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Hey and welcome back to another week! 👋 

In this issue:

• Don’t Be Scared Of The Year Requirement: Why and when you can safely apply to jobs even if they ask for 2-3 years of experience.

• Secure a Free Month of Framer Pro: Scroll down to grab your code to kickstart your portfolio with the best tool out there.

• Efan’s Portfolio: A portfolio that shines with crystal clear storytelling and reducing to the essential that it takes to convince.

🤝 TODAY’S PARTNER

Framer: The Best Free, Full-Featured Design Tool

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Framer has all the advanced tools you expect are built in:

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How Recruiters and Hiring Managers Actually Look at Your Portfolio 👀

If you’ve been trying to land your first design job, you’ve probably seen this line too many times already:

And you’ve probably thought — well, that’s not me yet.

It’s one of the most discouraging parts of job searching early in your career. It feels like every door is locked behind a number you can’t change. But the truth is, that number has never mattered less than it does now.

In 2025, what we used to call junior and mid-level roles have largely started to merge. It’s not an official shift — you’ll still see the same titles and the same “years of experience” in job posts — but in practice, the line is fading. Companies have flattened their structures. Teams are leaner. And instead of rigid level distinctions, what matters now is what you can actually show.

That’s good news, but it also changes how you have to approach the game.

Because now, the only thing that separates a “junior” from a “mid” in most companies is proof. And that means you should absolutely apply to roles that ask for 2–3 years of experience — as long as you can demonstrate that you can solve real problems, think independently, and hold your own in a product team.

Let’s unpack what that means.

The Myth of the Perfect Candidate

Every job post describes a dream. A “perfect” candidate. A unicorn.

And unicorns don’t exist.

When companies post a job, they’re outlining their ideal state. But in practice, most hiring teams are looking for someone who fits roughly 70% of the profile — someone they trust can grow into the rest.

That “2–3 years” requirement is rarely literal. It’s shorthand for “we’d like someone who doesn’t need full handholding.” And that’s something you can demonstrate long before you’ve been in the industry for two years.

I’ve seen this dozens of times with mentees. Candidates with barely six months of internship experience landing so-called mid-level jobs — not because they were overqualified, but because they showed initiative, clarity of thinking, and solid craft.

On the other side, I’ve also seen designers with five years of experience still get the “we went with a more experienced candidate” email. That line has nothing to do with time served. It usually means someone else showed the relevant skills more clearly.

So don’t count yourself out just because you don’t tick every box.

Decoding “We Went With a More Experienced Candidate”

That line hurts. Everyone’s heard it. And almost no one explains it.

What it usually means is that another candidate made it easier for them to trust that they could deliver on the specific problems that role solves. Not that they had two more years on the clock.

In many cases, recruiters themselves don’t even know what “more experienced” really means — it’s a default line that hides the fact that another portfolio simply communicated value better.

Which, in a way, is empowering. Because that’s something you can control.

You can’t control your timeline. But you can control how you present your work, how clearly you explain your thinking, and how well you connect your projects to impact.

That’s what people remember. That’s what gets you interviews.

Translating What You Already Know

If you’re switching into design, this is where most people underestimate themselves.

You’ve probably built far more relevant experience than you think — it just doesn’t look like “design” on paper yet.

I’ve seen marketing managers become product designers because they already understood how to position messages and analyze audiences. Teachers who could structure complex information better than most senior designers. Customer service reps with more empathy than half the industry. Engineers who knew constraints and logic inside out.

The trick is to translate that language. You don’t have to reinvent your story — just reframe it.

If you worked in sales, talk about how you understood customer needs and adapted your pitch — that’s discovery and iteration.

If you worked in teaching, talk about how you structured lessons for comprehension — that’s information hierarchy and architecture.

If you worked in engineering, talk about how you debugged — that’s systems thinking.

These are not separate worlds. They’re parallel ones. And the more you connect the dots, the easier it is for a hiring manager to see your value.

Craft Still Wins

No matter how the market evolves, one thing hasn’t changed: craft stands out.

When hiring managers open your portfolio, the first reaction they have isn’t about your process or your research rigor. It’s about how it feels. Whether it looks intentional, confident, and cohesive.

Strong craft — typography, rhythm, hierarchy, color, balance — is the fastest signal that you care. It tells people that you pay attention to detail, that you can think visually, and that you have taste. Those are all things that are hard to teach and impossible to fake.

That’s why investing in your craft is one of the smartest moves you can make early in your career. You can build it in quiet moments when nobody’s hiring you. You can build it without permission.

A great example of that is Miggy Fajardo. I reviewed his portfolio not long ago, and it’s one of those rare cases that stick with you — a perfect example of what can happen when you bet on craft early. Miggy came straight out of university. No years of industry experience. No fancy freelance history. Just a clear focus on developing an eye.

His portfolio wasn’t the result of endless redesigns or platform changes. He didn’t spend months tweaking his CV or trying to find the perfect wording for his case studies. He simply built and refined — constantly improving his visual craft and sense of composition.

And it paid off. He landed a role at Discord right out of university.

That’s not luck. That’s a direct result of producing high-quality work, consistently, until it couldn’t be ignored.

This is the blueprint. You can’t fast-track taste, but you can train it. Rebuild interfaces. Deconstruct layouts. Study how good design feels — not just how it looks. Do that long enough, and the “2–3 years” line in a job post becomes meaningless.

Because a well-crafted portfolio makes you look like you’ve already been doing this for years — even if you just graduated.

The Student Edge

If you’re still in university, your best currency is exposure. And internships are still the best way to get it.

They give you real context — how product work actually flows, how decisions get made, how messy things are behind the scenes.

You don’t need five internships. You need one or two good ones where you actually worked on something real.

Chen Chen’s portfolio is a great example of that. Her internship projects weren’t filler — they showed actual impact. Measurable, tangible outcomes that positioned her for a full-time role right away.

That’s the key difference between “I did an internship” and “I used my internship to prove I can solve business problems.”

Apply early. Companies like Meta, Shopify, and Spotify hire interns six months in advance. Even if you don’t get in, that process teaches you how to communicate your value — which compounds fast once you graduate.

The Career Changer Route

Now, if you’re changing careers, the path is different. But not worse.

Internships can be trickier — some are restricted to students, and many don’t pay fairly. So you might need to look elsewhere for your first few portfolio pieces.

Startups are often a great entry point because they value initiative and self-sufficiency over seniority. My own design career started in a startup internship. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me space to do things, not just watch others do them. That made all the difference.

If internships don’t fit, you can still build experience through real work:

• Join hackathons. They compress collaboration and problem-solving into days, not months.

• Pick up freelance gigs — even tiny ones. Getting paid for design work shifts how you frame your own value.

• Volunteer for causes you care about. You’ll have more freedom to shape the work and tell a story about it later.

The point isn’t how you get the work. It’s that you do real work that you can later talk about — what problem it solved, who it helped, and what changed because of it.

That’s what replaces “years of experience.”

Framing Your Story

Whatever your path — student, career changer, or self-taught — the throughline is the same: how you tell your story determines how you’re perceived.

Define your focus clearly. Know what kind of work excites you and what kind of designer you are. Don’t try to be everything to everyone — it makes you look like nothing in particular.

Tailor your applications. When a role says “2–3 years of experience,” what they’re really describing are the problems they expect you to be able to handle. Match your work to those problems.

Highlight impact in your case studies. Don’t just show the process — show what changed. If you don’t have data, define what would have defined success. If it’s a concept project, talk about what you’d measure if it were real.

Hiring managers care far more about that kind of thinking than about whether your last job was in Figma for 24 months or 36.

Where 2025 Fits Into All This

Let’s be honest — 2025 is a tough hiring landscape. Roles are fewer, and the bar is higher. But the good news is: the bar isn’t measured in years anymore.

We’re in a market where speed and adaptability matter more than titles. The best teams care about people who can learn fast, collaborate well, and self-direct. That’s exactly where early-career designers can shine — if they know how to frame it.

So instead of fixating on titles like “junior” or “mid-level,” think about the problems you want to solve. Build your portfolio and your story around those.

Because what used to separate levels — time — has been replaced by something much fairer: capability.

Summary

The “2–3 years of experience” line isn’t a wall — it’s a filter. One you can pass if you show enough proof.

Don’t design your applications around what you lack. Design them around what you can already do — and how you can demonstrate it.

Leverage what you’ve done before. Practice your craft relentlessly. Build a story that connects what you’ve learned to what companies need.

The best designers I know didn’t wait until they “qualified” for a job before applying — they built the proof first.

And that’s what the market rewards now.

Because in 2025, experience isn’t about how long you’ve been in the room.

It’s about how clearly you can show that you belong there.

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👀 Portfolio Showcase

Today: Efan Song

Efan Song’s portfolio is a quiet masterclass in clarity and restraint.

A Toronto-based product designer with a background in architecture, Efan brings a level of discipline and structure to her portfolio that’s instantly noticeable. Her site doesn’t scream for attention — it earns it. It’s clean, deliberate, and refreshingly free from fluff. You won’t find any overdesigned visuals or long-winded process writeups here. Instead, Efan’s portfolio rewards anyone who slows down long enough to see what she’s actually doing: showing real product thinking with elegance and control.

While her hero section and overall layout are minimalist, the work itself carries the weight. Every project feels purposeful and reflective — the product of someone who’s learned how to say more with less. And that’s exactly what makes her portfolio so good: it’s calm, confident, and well-composed.

For early-career designers who lean toward overexplaining or overdecorating their work, Efan’s portfolio is a fantastic reference for how to achieve balance. Let’s unpack what makes it so strong — and where it could go even further.

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

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!

• Book an in-depth portfolio or resume review with me

• Book a mentoring session with me

• 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