some friends say they would do it, but I don't know how I feel about doing it. Even though my NDA is pretty low key and I was told I can talk about stuff with friends, as long as I don't blast it all over the internet.

I just want to know your opinions on the matter. I know there are a few recruiters around, so I'd love to hear your opinions.

Cheers

Ghostscape

A friend of mine, who was integral in the hiring process at his studio, would see a lot of these. He told me that so long as steps were taken to ensure the protection of the company, it didn't hurt to have that kind of stuff in there.

So long as a good faith effort was made to ensure that the private, NDA'd work was protected, it didn't reflect poorly on the artist. If there was not a good faith effort made, then it did reflect poorly.

seforin

password protection is your BFF

Geezus

I've used private portfolios in the past. I just made sure to get permission from my previous employers. Typically, it shouldn't be a big deal. However, if you're still working at the studio, and want to use current NDA work in your private portfolio, but don't want your current employer to know that you're looking for a new gig... that could be an issue.

slipsius

ya Geezus... That's kind of why Im asking. I don't want them knowing :S Not yet at least

Geezus

Ah, well then. Echoing what seforin said. However, kinda bad form? *shrug*

Justin Meisse

I put the stuff in a private portfolio that most people put on their public portfolios without a second thought - art tests

Ace-Angel

What is the best way to setup a private folio if you don't mind me asking? A simple ZIP file with needed stuff and passworded is fine?

slipsius

art tests arent always under NDA though. thats my concern is using stuff in NDA. some ppl seem to say its fine to use in private portfolios. some think its bad.

and ya, im wondering what the best way to set it up is as well. how do you password protect stuff? And whats the point of passwords if you`re sending them to people anyways? if they distribute what you give them, they can just give them the password as well?

Ghostscape

I would never distribute a .zip - I would set up a private folder on your webspace. From there, I would password protect that folder and provide unique user/pass for each user you're giving access to, so you can "track" a leak and discourage sharing it. This also let's you remove the content - once you've e-mailed a .zip it is out in the wild forever to anyone who wanted it, but someone has to put a (small!) amount of effort into right-click save-asing your protected works, which is at the very least an intentional attempt to leak your files.

I'd also only distribute to folks whom you can trust - I wouldn't give Joe Indie Hiring For Mod Work access to that - but I'm pretty sure any game studio large enough to have an HR department is going to treat it professionally.

My hosting provides a bunch of easy tools for managing users, e-mail, etc through their control panel, but barring that you can usually set stuff up with .htaccess and .passwd files, but I haven't used linux/unix commands to do that stuff since my freshman year of college. You're not going to be able to do this with free hosting on carbonmade or whatever folks do nowadays.

Rens

You can put a .htpasswd into your root folder of the FTP, and a .htaccess file into the folder you want to protect on the FTP along with everything in it.

google "htpasswd" for a code generater to transtale your user/password

the acces should look something like,

AuthName "Restricted Area"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /srv/www/.htpasswd (directory to find the passwd)
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
require valid-user

these are just text files, like .php, .html
google it and you will find a bunch of items on it


Be careful though with what you show or if its worth it, cause it could reflect bad on you in the sense of, "this guy just shows stuff thats confidential and what if that happens with our project if he gets hired."

Mark Dygert

If a tree falls in the woods...

I think its fine to have a private portfolio that you protect, I would never look down on someone who protects parts of their portfolio as long as it isn't a pain in the ass to get into.

I also think its a good idea to maintain a public portfolio with whatever you are free to post.

sprunghunt

I've seen an NDA explicitly mention showing unreleased work samples 'privately' to prospective employers. So it would be allowed under those conditions.

Kwramm

It's pretty standard. Don't ask, don't tell.

slipsius wrote: »

The down side - employers may toss your application right out the window because it breaks your current NDA.

Their loss. Either they call up every studio inquiring about the status of the art work they receive (pretty unprofessional because the applicant may not have informed his current studio that he wants to change jobs) or they act on an assumption (pretty stupid because you could still have permission to show the art to a limited amount of people, even though other parts of the game are under NDA)

ae.

I think its fine, as long as you make sure that there is good faith and the person looking at the NDA work isent gonna send it around.

i know some studios frown upon it but as an artist its kinda hard to show someone your skillset if all you've done for the past 3 years is NDA'd work and its the only way you can show them what your made of.