Creating your portfolio can be overwhelming, and job searching even more. Instead of listening to anyone's feedback, get actionable and honest product design portfolio tips from designers who reviewed (and rejected!) thousands of portfolios during their careers such as Elizabeth Lin and Sarah Culver at Figma. Learn how you can make your portfolio stand out in a sea of hundreds of applications.
If you're looking for a job, the best tips you should listen to are from recruiters. That might sound strange, but empathy is your best asset right now. Put yourself in design recruiter's shoes and try to understand why and how they will select your portfolio over others.
In this article, we will cover:
- What recruiters are looking for in a portfolio during the selection process
- How to identify what type of product designer you are (or what type you want to be)
- How to build a strong product design portfolio with 10 actionable tips
- Great templates and resources to create yours right now
What are recruiters looking for in a portfolio during the selection process?
It's interesting because, in the sea of tips to create the best portfolio, I agree that the most important thing FOR YOU is to get your foot in the door. According to Liz, visual design will get you the interview, and your design process will land you the job. She received 400 applications when she hired a product design intern for Primer and selected them through specific criteria she explains here.
It's not always about visual design, but about the form of your portfolio - which should be good enough at first glance to be selected. Then, the content should convince recruiters that you're the right candidate. The form will get you the interview, the content will land you the job.
To put it bluntly, your portfolio is the FIRST thing recruiters look at. If it isn't compelling, they don't care about the rest. So, if you spent hours writing your case study, or fine-tuning your resume, it might not matter at all. Ask yourself: for this company, what is the most important in terms of product design? How can you showcase more of that with your own project?
Your portfolio is NOT the only one they look at. It can be very overwhelming to a hiring manager who is already looking through 100s of portfolios. Don't ask recruiters to do more work with you than with others. For example, don't ask them to reach out to access your portfolio, or don't ask them to read through 100s of projects. Be straightforward and selective.
TL;DR:
- Your portfolio is the first thing recruiters look at, not your resume, not your cover letter. Make it accessible right away (no pdf under request, or password-protected portfolios). Don't understimate how important the form, aka visual aspect is.
- Your portfolio is not the ONLY one recruiters look at. Make it succint, but convincing. It needs to have high quality visuals, context set right away and clear steps to project completion.
What type of product designer are you?
Okay all of this is great, but how do I actually make my portfolio standout? Which project should I choose, and how should I design it?
Let's start with your why: what kind of product designer are you, and how should that matter in your portfolio? Let me explain with these senior product designer portfolio examples:
- Elizabeth Lin is a product designer very much oriented towards visual design, illustration, and artsy products. Her portfolio makes it clear right away what type of work she is cut out for and what you should expect.
- On another hand, Sarah Tan is a Product Designer specializing in AR/VR for corporate clients such as Adobe or Mastercard. Her portfolio is also adapted and thus more compelling to this target.
- Krystle Young is a Product Designer, with a specialization in UX Research and it's obvious the minute you browse her portfolio. The first thing you will see is an in-depth case study focusing on a research process for AR glasses.
- Jago, on the other hand, was hired by Figma and Duolingo. In his portfolio, you notice that he is more specialized in community, and social apps.
See, this is it. At first glance, you intuitively know what kind of product designer each of them are. Or more precisely, what king of product they work on. Imagine a recruiter looking at those, they will immediately resonate more with one than the other according to the product they are hiring for.
While Meta might love Sarah's portfolio, a fast growing social app like Duolingo might like Elizabeth Lin's better. So, that's your first tip, design your portfolio and showcase projects according to what work you want to do the most.
Oh and, one last thing. Did you notice how few projects were showcased in each of these portfolios? Only 2 or 3. Maximum 4.
How do you build a strong product design portfolio: 10 actionable tips
Ditch Generic Templates
I asked a few recruiters, and they tend to agree on the following: pre-built portfolio options do a crappy job with the presentation. Notion is bad for showcasing your work. Behance is okay, but it won’t sell you as a designer. It’s just an open platform for people to drop projects into.
Ditch PDF, do a standalone website instead.
I did some research and a recruiter shared the following on Reddit, 'I’ve just finished reviewing a lot of applicants for a design role and from my experience a stand-alone website is best. If I see “pdf/portfolio available upon request” it’s an immediate rejection. Nothing personal, I just don’t have time to reach out and ask for it. A pdf is fine, but it must be included in your application. The portfolio is the first thing I look at, if it isn’t compelling I typically don’t care what your resume looks like."
You can use Figma, Framer, or Webflow to design your portfolio.
No password-protected or coming soon work
Try not to include password-protected pages if you can. The same goes for “Coming soon” projects. Recruiters don’t care about projects that they cannot see.
Make it easy to navigate.
Liz, Product Designer and writer of the GoodDesigner's newsletter recommends the following slides to your Figma portfolio:
- Slide 1: cover page
- Slide 2: An Introduction
- Slide 3: Your experience
- Slide 4: A project cover
- Slide 5: The project details
- End Slide: The Wrap-Up
Here is a Figma template you can use based on Liz' steps.
Pick only 2 or 3 projects
In a video about Figma's hiring process, Sara Culver (Manager Design) recommends to focus on quality, rather than quantity. It means picking up work showcasing the full journey of product development, a project you shipped (as an employee or student). Make sure you pick only 2 or 3. Make sure you have high-quality images that scale for bigger screen sizes.
Give Context around your case study
When you get to the case study part, make sure you give context around the project: who was involved, the timeline, the constraints, and the goals. Indeed, you will be evaluated according to these criteria too. It is an opportunity to show the skills you contributed to the project.
It can be a simple project intro that looks like this (from Jago's portfolio):
- Company: Figma
- Objective: Empowering users to publish and engage more with Community.
- Discipline: UX Research, Product Design
- Timeline: May 2021 - Aug 2021
- For: Figma Community
- Tools: Figma, Framer
- Role: Product Design Intern
Show exploration
How did you end up with these ideas? How did you get there? What was your process as a designer? You can even add sketches, or visual mapping.
Showcase the output
Just like a before / after, with visual designs and focus on the part you are most proud of. It is also okay to talk about things that went wrong and how you approached them.
Triple-check all your work for grammar and spelling mistakes.
Design is about attention to detail.
Make it shareable
Keep in mind, that your portfolio might be shared beyond the initial recipient, so make sure all necessary contact info is included.
Conclusion: Templates & Ressources
If you need even more resources to design your portfolio, I recommend you take a look at Design Hiring 101 from Figma's design recruiting team and Elizabeth's portfolio guide for UX & Product Designers. Both should help you create a convincing portfolio to apply to your dream companie(s). Then, you can use Liz's Figma template to help you design your own quickly.
If you're ready to apply, you will find product design jobs listed on WoodyJobs.com.
