What personal information to put on your portfolio (and what to leave off)

A portfolio website is public. Anyone can read it, including recruiters and clients you want to reach, but also spammers, scammers and people you'd rather not hear from. The details you publish should make it easy for the right people to contact you without handing out more than they need.

This guide goes through common pieces of personal information one by one, explains the trade-offs, and covers how to spot the scams that sometimes target job seekers and freelancers.

The basic principle

Before adding any personal detail, ask two questions:

1. Does a recruiter or client need this to decide whether to contact me?
2. Would I be comfortable with a complete stranger knowing it?

If the answer to the first is no, leave it off. If the answer to the second is no, find a safer way to achieve the same goal. Most of the time, a name, a professional headline, a general location and one reliable contact method are all anyone needs.

Your name

Use the name you want to be known by professionally. That might be your full legal name, a shortened version, or the name you use at work. Consistency matters more than formality: use the same name on your portfolio, resume and professional profiles so people can connect them.

If you have personal reasons to limit how searchable you are, you can use a first name and last initial, or a professional name, as long as it matches what you'll use in applications.

Email address

An email address is the most common way for people to reach you, and generally a reasonable thing to share. A few precautions help:

• Use a dedicated address for job searching or client work, separate from your personal inbox. It keeps your main account cleaner and lets you switch it off later.
• Keep it professional. Something based on your name works best.
• Expect some spam. Any email address published on a public page may eventually be collected by automated tools.

A contact form, covered below, lets people reach you without your address appearing on the page at all.

Phone number

Think carefully before publishing a phone number. It's much harder to change than an email address, it's often linked to other accounts, and unwanted calls and texts are more intrusive than unwanted emails.

For most people, it's better to leave your phone number off your public portfolio and share it directly once a conversation has started. If your work depends on quick phone contact, for example as a local tradesperson or event photographer, consider using a separate business number rather than your personal one.

Tip: If you do share a number, say when you're available, such as "Calls weekdays 9 to 5." It sets expectations and makes late-night calls from strangers less likely.

Location and address

A general location is useful. Recruiters want to know whether you're local, in the right time zone or open to relocating, and clients often prefer to hire nearby.

Share the city or region, not your street address. Some examples:

• "Based in Manchester, UK. Open to remote work."
• "Located in the Denver area, available for shoots across Colorado."
• "Working remotely from Eastern Time."

There's almost never a good reason to put your full home address on a portfolio. If you run a business from home and need a business address for legal or invoicing reasons, look into options such as a separate mailing address rather than publishing where you live.

Information to leave off

Some details commonly appeared on resumes in the past but don't belong on a public portfolio. In many countries, employers aren't supposed to consider them anyway, and publishing them only increases your exposure to identity theft or bias.

Leave off:

• Date of birth or age
• Marital status, children or family details
• National identification numbers or tax numbers
• Passport details or full immigration paperwork
• Health information
• Religion or political affiliation, unless directly relevant to the work
• Photos of your home, car or anything showing your address or number plate
• Your children's names, schools or photos

If a legitimate employer needs any of this, they'll ask for it through a formal process at the right stage, usually after an offer.

Why contact forms help

A contact form lets visitors send you a message without seeing your email address. That gives you several advantages:

• Less spam. Your address isn't sitting on the page for automated tools to collect.
• Better messages. You can ask for the information you need, such as what the enquiry is about or a project timeline.
• More control. You decide when and whether to reply, and what details to share once you do.

Many portfolio builders include a contact form and let you choose whether your email or phone appear at all. Whatever you use, send yourself a test message after publishing to make sure messages actually arrive.

Spotting scams aimed at job seekers and freelancers

Having a public portfolio makes you easier to find, which is the point. It also means you may receive messages that look like opportunities but aren't. Common warning signs include:

• Requests for money. A legitimate employer won't ask you to pay for training, equipment or "processing fees" before you start.
• Cheques and refunds. Being sent a payment and asked to forward part of it to someone else is a well-known scam pattern.
• Interviews by chat only. A job offered after a brief text conversation, with no call, video interview or verifiable company contact, deserves suspicion.
• Requests for sensitive details early. Asking for bank details, ID documents or passwords before a formal offer is a red flag.
• Offers that are too generous. Unusually high pay for very little work, with vague details, is a classic lure.
• Pressure and urgency. "We need your answer in the next hour" is designed to stop you thinking clearly.
• Mismatched contact details. A message claiming to be from a large company but sent from a free email account, or a website that doesn't match the company name.

When in doubt, look up the company yourself through an independent search, contact them through their official website, and don't click links or download files from messages you're not sure about.

For freelancers

Freelancers see their own variations: "clients" who want you to buy software through their link, overpay and ask for a refund, or request a large free sample before discussing payment. A written scope, a deposit for larger projects and payment through a method you trust all reduce the risk.

Handling spam

Even with precautions, some spam will reach you. A few habits keep it manageable:

• Use a dedicated email address so spam doesn't flood your personal inbox.
• Don't reply to obvious spam, even to unsubscribe from something you never signed up for.
• Mark spam as such in your email client so it learns.
• If one channel becomes unmanageable, change it. That's much easier with an email address than with a phone number.

A quick checklist

Before you publish your portfolio, check that:

• Your name matches your resume and professional profiles
• You've chosen one main contact method, ideally a contact form or dedicated email
• Your phone number is either off the page or a separate business number
• Your location is city or region level only
• No date of birth, ID numbers or family details appear anywhere
• Your photos don't reveal your home address or other private details
• Your contact method works, tested with a real message

For more on what does belong on the page, see what to include on a portfolio website, and for a photo that's professional without oversharing, see choosing a profile photo.

Putting it together

The right amount of personal information on a portfolio is the minimum that lets the right people reach you. Share your professional name, a general location and one dependable contact method, preferably a contact form or a dedicated email address. Keep your phone number and home address private until there's a real conversation, leave off identity and family details entirely, and stay alert to messages that ask for money or sensitive information early. You'll be easy to contact and much harder to take advantage of. If you build with Folitox AI, visitors reach you through a contact form, and your email and phone only appear if you turn them on.