There is a term called ‘Positioning’ in the world of marketing which basically is about what you want your customers to think about your company or brand. This is what can create a first good impression, make customers switch from other brands to your brand, etc.
The same applies to the world of product design as well. Positioning yourself through your work becomes extremely important as you become more experienced because companies want someone with a dedicated set of skills or experience.
For example, someone who has worked on more web apps than mobile apps or someone who has worked in a specific industry such as fin-tech, health-tech, etc. This applies to designers who have been in the industry for more than 5-6 years and have a good portfolio of work.
But when you’re just starting out or have been in the industry for 2-3 years, positioning doesn’t play a big role because companies aren’t looking for someone with a very specific set of skills and experience.
They are looking for generalists which means you ideally have to be an all-rounder.
So in this chapter, I’m going to talk about what projects to add to your portfolio that will get you interviews at good product-based companies that you might want to work at.
A few important things I want you to keep in mind before I proceed.
Everything I say is under the assumption that your work is actually good irrespective of the scope and type of project. Great visuals, good story-telling, well-executed solutions, and more. If your project itself isn't good enough, it doesn’t matter what you add to your portfolio.
I am going to be sharing everything from the perspective of a hiring manager or a senior designer from a good and mature product company. Most immature product companies, design agencies, and service-based companies typically have a lower benchmark than product-based companies because they are looking for executioners over thinkers. They often don't mind even if the work produced isn’t the best quality.
And finally, not everything is set in stone. Of course, there can be exceptions. But I’ll be sharing my overall general views.
I have a very detailed video up on my YouTube Channel on the various categories of problem statements. This should clear up most of the questions you may have. This chapter isn’t about how to write a good case study. I have a dedicated playlist of that on my YouTube Channel that you can check out.
In the previous chapter I've addressed some of the questions junior designers often have when it comes to problem statements. You can refer to that.
One of the biggest questions junior designers often have is how many projects to have if you're looking for your very first job. Well honestly, there is no right answer. It can be 1 or it can be 5.
What's important to understand is that recruiters are looking for quality, not quantity.
What that means is that if you plan on having just 1 project in your portfolio, it needs to demonstrate all the skills the industry looks for in a designer. Visual design, Problem solving, Product thinking, Research etc. It also means that you need to have picked a good problem statement that will help you demonstrate all these skills.
Not every problem statement you pick will help you showcase all your product design skills.
It's absolutely okay if that 1 project does not help you showcase all your skills. Pick up another problem statement where you get to focus on the skills you missed out on.
Now this doesn't mean that you have 1 project for each of the skills. That's absolutely ridiculous. Product designers don't work like in that. All the steps of the design process are connected with each other and we need to use a combination of skills at each step of the design process.
So in conclusion, if you can manage to showcase all the skills in 1 project, then that's great. Or else you can have 1-2 more projects that showcase the rest of your skills.
Here is where things get very complicated because the strategy is different for everyone. It depends largely on the type of company you’ve worked for. I will also talk about dealing with NDA projects as well in a bit.
If you’re fortunate enough to have worked with a really good design team at a good company, you have less to worry about. Depending on your luck and the time you’ve spent working in that company you will have good quality work to show.
You obviously want to show your best work. Having a minimum of 1 'highlight project' and 1-2 fairly good projects is a good mix to have in your portfolio. But what qualifies as a ‘highlight project’?
It's a project where you get to showcase a wide variety of your product design skills.
But the reality is that it's quite rare for a designer even at a really good company to work on a single project that demonstrates all these skills. Not impossible, but it's fairy rare. That’s where the other projects come in.
As I mentioned earlier, companies expect junior and mid-level designers to be generalists. They ideally don't look for specialists.
This means that your portfolio needs to show a combination of skills. It doesn’t have to be all in one project. If you missed out on doing a lot of visual design work in one of the projects you want to showcase, then add another project where the core focus is visual design.
Now there is a possibility that you don't really have great projects to showcase in your portfolio and often times it’s not really your fault. Maybe you didn’t get good feedback, maybe the project was incomplete, maybe it’s not a company that values design as much as it should. There can be plenty of reasons.
What do you do in that case? It's a good opportunity to work on a personal project where you have the full freedom to showcase all your skills. You can refer to the video I have linked above in case you want to pick up one of those problem statements.
But this comes with a very big risk.
You see, if you have a full-time job and are interviewing with other companies, they are most likely going to want to see the work you did at your current company or past companies.
Personal projects don’t really add value after a certain point of time which is why the early stages of your career are monumental in deciding the future of your career.
The more years of work experience you have, the more the companies will expect to see your real work and not personal projects. Personal projects can only give you a boost in the first 1-2 years of your career.
Most mid-level and senior designers in the industry struggling to get better jobs and opportunities today is because of one main reason.
It's because they waited too long.
As I mentioned above, the longer is your work experience, the more the recruiters expect to see your work in the companies you've worked in. And if your work isn't great then you might be in deep trouble. Personal projects cannot come to your rescue here.
When you don't see any significant growth in your skills for a period of 6 months, it's time to start finding new jobs. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to get good jobs.
Most people get comfortable with their salary, culture, perks and other things even if their growth is limited. I know people who don't mind working in companies who have very talented and smart people but has a poor work culture. They choose the type of work over work culture.
Now I'm not saying that everyone should do that.
Everyone has their own priorities, but it's important to understand that the moves you make in the early stages of your career can affect your career trajectory.
Unfortunately a lot of designers often struggle to showcase projects that are under an NDA. However there are things you can do to work around the system.
The most important point to understand is that you will only get into trouble if the company you worked for incurs a monetary or non-monetary loss. The worst thing that can happen is that you will be asked to take down your work or make it private. No company is going to spend time, money, and energy to sue you.
Now let’s take an example to clear things up. Let’s assume you designed an app for a government hospital that is under NDA. What can you do about it?
The first thing you need to do is to speak to the appropriate person in your company to understand what exactly is under NDA and what you can talk about publicly.
If you signed a contract, go back and read every single line to understand better. There must be something you can talk about publicly.
For instance, you can mention that the project was about designing an app for a government hospital in Bangalore to track the working hours of the nurses and doctors.
You can even talk in-depth about the problem statement and the overall impact of the project.
For instance, you can say that the hospital had a tough time keeping track of the hours put in by each of the nurses and doctors since doing it manually was very time-consuming. They needed a digital solution to reduce time and make things simpler. It also was helpful in reducing a lot of overbooking of time spent fraudulently since the doctors and nurses were paid overtime. This reduced the hospital's costs.
Now of course you would want to show screens, explain your process, etc. There are a couple of things you can do.
If it’s really feasible and you have permission, you can show all the designs and explain the process but with a different color palette, logo, and maybe even different copy. Although it is time-consuming, it is a good solution that is pretty close to the original. This way, your work is public and can be read by anyone.
However if it’s too much effort to change all the designs, the only option is to password-protect everything but you can still talk in detail about the problem statement, goals, and overall impact. The only downside to this is that it reduces public visibility.
In the end, all you need to do is to give the recruiters enough information to see if you're worthy of an interview. They don’t always have to read your case study in case it’s under NDA.
The other question a lot of people have is if you can show your work to interviewers during interviews.
Well, this is a pure judgment call on how much you trust the interviewers and whether is it a risk you’re willing to take. Ideally it's not something you really need to worry about if you take the necessary precautions.
Ensure that you are not being recorded or no screenshots have been taken. There are a lot of companies that have a strict policy of recording these portfolio presentation rounds for internal evaluation but in the end, delete it after closing your application status. This is a part of their interview process, so it's nothing to worry about.
During the portfolio presentation rounds you are more than welcome to share the actual designs, take them to the design process. Of course you don't want to share confidential information such as metrics.
Now with that being said, let's learn about the various companies you can apply to with your portfolio.