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If there’s one thing that screams “junior” in a portfolio, it’s user personas.

You’ve seen them: the neatly designed slides with stock-photo faces, quirky names, age ranges, favorite hobbies, maybe even a quote. They show up in nearly every bootcamp portfolio. And they add no value.

That may sound harsh, but it’s true. I’ve never once seen a persona in a junior portfolio that helped me understand the work better. At best, they’re filler. At worst, they make the whole project feel less credible.

This doesn’t mean personas are always useless. In large companies with research teams, personas can sometimes play a role. They’re the product of months or years of aggregated insights, built to guide product strategy across teams.

But that’s not what juniors are producing.

Bootcamp projects, fictional case studies, or small freelance gigs don’t have the scope or data to support a persona. Instead of surfacing real insight, these slides usually come across as made up. A stock photo plus a list of assumptions isn’t evidence — it’s theater.

The result: instead of making your case study feel more professional, personas often make it feel more like homework.

If personas don’t add value, what should you show instead? The answer is simpler: context, user goals, and user tasks.

Hiring managers don’t care that “Maria, 32, loves yoga.” They care whether you can explain what real people are trying to do, what’s blocking them, and how your design helps.

Instead of a persona card, write something like:

That single sentence communicates more value than a full persona deck. It’s grounded in actual goals and tasks, and it gives a clear line of sight into your design decisions.

A stronger alternative to personas in your portfolio is the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework.

The idea is simple: people don’t “buy” or “use” a product because of who they are demographically. They “hire” a product to get a specific job done in their life. The job isn’t just the task — it’s the outcome they’re aiming for.

The classic example: People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.

In design terms, that means instead of writing “Sophie is a 29-year-old teacher who enjoys crafts,” you’d articulate something like:

This framing is more powerful than personas because it connects directly to the why behind a design decision. It highlights the outcome people care about, not surface traits that don’t matter.

And importantly: JTBD is widely used in real companies — far more than lightweight personas. Using it in your case studies shows that you’re thinking in a way that translates directly to the workplace.

The best part: you don’t need a big research team to create useful JTBD statements.

If you can run interviews, ask simple questions: “What are you trying to accomplish? What gets in the way? What would make that easier?”

If you don’t have access to users, borrow insights from competitor reviews, app store comments, or Reddit threads. These often contain raw frustrations and desired outcomes in people’s own words.

From that, extract jobs:

Turn those into JTBD statements and use them as the backbone of your case study. Even in fictional work, this creates a through-line that makes your design decisions feel grounded and credible.

User personas in junior portfolios don’t help you. They take up space, they don’t add credibility, and they rarely show how you think.

Jobs To Be Done, on the other hand, do. They highlight real user motivations and outcomes in a way that directly informs design choices. And they show that you’re aware of frameworks companies actually use.

So if you’re working on your portfolio: drop the stock-photo personas. Replace them with clear JTBD statements or descriptions of goals and outcomes. You’ll make your case studies sharper, more grounded, and far more convincing.

Kate Nikles’ portfolio is a vibrant showcase of multidisciplinary craft with a strong pull toward product design.

An illustrator, animator, brand designer, and UI/UX designer, Kate brings a rare range of skills to the table. While her background and strengths clearly lie in visual design, branding, and illustration, her portfolio makes it equally clear that she’s moving with intent toward UX and UI work. What stands out most is how she carries her sense of style and craft across disciplines — whether in brand-heavy showcases, playful game UI, or more traditional product design projects.

For multidisciplinary designers (especially those moving into UX/UI from graphic, motion, or brand design), Kate’s portfolio is a strong example of how to balance breadth with focus. It’s not just a gallery of skills — it’s a curated surface that communicates personality, polish, and capability.

Let’s take a closer look at what makes this work — and where some tweaks could take it even further.

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

If you’d like to support my efforts on Open Doors further you can buy me a coffee. If you ever got any value from my emails consider it so I can keep this newsletter free and available to everyone out there.

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?

I got you!

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