There are a lot of short-sighted, lazy prescriptions on this topic that don’t work for full-time employees by freelancers and new designers who have not yet been part of the hiring process. I intend to provide insights to help you think clearly about this.
Let me establish the stages of the game you are playing with the sword called - portfolio. This is what the hiring pipeline looks like:
Yearly head-count review (Product + Design Leadership) → Sourcing (HM + TA) → Screening (TA, unless referred) → Shortlisting (HM) → Onsite interviews → Debrief (Panel + HM) → Offer or rejection.
Sometimes, an HM (hiring manager) might hire someone unplanned and over the budget because they are a rare Pokémon and having them helps. That’s called an “opportunity hire”. Out of topic.
How important is a portfolio?
Sourcing → Screening - very important. Not much important beyond that.
Why aren’t I winning? Why is it not working?
Because hormonal imbalances in your changing body have got you so caught up in your sense of self that you can’t see hiring as a workflow. People end up approaching their portfolio as an expression of who they are and make it an art project when in reality it’s a transactional artifact to funnel you in from “screening” to “shortlisted”. It’s a means to an end. Ends well for you if you get a link to a calendar. Ends badly if the email starts with “Thank you for applying…”.
In which case,
So how do I make a portfolio that works?
Learn to observe what people react to, or you’ll keep hitting roadblocks every 18 months if you lack the lens to maneuver through this political profession.
As for the answer, your portfolio must provide 3 things very clearly:
“This person spent 3 years in a company and did what? I don’t want coasters in my team” (Industry work)
“No industry work that looks like what I want, but do I see potential in them?” (Design concepts)
“Can this person think for themselves?” (Point of view)
1 slide - What is it about? (Peak impact to build excitement)
1 slide - What did I do? When? Who else was involved?
1 slide - Business goal (because everything is tied to money)
1 slide - User problems (because a trade takes two)
7-8 slides - Designs and “my” decisions
1 slide - Impact (% metrics moved or user feedback)
1 slide - Future improvements
Note:
• 70% should be UI and 30% words.
• Research and insights are not a slide to quote but should be strongly tied to your explanation of all design decisions.
Now you make a website, a presentation on Figma, or a PDF - IT DOESN’T MATTER. Content is king. The reason people advocate for a website so much is partially memetic (like designers hating Comic Sans and Poppins to signal superiority) and partially related to convenience as “a link to a single source of your truth” is easier to handle and share across an organization with an insane head-count where stuff is lost very often. I’ll argue many people get rejected because they have a terrible website with nonsense navigation.
Does that mean I’ll get interviews if I do this?
Do you have proof you are good? :) Our blessing and curse in this profession is - it’s all visible. Terrible designer? Visible. Good ones? Visible. Terrible, but trying to look good? Visible. Can they do interface and motion or not? Visible. Says they did X in CV but where’s the work? Visible. Says they care about Y but have they so far? Visible. You rarely get the benefit of doubt. As long as you can prove you are what the hiring manager is looking for, you’ll get an interview. That’s a portfolio.
I am getting interviews but I get rejected after the presentation round. Why?
• Your English is terrible. (you can’t articulate well)
• The interviewer’s English was terrible. (they don’t understand well)
• You spoke too fast to people who process slowly.
• You can’t wind up in 45 mins. (Unstructured presentation, over-explanation, etc)
• They found a more trustworthy candidate before you. (The project the other candidate showed was similar to what the team was hiring for)
There are very few reasons this happens. Record yourself speaking. Hear it. Perfect it.
How is the portfolio of an L3 IC different from the portfolio of an L6 IC?
This topic is quite broad. There are many vectors - age, experience, polish, skills, scope, previous titles, repetitions. A first principle question to ask is how the designers themselves differ across levels, and my very controversial take is after L5, rarely there is any difference in skill. Your title changes either because you did something crucial last quarter that also got your manager promoted, you are threatening to leave, you have been at the same title for over 3 years and they want to retain you, or you are moving from a bigger organization to a smaller one. This is why money is a cleaner game to play and you’ll be surprised to know in bigger teams salary and title are often unrelated.
For junior to senior though, I can answer the “proof of work” part:
- Just quality of output (UI skills).
- Quality of output
- Timely delivery with oversight.
- Quality of output
- Timely delivery without oversight i.e. independent work.
- Quality of output
- Timely delivery without oversight i.e. independent work.
- Owning your track’s quarterly business outcomes i.e. contribution to the roadmap and process. (Evidence of broader thinking).
This means that at times, perfect work by an Intern / L3 / L4 could be a failure of their L5-L6 / Senior Designer / Lead if it doesn’t meet its business goal out in the wild. Your portfolio should cater to the expectations for your level. These expectations get blurry from Staff onwards, leaning more towards years of experience and quality of involvement (leadership’s perception of your versatility).
“So proof of work, proof of skill, and proof of thought… and you say content is king… do you believe all these people on the internet redoing their whole website every year, spending time on Framer/Webflow tutorial learning/making pointer and scroll animations are idiots?”
Yes, more or less. They are building skills by doing that. Surely, time well spent. Where it is getting them is what they should stop and think. Ironically as a profession designed to seek truths, we are shit at accepting it.
Why should I believe what you have written?
The way it works is if you are doing better than me, you’ll ignore my innocence, and if you are doing worse, consider this charity. I screened 300 portfolios in this weirdly misunderstood tool called ATS when I was hiring my replacement at Smallcase, and some good teams have hired me as well. I’d suggest simply considering this data for now.
Is there another way?
Yes. Uniqueness. In our world, the capacity to think differently bails you out of this pitty game called a career. Jony Ive needs no portfolio. And even if he has one and it’s terribly designed, people will call it an upcoming art direction because his reputation precedes it. But you must be at the right place at the right time with the right people to become “a Jony Ive”. That’s serendipity.