What hiring managers want to see in your product design portfolio
One thing you can do today to get your portfolio to stand out. Open your first case study and delete 80% of the detail.
As VP of Product Design at FieldLevel I set aside time each day to review applicants’ portfolios. I look for the work section, open it, find a case study that looks interesting, and then… I don’t read it. I know you put a tremendous effort into detailing your process. You didn’t need to do it. I just scrolled right past the sticky storm photos and wireframes, looking for the few things I need to understand how you think.
As an industry, we can do this better. Take a look at how Hollywood does it. They don’t assume you will sit down and give them 90 minutes of your life. They know they need to sell. Give the person looking to hire you the same courtesy, sell them on your project, tease it, leave them wanting more, give them a trailer.
The best trailer-style case study I have seen in a portfolio was created by Shawn Jr. His case studies are a master class in concise writing. The pattern is simple; customer problem, business problem, and solution. From these three paragraphs, I learn everything I need to know.
The customer problem shows me you start in the right place. I see you focus on the problem, use data to back it up, and target something solvable. Most importantly, I learn that you understand how the right problem is the problem that results in an improvement in the lives of real people.
From the business problem, I get that you are a product person. You understand the needs of the business and how the customer problem and the business problem together provide the context your team needs to get to the solution.
In the solution, I get to see outcomes. This is where you demonstrate that you can deliver. The impact your solution has had on your customers’ lives and how you followed up. You show me what you learned and how you responded to those learnings.
These are the things hiring managers want to know before we pick up the phone. As it is being patterned and taught today, the standard portfolio case study is wrong. I am not saying the entire process isn’t important. I am saying pique my interest. Use your case study to get me to call you. In a portfolio review, you have the opportunity to tell the story of your project through the lens of your process in a way that you could never replicate in a long-form case study.
