How to make your portfolio stand out in a tough job market

Over the past year with so many layoffs and shifts in the job market, there’s an increasing number of talented product designers, content strategists and researchers competing for fewer open roles. I thought it could be helpful to share some tips I’ve collected after countless portfolio reviews I’ve done over the years on how to make your portfolio stand out to hiring managers and recruiters.

Even before the job market shifted, hiring managers and recruiters were overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants and had to review large volumes of portfolios, so these tips are something that can help when the job market becomes more favorable.

Here’s the 6 tips I regularly share when someone reaches out for a portfolio review:

1. Make your portfolio a story — your story
2. Talk about your individual contributions clearly
3. Make it personal
4. Memorability > Sameness
5. Edit! Edit! Edit!
6. AI is a great assistant, not a replacement for your voice

#1 Make your portfolio a story — your story

• One of the first things I look for as a hiring manager is storytelling. If a candidate can tell their story well, they’re likely to also be a good storyteller when they’re problem solving on the job.
• The portfolios that fail to stand out are the ones that don’t tell a story. They may have all of the raw ingredients like beautiful design work and impressive projects, but without any storytelling they’re more style than substance.
• Showing what you did simply isn’t enough, you must tell the story of how you solved the problem. Most case studies show a pretty typical process, from early problem alignment, insight gathering, solution explorations, validation, and the final work that shipped. Those are all great foundational pieces, but what’s most interesting isn’t the typical set of steps we often go through on these projects, but the things that we learned along the way. What were the things that surprised us that didn’t go as expected? What was the innovative problem solving that helped ship a successful feature? Talk about how you navigated those challenges and not just what you did.

#2 Talk about your individual contributions clearly

• So many portfolios I review tell the story of a project, how it started and how it ended, with surprisingly little about the person’s individual role on the team. In several cases I’ve seen multiple candidate portfolios talk about the same project! It’s hard to know what they actually contributed individually.
• Make your individual contributions immediately clear. It’s ok if you were one of multiple designers or researchers on a big project. As long as you can make it clear where and how you personally contributed.
• Talk about your unique role, how you worked on influencing a strategy, how you operated on a team and where you offered a unique perspective or value-add. Projects are often messy and imperfect and full of twists and turns, and nobody expects to hear about how perfect everything went; instead talk about the reality and messiness of a project to highlight how your individual behaviors helped your team get to a successful outcome.
• Another thing I’ve learned over the years is how to talk about my mistakes and frame them as learnings. I love seeing case studies where someone admits that everything wasn’t perfect and talks openly about where they learned, where their assumptions were challenged, and how they changed and grew as a result

#3 Make it personal

• I’m not necessarily advocating for a giant photo of yourself on your homepage (but hey, that’s cool, too!), but I am interested in learning what makes you YOU. For example, was there a pivotal life experience that made you passionate about design or product inclusion you can include in your introduction? Was there a moment where you were listening to a friend or family member complain about not understanding some new tech that made you realize that research was your calling? Was there a moment where you realized that you were great with words and that content strategy was where you belonged?
• Inject your personality into your portfolio, after all it’s meant to represent you and make a first impression for you — whether it’s imagery, illustration, photos of your hobbies, and anything else that will make your portfolio stand out.
• Some of my favorite portfolios include personal passion projects, like a music video animation project one candidate shared, or a future product concept someone came up with in their spare time.

#4 Memorability > Sameness

• It can be tempting to model your portfolio off of other successful designers in the industry, but the flip side is that oftentimes most portfolios look kind of…the same.
• Hiring managers often screen portfolios in rapid succession, so making yours memorable and creating a lasting first impression is vital.
• Think about how you can make your portfolio stand out, both the visuals and content, and worry less about fitting a “perfect” mold that blends in with the rest. In a few past versions of my own portfolio site when I was looking for new roles, I showcased my illustrations as a way to differentiate.
• Once your work has made it past an initial screening and you start interviewing, your portfolio will likely be viewed and discussed by more people on the team, so memorability will go a long way throughout the hiring process.

#5 Edit! Edit! Edit!

• Something I’ve seen time and time again is designers including everything in their portfolio. While tempting and understandable, an exhaustive library of everything you’ve ever done isn’t going to serve you well in this case.
• A recruiter and hiring manager are often time-constrained, and may only be able to look at a few projects or case studies. Rather than presenting them with a grid of too many options to choose from and leaving it to chance what they actually see, edit your work down to a few representative projects (I’d recommend <5).

#6 AI is a great assistant, not a replacement for your voice

• Over the past year I’ve seen dozens of portfolios that have leveraged AI assistance to write copy and generate imagery. On their own they’re each individually fine, but when you start looking at a high volume of portfolios, managers and recruiters start to see patterns and they stop passing the individual sniff test of authenticity and individuality.
• I totally get that not everyone is a natural writer. I’ve been guilty of taking an hour to write an email, and often struggle with remembering proper grammar, so I’m a big fan of any help I can get. But consider how AI can help assist you in your storytelling, but avoid using it as a substitute for your own voice.

Btw, this post was 100% human written, with no AI-assistance, and reflects my observations and learnings as a hiring manager for the past 15+ years. I hope that some of these tips can help you make your portfolio stand apart from the rest, or at very least tell a more crisp version of your story as a creative professional. I’m always interested in continuing to learn, so if you have thoughts please share via comments or send me a message.

And if you’re interested in a portfolio review, send me a message and I’ll do my best to reply time-permitting. Thanks for reading!