How your Design Portfolio can impact your Career
This episode is part of a series called Portfolio Principles. In this series, I help people to build a more effective portfolio. Get weekly portfolio building tips.
All opinions my own.
Your portfolio won’t impact your career. People impact your career. Your career rests on the shoulder of other people. People give you opportunities.
I am not talking about HR people. The potential impact of each person on your career isn’t determined by their job title. Not even the company they work for. It doesn’t even depend on the size of their twitter followers. The potential impact of every person on your career depends on the quality of the relationship you have with them.
The potential impact of every person on your career depends on the quality of the relationship you have with them. Not by who they are or where they work.
You might know the design lead at Facebook. You might even know all the designers in the world, it’s useless if they don’t care about you. On the other hand, if just one person cares about you enough to introduce you to your future mentor, this could change the course of your entire career.
So stop spamming people just because they work at your dream company. Stop ignoring people because they have close to zero twitter followers. Start caring about people and they will start to care about you. They will care about you so much that they would be happy to help you.
How is this related to your portfolio? I think that your portfolio can be a means to build relationships. It can help you to initiate, build and strengthen relationships.
Your portfolio can be a means to build relationships. It can help you to initiate, build and strengthen relationships.
How? First you need to maximize your reach. The times in which you printed and shipped just one piece of your portfolio are over. Thanks to the internet, you can get your work in front of millions of people. Make sure that your portfolio is online and easy to find.
Secondly you need to start to see your portfolio visitors as people. Stop staring blindly at your analytics. Stop focusing on traffic. Behind every number is a real person. If your visitors are just a number to you, you are just a number to them.
If your visitors are just a number to you, you are just a number to them.
So instead of writing a generic About page, write your About page as if you are constructing an email to one of your portfolio visitors.
Thirdly you need to give value to your visitors. Inspiration. Solutions. Resources. Anything. Figure out what your visitors really want and give it to them. This is how they will start to care about you. This is how they want to pay you back. Why? Whenever someone buys you a coffee, you want to pay them back with a lunch. You feel the urge to pay them back with more than what they gave. It’s how people work. It’s how relationships work.
Finally you need to connect with your visitors. Collect their emails. Ensure they follow you on twitter. Have an easy to use contact form. Make it easy to connect with you on the platform they prefer. Engage with your visitors whenever you can. Whether this on Twitter, though an email or at a conference.
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