5 mistakes designers are making on their portfolios

Are you risking your chances of being invited for a job interview?

Having been a hiring manager for a few years (the person who hires for their team and looks through the applications) I have looked through hundreds of applications from designers wanting a design job. These jobs have been from junior/entry level to senior designers.

I’ve also been mentoring a number of designers the past year and reviewing their portfolios and I’m seeing a lot of patterns with the way designers approach their portfolio case studies.

I want to talk through a few mistakes I’ve seen designers make. So you can ensure you’re avoiding these when creating your portfolio! As I feel these are costing designers being invited for interviews!

1: Designers aren’t showing a comprehensive design process

I get it, everyone keeps telling you to keep your portfolio short. However what this really means is to remove all the text where you are waffling and adding unnecessary details. This doesn’t mean you should remove important parts of your design process.

If you went through 5 rounds of ideation, show these explorations! Even if you just have a board with 5 panels and the sketches/wireframes for each of the 5 rounds. You don’t need to go into too much detail. You just want to show you did go through a comprehensive design process.

With this example I see a lot of designer show maybe a few wireframes and maybe one page of sketches. This could suggest you didn’t explore all the potential options. This leads me to my next point..

2. Adding unnecessary information

Yes there is a fine line between point 1, where I say you’re not showing enough, and now point 2 where I’m saying don’t show enough! But what I mean here is to remove the fluff.

Think about the important pieces of information you want to communicate, and remove the information which is secondary. You can communicate the secondary information during the interview and go into more detail there if you are asked about it.

For example if you are adding your research to your portfolio. You don’t need to talk about the process you went through to recruit participants. If you are running a workshop, you don’t need to talk through all the stages of the workshop - just show the output! If you explored lots of ideas that didn’t work, don’t show each one in all it’s glory. Just take a screenshot of all the ideas you didn’t move forward with, and go into detail on the ones you did move forward with.

3. Missing the definition phase

This is a massive one which I see SO often! Designers show all the activities they did in their Discovery phase (research, competitor analysis, gathering data etc)… and then they show their sketches! They don’t articulate the synthesis of the Discovery phase and the output that came out of this! You need to be clear on what you learnt from the Discovery phase.. else was there any point doing it? You need to show how those learnings shaped your sketches and ideas.

Otherwise it won’t make sense as to why you selected the designs you did. And the reader won’t be able to understand if your designs were good or not. This also disrupts the flow of the case study as there is a sudden jump half way through and it leaves the reader lost.

4. Not communicating the soft skills

Hard skills (technical skills such as using Figma, sketching, prototyping etc) are very important. However for designers, soft skills are just as important. And it’s easy to forget to showcase you have these skills, but it is very important that you do!

For example the soft skill of collaborating with others. Design is a collaborative role where we are expected to work well with others in the business in order to get a project delivered. For example - we need to work with the Product team to understand what we need to deliver and achieve, we need to work with the Developers to ensure they are able to build out designs. Collaboration is a critical skill for designers and we need to demonstrate we have this skill within our case study.

5. Not showcasing how the final concept solves the users problem

Many designers end their portfolio with showing screens of their final product. However they aren’t communicating how these screens help solve the problem they identified in the Definition phase of the project.

This means the hiring manager is having to work this out themselves. This risks making the hiring manager believe that you don’t know how this design solves the problem you set out to solve as you haven’t communicated it clearly.

Ensure you finish your case study off by clearly communicating how your new proposed design solves the users problems. And if it is a redesign, communicate why it is better than what existed previously.

I hope you found this post useful!

Are you in the process of creating your portfolio or are planning to in the future?

Would you like help with the information you should and shouldn’t add to your portfolio? If yes, then leave your details below and I will be in touch with a new programme I am working on!

Thanks!

Ari