I’ve scanned through 500+ applications for Product Designer role and this is what you’re missing the most
In my years of leading and building design team, the hardest part of the job is to recruit member. Sometimes it takes more than 6 months to find the right member for the team.
In my years of leading and building design teams, the hardest part of the job is recruiting members. Sometimes it takes more than six months to find the right member for the team. The most challenging work was identifying who could be the potential to do an interview; this was done by scanning the application, including CV, portfolios, and website. What is missing the most?
Not showing how you solve problems.
In most cases, applications usually contain a Resume, a Portfolio on Behance, or Dribbble. Behance and Dribbble often show nice screenshots and UI of the projects that candidates have worked on in the past. This is not a right or a wrong thing, but it misses out on the most critical questions that the Hiring manager will ask:
What have you contributed to this project?
What kind of team player were you in this project?
What problem did you solve?
How did you solve it?
What have you learned from it?
I’ll give you an example of what it may look like:
What can be better?
Change the Title
Instead of saying this is the project for Company A or some application name, please put in the problems or goals of the project you designed. Such as
How we [did something] at [company A] to [action] [something] for [someone]
[Done some action] for [Project A] to achieve [something]
What I’ve learned from [action] for [Project A]…
The purpose is to show right away the experience you got from working in previous companies or projects, and it helps the hiring manager understand more clearly about you and your work. It will, of course, leave an impression about you compared to other candidates.
What if I’m fresh, with no experience at all?
In most cases, you can only show your graduation projects or some case studies that you have done to show your understanding and skills for the jobs. In this case, choose case studies that are relevant or at least close to the industry you are about to apply.
You had all your time to prepare for your first job, so choose smartly and not too personally. The easiest way is to solve a tiny problem you see every day with any digital products you might use. That is going to buy more.
And not just the title but the content as well
Don’t just put in a list of screenshots of UI; write your understanding and your statement; it shows one of the essential skills that Hiring managers are always actively looking for, presenting and explaining your work to others.
That’s also why using Behance is not enough because Behance is better for displaying the visual aspect of the work. I’m not saying that Behance is not good; it’s just not enough for your Product Design job application because, in reality, you'll write a lot when working as a Product Designer.
Here is the template for writing any work portfolio for a Product Designer:
It’s not about the UI or the UX in a Product Designer's Portfolio
It’s about:
How you approached to solve a problem
How do you analyze the issues? How do you understand the problems
How do you have an idea for the solution
How the final UI reflects your solution
And if you are looking for a senior position, it’s about:
How do you deal with existing constraints
How you deal with other stakeholders
How do you influence other people involved
How you make an impact
Start finding a way to showcase all above
You can go as simply as possible; register for a free writing platform such as WordPress, substack. You don’t need to be fancy; the content you deliver is more important. If the UI you did is beautiful enough, it’ll be beautiful. Some of the most popular platforms to start with:
WordPress
Substack
Webflow
Notion
Medium
Thanks for reading