Hey and welcome back to another week! 👋 

In this issue:

• Learn How Portfolios Are Being Reviewed: Stop flying blind when designing and improving your portfolio with these insights.

• Airla’s Portfolio: A motion-supported portfolio that goes above and beyond

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How Recruiters and Hiring Managers Actually Look at Your Portfolio 👀

You’d never design a product without knowing how people use it — yet most designers build their portfolios completely blind. They have no idea what happens once someone opens it, or worse, what happens before they even do.

When you design without that knowledge, you’re guessing. You wouldn’t do that with user flows or product features, so why do it for the single most important product you’ll ever design — the one that gets you hired?

This article walks you through how recruiters and hiring managers actually experience your portfolio. It’s not universal, but it’s close enough to the real thing that understanding this flow will help you design for it.

Before They Even Click

This is the step you can’t track, even if you have analytics — the part where someone sees your link but doesn’t open it.

And here’s the blunt truth: if your link says Behance or Dribbble, and you’re applying for a UX or product design role, it probably won’t be clicked. Recruiters and hiring managers have seen enough of those to know what they’ll find — static visuals, no story, no context, and nothing that reflects how you think.

The reasoning isn’t even snobbery at this point; it’s pattern recognition. Behance signals that you’re not serious about presentation. It’s not a portfolio, it’s an archive.

There’s no excuse anymore. Framer, for example, lets you build a portfolio for free, and even with the Framer badge still visible, designers are landing jobs every week because the content and craft speak for themselves. Webflow offers the same, if you prefer it.

If you’re in product or UX design, your work deserves a proper home. Behance and Dribbble are fine to show side projects, illustrations, or experiments, but they’re not the stage for your case studies.

The First Impression: Visual Quality

Once someone lands on your portfolio, the first assessment isn’t about what you write — it’s about what it feels like. The visual appearance of your portfolio is your first test, and it happens in seconds.

The important distinction here is that this isn’t about whether you chose dark mode or light mode, or whether you use a serif or a sans-serif font. It’s about coherence and control. Does everything sit where it should? Is there hierarchy, rhythm, typographic balance?

Even non-designers feel when something’s off. They might not know why, but they’ll know. And if the visual foundation of your portfolio looks sloppy, most people will subconsciously assume your work follows the same pattern.

You don’t need fancy interactions or animations to pass this test. You need clarity. Good typography. Comfortable spacing. A sense of taste.

And that’s something you only build by practicing visual craft. Ask for candid feedback, compare your portfolio side-by-side with ones you admire, and notice the difference in polish. This isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s a reflection of your design judgment.

The Hero Section

The hero is your first real chance to show fit. It’s where someone figures out what kind of designer you are and whether that overlaps with what they’re looking for.

If the recruiter already looked at your resume, this section confirms what they expect. If they didn’t, this is their first impression of your identity as a designer — your “positioning statement.”

Keep it simple: one or two short sentences that define what you do and where your strengths lie. Avoid the empty lines everyone writes when they don’t know what to say: I’m passionate about design. I care about users. Everyone cares. Those are table stakes.

Instead, write something that actually positions you.

If your focus is emerging tech, say that. If your strengths lie in design systems, or in complex workflows, say that. Make it something a hiring manager could remember.

It helps to look at examples. Designers like Chen Chen and Richard manage to set the stage beautifully in just a sentence or two. The key is that the sentence they open with is immediately reflected in the work that follows — it creates a consistent story.

This is also where recruiters and hiring managers diverge slightly. Recruiters often scan for specific keywords — B2B SaaS, design systems, user research, accessibility. If those terms are relevant to your work, include them naturally. Hiring managers, however, read between the lines. They’ll spot generic phrasing instantly. They’re looking for clarity, self-awareness, and tone.

If your hero section feels human and distinct, people scroll. If it’s generic, they close the tab.

The Work

If they make it this far, you’ve already cleared multiple filters — but this is still where most people drop off. And when they do, it’s usually not because their work is bad. It’s because it’s presented poorly.

There are two things to get right here: how you preview your work, and how you show it inside a case study.

When you preview your work, think clarity and focus. One big image, not a collage. A clear, meaningful title that tells me what this is about and why it mattered. If you designed a group payment feature for PayPal, don’t call the case study Group Payment or PayPal Internship. Say something that tells me what the project achieved — even if it’s hypothetical:

This makes me curious to learn how you did it.

Use motion thoughtfully. A short looping video or GIF on hover is enough. Never have multiple animations running at once — it turns your site into noise. And if you use tags or keywords, use them sparingly. They should help people find relevance, not fill space.

Inside your case studies, structure matters more than quantity. Don’t just copy the Research / Define / Ideate / Prototype template. That reads like a checklist. Instead, write meaningful section titles that tell a story.

Avoid visual clutter. No one wants to scroll through a wall of mockups. Curate the visuals, use motion where you can, and keep it focused on the story. Show results — or if you don’t have data, describe what success would look like and how you’d measure it. That’s what separates polished portfolios from “bootcamp process dumps.”

For a deeper dive, see How to Write a Strong Case Study for Your Portfolio in 2025 💪. And if you want to understand how to connect design work to business results, revisit How to Show Business Impact in Your Design Portfolio (Even With Fictional Projects) 📈.

The About Page

The About page is where people go after they already like your work. It’s the place that turns a good candidate into someone they’d want to meet.

For a long time, I skipped mine — and I’ve seen many designers do the same. But more and more hiring managers tell me it’s the first place they click once they’ve decided your work is solid.

They’re no longer evaluating your process; they’re evaluating you.

That means this isn’t the place to explain your workflow again. It’s where you tell your story. Add a photo. A short paragraph about what drives you, what you enjoy, what you’re into outside of work. A personal touch here helps people connect with you — it humanizes your portfolio.

This is also the page where you can safely get more creative. If the rest of your site is clean and focused, your About page can carry a bit more personality — light interactions, playful visuals, or a slightly different layout. Just make sure it still feels like you.

Bonus: Analytics for Your Portfolio

Your portfolio is a product. Treat it like one.

You can embed analytics tools like Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity for free to track how people interact with your site — where they scroll, where they drop off, how they navigate. Platforms like Framer now have built-in analytics, but they’re limited. Hotjar or Clarity give you heatmaps, session recordings, and more useful data.

You can even go further by adding UTM tags to your application links (see point 2 in my guide here ) to compare how different companies behave on your site.

If you’re sending out ten applications, and five of those companies drop off at the same case study halfway through, that’s a signal. Maybe the project isn’t as strong as you think. Maybe it’s formatted poorly. Analytics let you diagnose those problems instead of guessing.

It’s the closest thing you’ll get to user testing for your portfolio — and it makes a difference.

Final Thoughts

If you don’t know how people look at your portfolio, you’re designing blind.

Every recruiter or hiring manager follows roughly the same path:

1. They decide whether to click your link.

2. They judge your visual craft in seconds.

3. They scan your hero for fit.

4. They skim your work for clarity and story.

5. If you’re still in the running, then they check who you are.

Knowing this helps you design for it. It’s the same mindset you already use in product work — understand the flow, remove friction, and help people succeed in their task.

Except this time, the task is getting you hired.

Further Reading:

• How to Write a Strong Case Study for Your Portfolio in 2025 💪 

• How to Show Business Impact in Your Design Portfolio (Even With Fictional Projects) 📈 

• 5 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Portfolio 🪄 

👀 Portfolio Showcase

Today: Airla Fan

Airla Fan’s portfolio is a confident display of motion-driven product design with a strong grasp of end-to-end thinking.

Currently a product design student at Carnegie Mellon — and a Figma Campus Leader — Airla stands out for her range. Her portfolio feels modern, cohesive, and deeply intentional, blending strong visual craft with a clear understanding of process, systems, and storytelling. You can tell she’s not just experimenting with tools, but mastering how design, motion, and storytelling fit together.

Her work demonstrates a level of polish and confidence that’s rare among students, but it also reflects something deeper — a designer who’s curious about the full arc of creation: from strategy and research to interaction and animation. For anyone wondering what an “end-to-end” product designer looks like in 2025, Airla’s portfolio comes close to the textbook example.

Let’s take a closer look at what she does exceptionally well — and where there’s still room to refine and sharpen an already high-level presentation.

That’s it for this week—thanks so much for the support! ♥️

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Do you want your own portfolio reviewed in-depth with a 30-minute advice-packed video review? Or do you require mentoring to figure out a proper strategy for your job search?

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• Book a quick 15 min chat to ask a question and see if we vibe

Keep kicking doors open and see you next week!
- Florian