What’s your story? Design portfolio tips from Chime’s design team
Thinking about the next step in your career is enough to put even the most seasoned product designer on an emotional roller coaster. Excitement for new opportunities and fresh challenges collide with fear and self doubt. What’s the key to connecting with companies you love? Start with your story.
Your portfolio is your chance to showcase what you’ve accomplished. It’s also your chance to put your soft skills to use. “It’s an opportunity for a designer to go beyond just showing that they can design great products — storytelling, problem-solving, and passion are what set apart the best designers that we bring on to our team,” says Jon Fulton, a Design Manager at Chime.
What is a portfolio, anyway?
A portfolio is basically the story of your work as a designer. It not only showcases the visual pieces of the work you’ve done, but, more importantly, it shines a light on the why, the how, and the lessons you learned through the process.
Portfolios can take many different forms and look different — there are tons of templates out there, in fact — but the most important thing is that your portfolio tells YOUR story as a designer.
Portfolios and the design interview process at Chime
This is what the design interview process looks like at Chime — and where your portfolio fits in (please note not every interview will look exactly the same, but this is our general framework).
- Break the ice: Whether you applied for a role or were contacted by our team, at this stage, you’ll start by talking with the recruiter who reviewed your resume and portfolio. You’ll hear more about Chime and the role, and we’ll learn about your background and what you’re looking for.
- Meet your manager: You’ll connect with your potential manager, getting to know them and what they’re looking for, while they get to know you and what you’re looking for.
- Design thinking session: Next, you’ll whiteboard through a problem with a design manager to show off your critical thinking skills and how you brainstorm solutions around core user needs. We want to understand how your brain works, what unique problem solving you bring to the table, and what questions you ask along the way!
- ✨ The magical moment — your portfolio✨: In front of a panel of designers and cross-functional partners, you’ll walk us through your portfolio and tell us your design story. We’re looking to learn about your passion for design, why your designs exist, and all of the messy process you followed.
- Some quality 1:1 time: Last but not least, you’ll sit down one on one with designers and cross-functional partners to get to know the folks you might work with! You’ll be able to show off more of your experience, what drives you, and what you’re looking for in your next role.
Don’t forget about the user — your interviewers!
One thing to remember is that your portfolio isn’t just a place to show your work, it’s a product in itself. Who are the users? What might hiring managers and recruiters be looking for? To develop the best portfolio possible, here are some questions we recommend asking yourself:
Is it clear and usable?
Just because there are a lot of portfolio templates out there doesn’t mean they’re all good — or that they’re all suited to telling your story. Making sure that your portfolio is clear to someone who might not know you comes down to content and usability. Content is all of the design work you’re showcasing — process, research, final products — and usability is how the person seeing your portfolio navigates it. “Every portfolio should be clear and obvious to look through,” Jon says. “Recruiters or designers should never wonder where to scroll or what they’re looking at. Making sure your portfolio is usable is the best way to make sure your actual work shines.”
Does it show your process?
“One of the most important things we want to see in a portfolio is a designer’s process,” Jon says. “A portfolio should show more than just mockups and wireframes.”
Showing how you got to an end result is oftentimes more important than the final design itself. Explain how you discovered the problem and how you came up with solutions. What did you explore? What did you implement? We want to know what worked, what didn’t work, and what you learned. “We want to see deep thinking about the problem itself and that a designer has empathy throughout the process.”
Does it show your passion?
When putting your portfolio together, the number one thing that should come through is your story. “Think about what is authentically you and how your story will manifest when you pick a template or layout for your portfolio,” Jon says. “Talk through your portfolio and see whether it sounds like something you’d actually say. The template or visuals might be beautiful, but it’s possible your story wasn’t meant to be told in that way. If it feels awkward or you wouldn’t say it out loud, delete it or say it differently.”
Aligning your portfolio — and yourself — with the job for which you’re interviewing
While your portfolio speaks to who you are as a designer, it should also align with the company with which you’re interviewing, and why this company or role appeals to your authentic self. Understanding what a company is looking for in a designer is key to showing your strengths, abilities, and interests through your portfolio.
“Chime is a mission-driven company, so we want to see that candidates also believe in our mission in some way, too,” Jamie Jacobs, a Product and Design Recruiter, explains. “We look for candidates who approach problem-solving in a way that’s additive to Chime and who are interested in doing mission-driven work.”
Finally, remember that a company is often looking for alignment with its values, too. At Chime, we evaluate candidates on how they embody our values through things like collaboration and teamwork, so showing that in your portfolio is a great place to start.
The makings of a great portfolio
Every portfolio is different, but you can make yours stand out in several ways. Here are tips from our team.
“Make sure your portfolio considers your audience — and that they might not be designers,” says Jamie. Oftentimes the first person who will see your portfolio is a recruiter, not a designer, so creating a portfolio that is easy to navigate and tells your story to anyone — designer or not — is crucial.
Jamie and Jon recommend ‘practicing’ your portfolio on friends or family members who don’t have design experience or context. “Showing your portfolio to someone before sharing it with companies can help you iron out where people are getting confused and get to the ‘aha’ moment — where a viewer makes a deeper connection with your work — faster,” Jon says.
“Showing the impact of your work is crucial to a portfolio,” Erica Waichman, a Recruiting Manager explains. “It can be hard to think about it on a day-to-day level, but for your portfolio, it’s important to zoom out and look at what you changed about the world we live in.” Real metrics and results help us understand what your designs have brought to life for your users.
“A great portfolio doesn’t just show your awesome work, it also shows who you are,” says Jon. Whenever a team notices a mismatch between a portfolio and the person standing in front of them (or on the screen or phone call), that’s a sign that something isn’t adding up. Make sure your portfolio is in line with who you are, your values, and what drives your design work — it will be a better portfolio for it, and your interview experience will match!
The importance of networking
Your portfolio is one piece of the puzzle — getting ‘in the door’ is the other. Even with a perfect portfolio, the unfriendly truth of getting a job is that many candidates are in the interview seat because of people in their networks. “If you’re starting out fresh, the first thing you do shouldn’t be sending your resume to people you haven’t met,” Jon says, “It’s meeting the people you want to send your resume to.”
Though networking isn’t always fun — and can be challenging in the current work-from-home landscape — it’s necessary to connect with companies and people you want to work with. Having conversations with someone will provide them with far more insight into who you are than a portfolio can. That said, we hope these tips will get your portfolio to a place where it wows folks, whether they’re in your network or not.
Want to meet Chime’s design and recruiting teams and continue to build your network — and fine-tune your portfolio? Watch out for upcoming events on all things design. We can’t wait to meet you (and see your bomb portfolio)!
