As a designer and manager, over the years I’ve posted many job listings and reviewed hundreds of portfolios. I have a few hundred reasons why people didn’t get hired and a handful of reasons that they do. The reasons why not are surprisingly redundant. Here are some dos-and-don’ts of the graphic design job-seeker world:
Be Visual
Your expertise is visual. Make the information you present, from resume to portfolio, reflective of that. Your resume sets a mood before anyone even looks at your portfolio. Many application sites require .doc formats and for that I apologize. No graphic designer should be asked to step up and step down at the same time. The problem is relatively easily solved: Prepare 2 versions and use the PDF version whenever possible. We both know that a Word doc is, by nature, boring and does not inspire curiosity or interest.
Get Help Where You Need It
Your expertise is not necessarily words, and that’s okay. You and I are not different in that way. I seek and find solutions to this problem: everything from a wordsmith friend to a professional proofreader to a spell check feature that exists (in Word documents… and everywhere else). Spelling errors count: all spelling errors, any spelling error, anywhere. They all count. Use your resources, find your solutions.
Links Matter
The link to your portfolio (if it’s a website – and it should exist at least be one in bare bones) should be easy to find. All links on your resume should be clickable. The point of a link is not “copy-paste.” I do not recommend QR codes – like, seriously, just don’t – if I’m on my computer and have to pull out my phone to figure out how to find you, I’m not going to bother. If I have to “Edit” your PDF so I can copy the website address for your site, I’m going to start out irritated. Personally, I look at your portfolio before I ever read much into a resume or cover letter. If the portfolio isn’t readily available, I move on.
Speaking of clicking links - if your portfolio is a PDF that includes buttons, make sure all of the buttons work. Better to let your reviewer use the Acrobat back and forth buttons than come across a faulty button – it reads as a mistake, which presents you as someone who is sloppy, prone to mistakes, and uncaring about the work you put out. Making my job harder hurts you more than it hurts me. I have a lot of work to review – be the one who gets it right.
The Internet Matters
Speaking of the internet, be mindful of your web presence. If your portfolio is your Instagram, your Instagram needs to be your portfolio and not pictures of your niece and your puppy. Your personal life is great, and wonderful, and important, but curate what of it you share on your professional documents and accounts. You never know what a prospective employer is going to find off-putting, even subconsciously.
Speaking of websites, know your design strengths. Every visual designer has a forte: some interactive, some print, some multi-format. Great! You don’t have to show me your best website, you have to show me on your website how your skills translate into the specific skills I need. Visual design is a communication, so know your audience.
Be Good at The Job
It is 100% possible to include too many things in your portfolio – it should not be an archive of everything you’ve created since high school. The recommended standard is 10-12 pieces. Whether more or less: quality always over quantity. Include only the things you are most proud of and that relate to the kinds of positions you’re applying for. Stay on task: make sure your design skills will translate in your reviewer’s mind to another type of medium for which they are hiring. If your prospective employer creates greeting cards, make sure your portfolio includes greeting-card-like things, not flower arrangements and film projects. If you don’t have at least 10 professional quality pieces to include in your portfolio, you may not be quite ready for the professional world.
If you do more than one type of design, separate them out into clearly labeled pages so I can easily find the things that pertain to my needs. Looking at the other cool things you do? That’s the icing on the cake. You don’t eat it without the cake.
It is absolutely possible to over-design your shit. Leaving breathing space. Curate your color palette. It is absolutely impossible to be all things to all people, so be the best you can to the people who need to know you the most. Some people like bells and whistles. Some people find them noisy. Make thoughtful choices about showing your strengths versus showing your everything. You are being judged on every choice you make.
Follow-up messages are a great way to keep yourself in your interviewer’s thoughts; be friendly and non-demanding about it. Express interest and enthusiasm and then let it be. You don’t have compel them to you, let your work be compelling. A no-obligation-to-reply note can be a great way to stand out and stay top-of-mind.
Finally, keep in mind that sometimes there is just a better candidate for the job. I’m not just looking for a person who can do the job, I want the best person I can find because once I hire a person, I’m stuck with them for a long time ideally. The process of hiring and training new employees is time consuming, and generally we’re looking for low risk prospects who will be easy to train and will stick around for awhile, i.e. not quit, and not get fired. I’ve lost employees for various reasons and it’s pretty similar to a breakup a majority of the time. No one enjoys getting dumped, and only sociopaths enjoy doing the dumping.
And now a true story:
I had an applicant recently from within my company who was very very interested in transitioning into the Art Department. They had prior experience with other companies in similar sounding job roles, and an online portfolio that was fine ... but it wasn’t amazing. I moved on, and they were informed by HR that they would not be considered.
This person didn’t agree with my decision. They brought in additional portfolio materials and asked me, through HR, to reconsider.
At the time I was working from home (we’re in a pandemic after all) and had no desire to drive into the office to view additional material from a candidate who I was already not interested in. This development had a secondary aspect to consider as well - if this material was so much better than the previous material, why wasn’t it on their website? And before I go on - think about that for a moment, why wasn’t it on their website? At this point my sum total of knowledge of the person is that they have some professional experience, and that the work I’ve seen wasn’t exciting. Now I’m wondering if there is some knowledge gap and they don’t know how to get these pieces onto the website, or perhaps they were unmotivated to do so without provocation. Is this a problem of technology? Or knowledge? Or motivation? I’m looking for ambitious, adventurous, self motivated artists who are hungry to improve and learn without prodding from me. My mood is quickly swinging from uninterested to feeling like I’ve dodged a bullet; and they were informed by HR that I was still not interested.
When all of this didn’t net the applicant the results they wanted, they walked into the head of the companies office and asked for an explanation about why they didn’t get an interview (HR had warned me that they were “persistent”) - leading me to write them a fairly concise email detailing what I was looking for and how it was lacking in what they submitted. A month after that they were demanding a portfolio review and advice on how they could improve.
If you ever met someone who was romantically interested in you, who you were not at all interested in in return, you can probably imagine how I was feeling at this point. I declined and was presented with new data. I declined, and they went and complained to my dad (not my actual dad, my metaphorical-for-the-point-of-this-analogy dad). I declined again in more explicit terms, and now I’m being asked for dating advice.
This is my dating advice.
In short:
You’re an artist, be an artist.
Ask the appropriate channels for help, especially with things you aren’t good at.
If you want to be a professional, make sure everything you present is professional.
Present your best work in the best way possible.
Make it easy for me, or whomever, to look at.
Persistence can be a quality or flaw depending on the situation - read the room, act like an adult.