I was making a huge error in my portfolio

"You've just listed your design tasks and how you did them.

We're looking for much more than this."

This is the reply I got from a company that rejected my job application a few days ago after I emailed them for feedback.

This was a company I had wanted to work for for years, so I emailed them for feedback.

Usually, I wouldn't have the guts. But I had spent days improving my portfolio for this role, so I wanted to know.

Their reply confused me further. How was listing the design tasks I did a bad thing?

I was documenting what I had done in my project. Isn't that what a portfolio was?

Only years later, when I became involved in my team's hiring process, I learned the critical error I had been making in my portfolio.

The mistake was:

I was writing my portfolio for me rather than for the hiring manager.

(Hiring manager: The person hiring for the role - typically the Design Manager, Design Lead, Head of Product, etc.)

I presented the work in my case study based on my limited knowledge of a product designer's responsibilities at the time, which was very early in my career.

I wasn't even aware of what skills I was communicating.

I was simply documenting my project and making it look as shiny as possible.

I had no idea what the hiring manager wanted to see. I was simply assuming.

This approach was flawed as I wasn't demonstrating how I solved problems.

I wasn't showcasing my critical thinking process and my decisions.

I was merely listing design activities and explaining what these activities were.

I wasn't highlighting why I did them or how they helped me identify the final solution I was proposing.

And this was what hiring managers really cared about.

Hiring managers wanted to understand my decisions' rationale and thought process.

We're seeing a greater shift in designers who merely complete design tasks without any real understanding of how these tasks will help them solve specific user problems.

Here's how to overcome this:

Understand what skills hiring managers care about

1. A good start is reading blog posts from design teams about what they look for. Here are a few:

• https://ux.shopify.com/designing-a-more-effective-portfolio-7725f46ad79e

• https://medium.com/desk-of-van-schneider/how-to-get-a-design-job-at-airbnb-6fe15ec79945

• https://spotify.design/article/how-to-get-a-job-at-spotify-design

• https://fb-killa.pro/threads/how-i-got-my-faang-design-job-meta-designers-story.17743/

1. Connect with hiring managers or lead designers on LinkedIn and ask them what they look for in portfolios.

Showcase your decisions in your portfolio

1. Articulate the reasons for your design activities and the value they added to your project.

2. Highlight the outcomes you got from these activities.

Communicating your decision-making process is absolutely critical to your portfolio.

This is one of the key trainings I cover in Case Study Craft.

This will lead to:

Your portfolio will match what hiring managers want

Adding information that hiring managers are looking for increases the chance of your project resonating with a hiring manager. This will help you stand out from the competiton who aren't doing this.

Your portfolio will portray you as an expert.

This approach will position you as an expert because the work you add will demonstrate your awareness of industry priorities. This will increase their trust your abilities.

Your portfolio content will be more impactful.

By moving beyond simply showcasing artefacts and design tasks, you are demonstrating your knowledge and expertise, leaving a strong impression on the hiring manager.

Simply listing design activity after design activity provides no insight into decision-making or problem-solving. These portfolios give me the impression that the designer doesn't know why they are doing the activities they've added.

This leads to a loss of trust in their ability to work independently on a project for my team. I would have to constantly guide them on what they should be doing next, which I wouldn't have the capacity for. For this reason, I would reject their application.

Many designers are not doing this effectively, so it will immediately help you stand out from the competition.

And I get it! Nobody teaches us how to discuss our project in our case study effectively! This is precisely why I created Case Study Craft to avoid rejections like I got early in my career.

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