I don’t cherish just visuals in a portfolio. Instant rejection. And yea I don’t spend more than a minute while screening. Just looking at key points like a teacher correcting essays.

I’m with you. Maybe not just a minute, but 5 is enough to see if the applicant understands ux laws, ui fundamentals, has proper commercial experience and would match product aesthetics. Rest can be assessed during interview. What are the key points you look at?

Then the criteria for the job wasn't the folio, but something else. I can get a job without a CV, most good designers are getting lots of DMs from recruiters all the time, I only see hundreds of applicants for jobs that ask a lot extra for the same money...

Yeah for sure; talking 1on1 is always best. But when trying to narrow down who to talk to, blog posts are good because it can reveal how people think/communicate. Especially if they write about technical topics/they have deep enough knowledge to form strong opinions on a subject.

Highly doubt those "1 day - 200 applicants" numbers in Linkedin jobs - always round numbers, kinda like those "buy now, only 2 left" dark patterns everywere smh

I’ve reviewed portfolios before and can say (personally) that interesting projects in a well presented portfolio (good subject and intro/tagline) leads to me wanting to read, leads to me checking for blog/writings that gives me a sense of the person more personally.

Ironic/hypocritical because I rarely write anything public lol but I like when someone isn’t afraid to take strong stances on subjects within the realm of their expertise and expand in long form. Suggests they care + are less likely to be a fly on the wall who goes with the flow.

Wouldn’t be so sure. A friend just got a job that had ~1500 applicants according to their hiring manager. I’m on the last recruitment step and the company also got several hundred portfolios in a few days. The saturation is high nowadays.

At previous job, even with very little effort on our end and offers in one hidden place, we still were getting a decent amount of applicants each round.

Agree! Hard to find that balance! 

Why this question even popped in my head - I went through one case study that started with college worthy essay on electricity history in States. 1/2

Took me 10 minutes to read intro, only to be provided with first product screenshot that made it clear the person knows nothing about ux laws and accessibility while claiming to be a senior… Focus is not where it should be.

Design first, write later... and less. 2/2

Often times for jobs with that many applicants HR/the department responsible for the hiring does initial screening based on resume, etc.

Not convinced this produces the best results, but I’m not totally convinced conventional hiring/portfolio review in general does.

Matter of opinion I guess, but I like when people are willing to take stances about things in their discipline. Shows they care + know enough to form strong opinions.

Not people who are contrarian for the sake of it or who talk as if they definitively know everything, of course.

That’s an interesting take. I’ve ran some hiring processes and, personally, if I found the portfolio solid design wise, I’d rather set up a meeting with the person to find out more about them. Short meeting would tell me more about applicant compared to any amount of text :)

There’s also the issue of quantity - with hundreds of applicants, do you still have time to dig so deep, for each promising one, before deciding on moving them to the next step? ;)

The „go with the flow” part is also interesting to me. Had a job interview last week and interviewer waited for me to say that I’m ready to step down, if stakeholder says so, even if they’re not right 😅 So not sure what the best answer to that is nowadays.

I’ve only hired for lead and below. And for these there is an expectation that the designer has had some execution experience. For interns and entry level roles knowing tools are good enough. Any profile with a “personality” is what I spend more time on.

Yeah then sorry to say, pretty much nobody reads that, but the results and if the UI is pretty. Most hiring managers have no clue about the skill level, they just check boxes, you need to be friends with the actual creative team to get hired.

Definitely not.. Which is why I need to invest more time in an updated landing page, probably. 

Gotta give enough information for someone to want to talk to you but save time and effort for the actual interview. No pressure 🫠

But you are correct about a call — nothing better than getting to have a real proper convo with someone :)

Controversial question. Knowing there are hundreds of applicants for each design job posting, do we really believe that recruiter will spend half a day reading through lengthy case studies of one designer? Why we cherish walls of text in creative portfolios all out of sudden 😅

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