In Media Res: The best way to make your portfolio stand out
Hiring managers are busy: make it easy for them to see what they want to see
If you want to stand out in a crowded job market, start your design portfolio projects with your conclusion.
I didn’t realize how valuable that tip was until I was helping to hire a designer. Only then, when sorting through dozens of portfolios, did I realize that small things like that matter.
To understand why, let’s look at what they’re dealing with.
A glimpse into a Hiring manager in today’s environment
According to Jeff White, former UX Lead at Amazon, here are a few facts about hiring managers that you might not have realized:
There are a lot of job applicants. To see this, one only needs to look at LinkedIn, where every job has 100+ candidates. While some of these candidates aren’t right for the position, there still may be dozens of qualified candidates to look through.
There isn’t a dedicated hiring manager. Hiring managers, right now, are often Design Managers (or other busy people). They have to juggle doing UX work, managing other people, other duties, AND a stack of 100+ resumes/portfolios.
There are ‘deadlines’ for hiring a candidate. One of my manager's biggest concerns was filling the position quickly. He didn’t want the position to remain open for too long because it might seem like we could operate fine without another designer (according to the executive team).
The combination of these three facts often overwhelms the “Hiring Manager” (who is probably a Design Manager), who wants to sort through resumes and portfolios as quickly as possible.
This means they’re looking for any excuse to drop you from the pile. Even if you’re the perfect candidate for the position, they might skip over you if it’s hard to understand your projects, what you’ve done, or why you’re the perfect candidate.
What’s worse is that in today’s environment, they often don’t have time to give you dedicated feedback to improve your portfolio.
So, how do you ensure you put your best foot forward? One way is to use In Media Res or include the conclusion at the beginning.
Reducing Friction with In-media Res
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