#1: Creating a killer portfolio

How to create a killer portfolio

Today I’m going to show you how to avoid the most common mistake that I see in portfolios:

Not telling effective business stories.

Your portfolio is your opportunity to show the hiring manager that you can step into the role, do the work, and make an impact.

But pivoting academics often don’t know where to start. This causes them to focus on the wrong thing — usually on their methods and deliverables.

Those are important. But they’re not the main story that your portfolio needs to tell.

If you don’t tell powerful stories with your portfolio, you’re not getting hired.

Here’s what to do:

• Find and solve business problems
• Avoid focusing on low-importance details
• Emphasize impact, not deliverables
• Give each project a plot

Find and solve business problems

If you’re trying to break into a new field, you must show that you understand the problems that field solves.

Many portfolios make the error of “fun” concept projects. If you don’t have “real” experience yet, concept projects are fine. However, you need to tackle a problem that your future team will recognize.

Would you present this project to actual stakeholders? Would you give it to several thousand employees?

Example #1: In instructional design, you’ll see many sample projects about cooking a meal, taking care of plants, or identifying animals. They’re fun and fine. But none of these are problems that a business will hire you to help them solve.

Focus instead on something that employees need to be able to do.

Example #2: In UX, you’ll see portfolios with ambitious yet vague projects like “improve Instagram.” Again, focus on something relevant and recognizable to your future team. Investigate low adoption of a feature. Explore why sign-up rates have stalled. Help a product team better understand the needs of a specific group of customers.

These don’t have to be earth-shattering problems, they just need to be real problems.

Talk about decisions and challenges, not low-importance details

Avoid fluff or marching through a series of small details. Don’t be self-indulgent.

Yes, you put a lot of work into this and thought about all the minutiae. The hiring manager doesn’t have time to read all that. If you’re presenting this portfolio, your audience is going to tune out.

Instead, focus on actions and obstacles.

What decisions did you make? Why?

What challenges occurred during the project and how did you respond? For concept / hypothetical pieces, “challenges” may be less relevant. But what hurdles did you anticipate?

Emphasize impact, not deliverables

Your stakeholders don’t actually care how you solve their problem. They just want the problem to be solved.

The hiring team will care about how you think, of course, and will want to know why you chose your methods or approach. But they too know very well what their stakeholders need and what their team actually needs to solve.

So, don’t focus on the deliverable for its own sake. Always emphasize why or how this deliverable met a need.

Example #1: “I built an Articulate Storyline course that had all these bells and whistles” vs. “the Storyline course gave learners an opportunity to practice XYZ, which in turn reduced their errors on the job by 20%.”

Example #2: “I built five detailed personas and let me tell you about each one at length!” vs. “using the new personas that emerged from this research, I was able to recommend to the product team that they should address XYZ needs. Our discussion about these needs resulted in the product team deciding to build a feature for ABC pain points, which we believe will increase adoption of …”

What does impact mean? The answers to these types of questions are your impact: What was the result (or intended result) of the project? What did you recommend? What decisions were influenced? What changed?

Give each project a plot

Think of each project in your portfolio as a short story. Each has a plot and a theme.

Try to have 2-3 projects that are different stories. Don’t just repeat the same story of three end-to-end projects. Give each project a distinct theme. This will help you to decide which details to include or cut based on how they support that theme.

One project might be showing your end to end process.

One project might emphasize how you influenced stakeholders or had a tricky situation with multiple stakeholders' demands and viewpoints.

The final project might have a theme of business impact. Perhaps your methods or the details of the project itself weren’t revolutionary, but the impact of the project was particularly tangible.

Show that you helped to impact a metric or a financial bottom line.

Picking different themes and sticking to them will show off your abilities from multiple angles. It will also help your audience to remember your strengths.

Our brains love stories.

TLDR:

1. Show that you understand the field by solving the type of problem your future team actually faces.
2. Focus on your decisions and the obstacles you faced. Cut all the tiny details that matter to you but that will swamp your audience.
3. Show how your deliverables had an impact. Don’t describe a deliverable as if it itself is the goal.
4. Give each project a distinct theme. Tell a memorable story.