What hiring managers look for in a product design portfolio

Structure your case studies and move fast with this handy template.

Design portfolios can feel like never ending work. Sometimes we avoid the effort altogether in favor of “research”. We go online, we look at other designer portfolios and maybe even get a little intimidated by some of the work out there. Can my portfolio be just as good?

Other times we dive right into design, skipping the important writing process altogether. Or we agonize about the content so much that we write a book only to discover nobody wants to read it online.

What do hiring managers look for in a portfolio? Photo by Mimi Thian.

A solid portfolio can be hard to pull off. In this article I’ll show you what a hiring manager looks for in a portfolio, mistakes to avoid, and how you can use folio (a free portfolio deck that I’ve created) to structure your case studies.

From a portfolio site to a portfolio deck

Years ago I found myself on the job market with a portfolio 3 years out of date. I agonized for weeks trying to build that one “perfect” site that WOWs and pops. I went to coffee shops, design events lugging my laptop pushing those pixels to portfolio perfection.

The irony? I never built it. The work remains in Sketch to this day.

What did help me was creating an interim Keynote deck. I considered it my backup portfolio, something to tide me over until I get the “real” site done. But to my surprise, the deck worked wonders. I soon realized this is my real portfolio as it helped me land many phone screens which quickly turned into onsite interviews.

folio is free and available on Sketch, Figma, and Keynote

Now I’m sharing out my improved version of this deck (folio) to help you get started and focus on the things a hiring manager cares about. It’s completely free and available on Keynote, Sketch, plus Figma.

2020—the year of design decks?

So site or deck, which one should I use?

Now it might seem antithetical to use a deck in place of a site — so if you already have a site or feel like you can quickly update it, go for it. If creating a site comes with a steep learning curve — use the deck.

It will help you get your MVP portfolio out faster while iterating on it based on the feedback. You can always transition it to a site later.

Getting the right content and getting the content right is the hardest part.

Address these things in your portfolio

So what do managers look for?

Experience. Based on your prior work I’ll be able to get an idea of your level and evaluate your projects accordingly. I look at size and scope of projects. Did you initiate projects or were you mostly an order taker? Did you ship major projects across multiple quarters and teams? Let your resume and portfolio complement each other and tell a consistent story.

Expertise and strengths. No product designer is the same—everyone has different strengths and areas of interest when it comes to the design process. What are you strengths? Where do you shine? This is your competitive advantage that sets you apart.

Craft and output. To get the phone interview your online portfolio must do the talking for you. Feature your best (likely recent) projects that show a breadth and depth of your skills. Show work that you’re proud of—cut out projects that don’t do justice to what you’re capable of doing now.

Process. I’m interested in your problem solving skills. How do you approach your work? Do you have a process in place? Do you follow it too rigidly? What part of the process comes easy and which part is exciting?

Writing a case study is not unlike writing for a magazine. Photo by Charisse Kenion.

Portfolio writing principles

When it comes to writing your portfolio case study—imagine creating a magazine article.

Your reader finds herself in a busy airport browsing through the newsstand. An interesting cover catches her attention, she quickly flips through the magazine pages. She finds an appealing story and when she pauses to read it in detail she discovers the content to be well-written and informative thus making the overall experience rewarding.

Let’s see how we can apply this to a portfolio.

What does the portfolio cover say about you?

1. About you — set context with experience

In design — context is everything. For a portfolio to be successful, you’ll have to set context starting with yourself. What’s your background? Who are you? What’s your superpower? This is an opportunity to highlight role relevant skills and any transferable expertise.

Tell your story in an intentional way—highlight your unique qualities and superpowers.

An extension of your resume

Think of your portfolio as an extension of your resume (or your LinkedIn). I’d like to understand your career path—where have you been and where are you going? The reality is that there are no clear paths or linear progressions. Circumstances change, companies go under, we get laid off. It happens.

Don’t lose this opportunity to tell your side of the story. How did you end up where you’re currently at? Why would would you be a great addition to the team? Everyone has a unique story to tell.

Use folio to bring your whole self and feel free to play around with formatting, go wild

Add a personal touch (optional)

If you can—add a personal touch. In a sea of application it’s inadvertently easy to become just another designer. Bring your whole self and highlight relevant hobbies and fun facts that make you look at design differently.

2. Setting up your work

Setting up work properly can make or break a portfolio. Think of using progressive disclosure to gradually reveal information starting with the company, to your role, to project, to project details.

Set your projects up with a quick blurb about the company or team

2.1 Company or team

If you worked at small company it helps to describe what the company did. Often times smaller companies don’t have the luxury of brand recognition but that’s ok. Summarizing what the company did in a few sentences is all it takes.

Alternatively if you did work at a larger company (e.g. Facebook) you can specify your department or team and their area of expertise.

What roles did you play at this company (or team)?

2.2 Your role and responsibilities

What were you hired to do? Mention the roles you played, especially if you went above and beyond the call of duty (e.g. you were hired to do product design but ended up doing that plus marketing).

Set context, have a representative project image and include results

3. Project overview

Not providing enough project context is a common mistake that I see in portfolios. As someone who’s coming into your work cold it’s highly likely I won’t be familiar with your industry or product.

Design is context specific, include your project’s platforms, type of work (e.g. visual design, research, etc.), team composition (e.g. you were a design lead), timelines, etc. Think of this as building a strong foundation for the content that follows ensuring the viewer is invested in the story. This also allows me to get a better idea if I want to read through this project or if I got everything I need and can easily skip to the next one.

Finally, include the results of your work upfront, e.g. “the new design led to a 20% conversion in the checkout flow”. Back to the magazine example, use the inverted pyramid style of writing by revealing the punchline.

One of the process slides. Feel free to mix and match different templates to show how your approach led to insight.

3.1 Project process

When structuring your process be sure to highlight specific activities or things you’ve done that led to new insight. Sometimes I see two extremes,

Not enough process — your work is purely visual and there’s no explanation of how you arrived at your final outcome. You might be methodical in your approach but if you don’t show work that led up to your final deliverable, it’s hard to tell. Too much process — at the opposite end is when a designer writes out in excruciating detail all of the things they’ve done. It’s good to see that you have a solid approach in place — but save the details for the in-person portfolio interview.

Strike the right balance of using process to advance your story, pulling out unexpected and thought provoking insights that informed your work leading to a higher quality result.

3.2 Project outputs

Show mocks or prototypes that you’ve designed to test out your ideas. If you’re promoting yourself as a prototype expert — you can highlight some of the nuances of your prototypes and how you were able to simulate the real thing to get the right results from your customers.

Include representative mocks or prototypes. Before and after shots can prove be useful when

Projects usually aren’t as cut and dry moving from process, prototype, result — usually there’s a couple rounds of iteration involved. You’ll need to shape your story and presentation accordingly to show how the work evolved.

3.3 Project results

Here we come back to the beginning— the problem statement. How did your hard work solve the problem at hand? How did you measure your impact?

You can look at it through two lenses:

Qualitative — how did customers react? Were they delighted by the change? Can you share their testimonials or other forms of feedback? Qualitative feedback can tell a powerful story but remember it’s anecdotal, so ideally you can supplement it with quant insights to complete the story.

Quantitative — what was the impact to the metrics you were originally measuring? Were there any positive surprises? Having numbers on your side and drawing a direct link from problem, to solution, to result will help you form a stronger argument for your work.

If you can get metrics — great, if not look at other ways to show your work led to an improvement

Sometimes it’s hard to get metrics. Even in data-driven companies it takes time to get the numbers. Or you might not even have access to this data anymore. If you can’t get it, consider other ways to provide evidence showing that your project led to improvement. For example maybe your work helped standardize components allowing the engineering team to move faster.

Include your contact info and double check that phone number!

4. Close with a call to action

Lastly, don’t forget the most important piece—your contact info. Include a clear call to action and double check that phone number.