Should your UX portfolio approach change based on your role or seniority?

Sarah (00:00)

A couple of days ago I received a question that I think the answer may be beneficial for you to hear as well. So here’s the question. This person said, are the UX portfolio frameworks that you teach inside Career Strategy Lab geared only toward ICs? Or would they also be relevant to UX leaders? I’m targeting director level roles, but open to senior management roles. I’m also potentially wanting to shift.

From UX and product design into learning and development. Now, my immediate response back to that person was this: asking whether case studies work differently for your role or your level of seniority is like asking whether the product development process changes if you’re designing for education versus healthcare. It doesn’t, right?

The process we follow to create a great product is the same regardless of industry. And the process you need to follow to create a portfolio that stands out to recruiters and hiring managers in today’s job market is the same regardless of what your job title is. Full stop.

So maybe you are like this person. Maybe you are an IC who’s trying to move over into leadership and management. Maybe you are a manager who is trying to get back to IC. Maybe you’re a user researcher, a product designer, a writer, a content strategist, a product manager. I don’t know what your job title is, but I’m guessing the question has gone through your mind around.

How do I create a portfolio for insert your job title? And how does that differ from all the other job titles in UX? And it does not. If you do not listen any further in this episode, then that’s all I need you to know. But I’m guessing you want to know why. So I’m gonna give you three reasons why.

The process to create a UX portfolio that stands out to recruiters and hiring managers in today’s job market is the same regardless of what you do in UX or your seniority level.

Sarah (02:15)

All right, so reason number one is that your portfolio’s job is the same regardless of your job title or years of experience. So you’ve heard of the jobs to be done framework, right? Let’s apply that to your portfolio. What are the jobs of your portfolio? It needs to answer a couple of questions in the head of recruiters and hiring managers in UX.

Essentially, they’re trying to answer the questions of can I picture this person doing the job on my team? Do I see proof that they have done these things

in previous roles? And do I have a sense of how they think, their decision making, their judgment? That is what they are trying to get a sense of. And those core questions.

Don’t change whether they’re hiring for a researcher or a content designer or a product designer or a product manager or any other job titles. They are looking for signals that they can picture you doing the job on their team, that you’ve done this in the past, and that you’ve demonstrated the skill of critical thinking and communicating, not just what you did.

But why you did it, how you did it, what happened, how that informed another part of the product or the company or who knows what. But that is what they are looking for. Now, how do I know this? Because every single month I am talking to recruiters and hiring managers. I interview them every month for this podcast. I’ll link you to the playlist where I have

Curated all my conversations with recruiters and hiring managers from companies like Workday, Home Depot, Many Chat, Ecosia, others I’m sure I am forgetting, but Shopify. But I’m I’m hearing the same thing over and over and over. And that is essentially this: that the job of your portfolio doesn’t change.

Based on your job title or your level of seniority, because the people making the decisions in hiring are trying to answer all of these questions. So the job of your portfolio doesn’t change, which is why process to create your portfolio doesn’t change either.

reason number two is that the way that your portfolio is consumed is the same regardless of what role you’re applying to or your level of seniority. I guess another way to say it is the user of your portfolio and the way they look at and consume your portfolio doesn’t change based on.

The job titles you’re applying to, right? This goes back to UX 101. And what I know from these interviews with recruiters and hiring managers is that when they have an open role that has 500 applications in the first 48 hours, they’re not reading every single portfolio cover together for all those people. What they are doing.

Is skimming and scanning the portfolios, sometimes initially for seconds. And you’ll hear this in those interviews if you if you go listen to those interviews I did, which are in the show notes. So because I’ve done the research to understand how recruiters and hiring managers consume portfolios, I’m telling you that the way they consume the portfolios is the same regardless of what types of rules they’re hiring for.

And the level of seniority of those roles, right? So the same principles hold true. They are short on time. They’re busy. They’re not reading every word. As a result, you need to make your portfolio skimmable and scannable so that the most important stories of those case studies are jumping off the page at them. And that’s a whole other episode.

But essentially it comes down to both the words you write in your case study and then how you put those words on a case study presentation slide, such as the exact fonts you use, the font sizes, et cetera, so that you’re creating a skimmable experience. And how you do that, you do it through hierarchy. Anyway, I don’t want this to turn into a design your portfolio episode, but

In the same way that we are trying to apply certain decisions to the products we work on based on how we know the user will consume that information, right? The same applies to our portfolio because our portfolio is a product. So the way it gets read and consumed is the same, regardless of.

role you are applying to. So we need to make the portfolio skimmable, scannable, and specific and built for the scan and not a deep read. All right, reason number three is that what makes a good portfolio is the same no matter what your role. So when it comes to your portfolio, a lot of you are making the mistake of just talking about what you did.

And your portfolios are sounding like job descriptions or a checklist of deliver deliverables, but that’s only telling recruiters and hiring managers what you did. They care about the so what. And the so what is answered in specifics, right? It’s not just about what you did. It’s about, okay, well, so what? Why did you do that research? How did you do that research? Why did you decide on that research method?

Why did you decide to focus on that specific segment of people for that research? What did you learn from the research? How did that research inform your thinking and your decision making for whatever came after that research? That’s what it looks like to take a case study in your portfolio from something that just answers what you did to answering the question of so what? And that is.

What is going to make you stand out from other candidates? Because I assure you, I see thousands of portfolios and I talk to recruiters and hiring managers all the time, and they echo what I am saying in that the bar to stand out is pretty low because so many portfolios are focusing on the what. If you answer the question of so what, you will be above everyone else.

The other kind of sub-point here that I want to make is that what makes a portfolio good is not always what you hear people say on LinkedIn and social media and elsewhere. Because there’s often a narrative about portfolios to chase trends, to make your portfolios kind of fun or gamified or interactive or like pushing trends and stuff like that. And

I would argue, and I know the people that I’ve interviewed would agree with me that the more gamification or interaction or trends or animation that you include in your portfolio, it is going to distract the user, the busy recruiter and hiring manager from just getting the answers they want. Just the other day, I saw a post on LinkedIn about.

This, I guess, trend of making portfolios that look like operating systems. And I guarantee you, if I got together five recruiters and hiring managers and did usability tests with them to see if operating system style portfolios could answer the questions they have in the time they have to initially go through a portfolio, the answer would be hell no.

Because the operating style system of a portfolio is creating friction. It’s not making things obvious, right? Because things are hidden behind icons and folders or weird stuff that’s like not easy to navigate, which is pretty darn ironic, right? Because if we’re applying for roles in UX.

And there are usability issues for the recruiter or hiring manager to get to the information they look for. Maybe that is why you are not getting interviews. I don’t know. It’s also a reason why I’m a huge advocate for like, let’s just keep it simple. Let’s focus on creating UX portfolio presentations and eliminate the friction and risks of usability.

Of a website. I don’t have time to go into that. I will put an episode in the show notes about my take on UX portfolio website versus UX portfolio presentation. But to reiterate point number three, it’s that what makes a portfolio good is the same no matter what your role. And it comes down to is it easy for that recruiter or hiring manager to navigate?

And does it go beyond the what? And answers the so what? So that they can get the questions answered that they need to get answered sometimes in less than 60 seconds. All right. So let’s recap this here. We started off with this question of does the way I approach my portfolio change?

Based on what I do in UX and my level of experience? Short answer: no. And the reason for that is the process to create a portfolio is the same, regardless of what you do, because the users of your portfolio are looking for specific specific information and have specific.

Behavior patterns in terms of how they consume portfolios that are the same with whether you are a user researcher, a content strategist, a UX writer, a product designer, or anything in between. And regardless of if you have one year of experience, 15, 20, 25, or more. So if this question has been on your mind, I hope that now you realize.

Whatever magical article or tip you are looking for about how to create a portfolio for a UX researcher who lives in San Diego and has 11.5 years of experience and also likes dogs, like that article is not going to land in your Google search. So you should stop looking for it. What we need to get back to is basics because the portfolio has the same job.

Recruiters and hiring managers are taking this skim and scan approach. The bar to stand out is pretty low. And if you just go a little bit above that bar, you’re gonna stand out. and the last thing I want to talk about is this cost of constantly what ifing as you approach your portfolio and frankly your entire job search, right? Because this question I started the episode with.

It lands in my inbox every single day. What if I’m a user researcher from San Diego with 11.5 experience, right? What if I am a UX writer with two years of experience and I live in Berlin? What if I am a product designer in Atlanta who works in healthcare? Like surely to God, there must be a different approach to portfolios for all those people. There is not.

And this constant what-ifing that’s running through your brain, it is costing you time, right? Because you’re spending all this time trying to find the magical template for the UX writer with two years of experience in London or something, and that does not exist. You’re wasting time. What we need to get back to is the basics. And I just gave you.

A bunch of them, but also check in the show notes because I’m gonna link you to some of those other episodes that I mentioned. But you keep asking, what if this or will this work for me if? And while you’re asking those questions and doing Google searches and asking AI to find the answers, time is ticking, which means the time to finish your portfolio is gonna be longer.

Which means the time it’s going to be until you’re applying is also longer. So all this what ifing is just delaying you getting hired faster. The what ifing you’re stuck in is the most expensive thing in your job search because it’s preventing you from taking action. And if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you know that I am all about trying to encourage you to take action so that you can get to the outcome.

Comes you want, right? So you don’t need the researcher version of portfolio instructions. You don’t need the UX writer version of instructions for portfolios. You don’t need the UX writer or the version for someone with 25 years of experience, right? The process is the same. You need to learn the process to create a portfolio now for the role you want, because if you learn it now, it will also help you get the role you want in five years and 10 years.

Because the process to make the portfolio and what those users are looking for isn’t changed. And I know this because when I was stuck in my own career around 2006, I wasn’t getting interviews and I was really mad. And I realized, I’m only telling the what of my projects. I’m not explaining the so what. So I redid my portfolio, added a bunch of context and decision making and things like that.

Guess what? I got interviews, then I got hired. That same framework that I applied to my own portfolio in 2007 still works today because I’ve been iterating it since then. I used it on myself, I used it on friends, I used it when people were asking me to help them with their portfolios. And to this day, people still get hired because your portfolio is about timeless.

Writing timeless communication and timeless UX principles that are relevant to your user versus applying all these tips and tricks and trends that might be confusing and making your user lost as they’re literally trying to decide: should they give you an interview or not?

And if you want to hear more about my portfolio framework and how I approach portfolios, two things. Check the show notes because I’m giving you a couple of episodes down there. But also, if you want one-on-one help with your portfolio and your job search, that is exactly what I do along with my team inside my UX job search coaching program career strategy lab. Your portfolio is just one of the things that we will help you with.

Because getting hired in UX is not just about your portfolio. It is about the message that is being communicated across the three things: your resume, your portfolio, your LinkedIn, and I guess a fourth. The way that you communicate yourself and your experience in interviews. And I think a lot of you are stuck because you’ve only focused on one of those things. And as a result,

The other things have been rushed or not given the care and attention they need. So if you want help one-on-one with your portfolio and resume and LinkedIn and job search and job interviews, just visit careerstrategylab.com and click on the link that says UX Career Coaching. And that will tell you more about how my team and I help people like you navigate their job search.

Get hired, get promoted, get freelance clients. and people who get hired are seeing average salary increases of five figures. The other amazing thing is that now this is a job referral network because there’s about 850 alumni in the program. And we are at the point where they are now hiring each other. So if you’re curious about that, just go to career strategy lab.com.

dot com. All right, that’s all I have for you today. I will see you in another episode.