Old Geocities site vs. modern portfolio builder - which one actually got me hired?

I've been job hunting for a graphic design gig for about 6 weeks now. I made a nice polished portfolio on Squarespace with all the fancy animations and whatnot. But then I remembered that old Geocities page I made back in 2003 for a school project - it was all pixelated backgrounds and blinking text. I put that same chaotic energy into a raw HTML portfolio hosted on a free server. Sent both links out. The old-school one got me 3 callbacks in a week, the Squarespace one got nothing. Something about the janky charm maybe? Or recruiters are just sick of the same template look. What do you all think - does the weird old web stuff actually work better now?

2 comments

2 Comments

richardharris6d ago

Yeah, the bit about "janky charm" really hits for me. I mean, I think recruiters see so many identical Squarespace sites that anything different just stands out more. There's something real about a raw HTML page that feels more honest than all those smooth animations. Maybe it shows you actually understand the basics of how the web works instead of just dragging blocks around. Plus the whole nostalgia thing is real, people like seeing that old internet energy.

the_joseph6d ago

I've been on the other side of that hiring table. Watched a candidate walk me through their "raw HTML portfolio" and it was a mess. Tables for layout. Inline styles everywhere. No semantic structure. It honestly made me question if they'd learned anything since 2005. The nostalgia trick only works if the site is intentionally retro. Most "janky" sites are just broken. There's a difference between a minimalist HTML page that loads fast and a site that looks like someone gave up halfway through. Recruiters aren't snowflakes. We see through the aesthetic. What matters is whether the thing works, loads fast, and tells me about your skills. Not whether it feels like Geocities. I'll take a clean, functional Squarespace site over a broken hand-coded one any day. The tool doesn't matter. The execution does.