How To Present Your Portfolio At An Interview

How To Tailor Your Project Management Portfolio Based On The Opportunity

How to Present Your UX Design Portfolio in an Interview (With Examples)

In addition to preparing your portfolio for the application process, youll want to tailor the contents based on whether the prospective opportunity is an interview, a new project pitch, or a raise or promotion.

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What Is A Work Portfolio

A professional portfolio is an excellent way to present your work to potential employers and display the skills that qualify you for a position. While not every employer and position requires a portfolio, a strong demonstration of your work can help distinguish you from other candidates depending on your industry. This article explains what a work portfolio is and how to build one.

How To Create A Marketing Portfolio: A Step

Creating a marketing portfolio takes considerable time and hands-on work, but its a smart investment in yourself and your career. If you take a digital marketing certification program or course, youll likely get help with building your portfolio. Otherwise, the following steps will walk you through how to build a marketing portfolio for the first time.

Look Into The Camera Andnod

From time to time, look into the lenses of your camera. This the digital equivalent of keeping eye contact with your interviewers. Also, when they are talking to you, nod lightly, so they can see that you hear what they are saying. The rest of your interview should go just as an in-person interview would.

Why Is A Digital Portfolio Important

How to Present Your UX Design Portfolio in an Interview (With Examples ...

Digital portfolios provide recruiters with easy accessibility to candidates works during the screening process before and after the interview. A click on a link within a resume directs the recruiter to a webpage with the samples.

The interview stage itself can also be made more productive with digital portfolios, especially in todays era of virtuality. Imagine jumping on a video interview with all your hard copy samples ready, only to realise that you cannot show your interviewer your work at all.

An online portfolio allows hirers to instantly view samples on their end during the video interview. Even better, you get to share your screen via the telecommuting software and present your portfolio to the hirer as you speak about your work experience.

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Introduce Yourself And Give An Overview

Start the presentation by introducing yourself, your role, and your specialization. Tell your interviewers what excites you the most about your job and what are your areas of expertise. Then prepare the interviewers for the presentation by breaking down how youâll structure it.

Finishthe introduction by talking about the projects in your portfolio. Share someinformation about the field and the project type, but do not go into detail yet!

How Do I Create An Online Portfolio For My Next Interview

If you have work samples scattered all over, it is time to put them all together into an online portfolio to secure your chance at an interview.

A portfolio holds samples of your past work, which can range from reports and proposals to writing and design projects. These can be submitted as part of your resume.

They may also be requested at the interview phase. In the past, a typical face-to-face interview would see a candidate carry into the room a physical file of such documents.

Today, the advent of the internet has given candidates a useful platform to design and organise their portfolio like online resumes with a kind of flexibility like never before.

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Using Public Speaking Techniques To Amplify Your Message And Engage Your Audience

In the last article, Crafting a compelling story for your on-site design portfolio presentation, we covered project selection, presentation outlines and how to wrap it all up in engaging story by using frameworks such as the Heros Journey. If you havent had a chance to read it, take a look.

Now for the final part presenting in-person. Your speech will be part written script, part improv. Here well cover presentation basics from where to sit, to how to end on a high note. One more thingthese days companies are shifting in-person portfolios to online conference calls. While the context is different, many of the same tips apply.

Preparing Your Portfolio For The Application Process

Presenting portfolio projects in a design interview

Reviewing your portfolio from your audiences perspective is a great first step to help you land your next opportunity. Now, youll want to prepare your portfolio for the application process. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Tell a story. If people wanted to read a list of accomplishments, they could consult your resume. Your portfolio should tell the story of your career as a project manager in a digestible format. Review the examples youve selected and the order of the presentation and double-check that it would make sense to a decision maker.
Tailor the content in your portfolio to match the job description. For the most part, your portfolio will be a static document that doesnt change wildly from application to application. But, you will want to show a decision maker that you understand the job duties. Use your portfolio to showcase examples of skills that may be harder to represent in a single bullet on a resume
Align your resume and portfolio for consistency. The two documents should not be copies of each other, but they should tell a consistent story.
Are you listing the same set of experiences?
If youre sharing metrics or statistics, do they match?
Does the portfolio augment the information in your resume with useful details?

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Discussing Your Resume During The Interview

1Clarify what parts of your resume your interviewer is most interested in. Its perfectly acceptable to ask questions of your interviewer about what aspects of your resume and experience you ought to discuss. This way, you can jump right into the most relevant portions of the resume and ingratiate yourself to your interviewer by saving them time.XResearch source

For example, ask your interviewer something like, What part of my educational background or work experience is most interesting to you?

To be even more precise, you can also ask your interviewer how much time they would like you to spend discussing specific portions of your resume.

2Prioritize discussing your most relevant work experience first. When asked about your previous jobs and experience, dont feel like you have to go through your entire career in chronological order. Instead, state that youd like to start with a particular job that involved skills or activities that are most relevant to the position youre applying for and go from there.XResearch source

This strategy has the added benefit of preventing you from being rambling in your answer. Moreover, if your interviewer remains interested in other aspects of your prior experience, they will most likely ask about them in a follow-up question.

In any case, do mention your two most recent jobs and explain why you ultimately ended up leaving them and applying for this new job.

An Interview Portfolio Is What Exactly

An interview portfolio consists of six main parts: an introduction, a professional background summary, STAR behavioral examples, awards and recommendations, sample solution, and a closing page. While the content will be similar to whats on your resume, the portfolio takes it a step further to show and tell your skills with specific examples. Your goal is to get the hiring manager to visualize you solving problems for him.

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Structure For Case Studies

âPresent a succinct and robust case study. There are effective ways for you to present the main outcomes of your case studies. Leveraging data in an organized and objective manner will support you to present your portfolio seamlessly during your interview as well as gain a better understanding by your interviewers. This will make your presentation easy to follow through experience.

The STAR methodâThis is the most effective approach for answering interview questions. Clearly, define your Scenario, Tasks, Actions, and Results. Example:Scenario: Problem X occurs during the design process.Tasks: I brainstormed on three different solutions: A, B, and C.Actions: I made the decision to solve the problem with solution C.Results: Solution C did not solve the problem. I repeated the same process using different solutions and in the end, A helped me to solve the problem. Keep in mind this is just one of the frameworks you can use. Some people add Challenges and/or Metrics. The important thing is to make sure you know how to tell your case study effectively in no more than 5 mins, as an elevator pitch. Bonus point if you can frame it in a way it answers one of the typical questions an interview might ask you.

Pick Which Project You Loved The Most Not The One You Spent The Most Time On

How to get a JOB in Interior Design // Portfolio Review + Interview ...

Iâve noticed that new grads often start their presentations with elaborate projects, as though lengthy walls of text will impress the committee. Then, toward the end they show smaller-scoped projects that theyâre far more passionate about.

I recommend beginning your presentation with the projects that tap into your inner childâââtheyâre more authentic and playful. Theyâll also represent your design sensibilities more accurately, as well as express who you are through your work.

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How To Use Your Portfolio In A Job Interview

Whether or not you use a portfolio depends on the type of position youre interviewing for.

If youre not sure whether to bring your portfolio to an interview, ask the employer. For an entry-level position or one that requires few technical skills, you probably wont need to bring your portfolio. But if you think your portfolio can convince the employer that youre qualified for the job, it doesnt hurt to ask if theyd be willing to see it.

Be sure to tailor your portfolio to showcase the specific skills the employer is looking for.
If your master portfolio is in hard copy, make copies of the items that apply to your interview and put them into a smaller binder to create a tailored mini portfolio.
If you plan to leave your portfolio with the employer after an interview, be sure the binder you leave doesnt include any original versions of your work.
If your master portfolio is digital, save your original, then make a copy of it and delete from the copy anything that isnt relevant to the position.

Presenting Your Content On A Silver Platter

Think about the last time you went out to a restaurant. What did you order? Where did you eat? If it was a high end restaurant the light , the ambiance, the music, and the way your dish was presented all played into a delectable experience at first bite.

Now think of the time you got a similar dish for takeout. Most likely it came in cheap, disposable packaging. The food might have come in different packets that you had to mix yourself. Same basic ingredients. Completely different experience.

The way you frame your presentation is the difference between fast food and fine dining.

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Tell A Compelling Story For Each Project

Designers should be great storytellers. And a good story, at its core, has a beginning, middle, and end. Often, I see people gloss over the beginning, spend way too much time in the middle, and completely ignore the end. To improve your storytelling, remember these points:

The beginning is an integral part of the presentation. The interviewer has no context for the client, the problem, or even the industry that your project pertains. Without a problem, all of the work that has gone into the design is meaningless. Make an effort to help the interviewer understand the challenges you faced upfront.
The middle is tricky. As designers, we love to do the real estate agent tour where we point out the logo in the top left, the navigation in the top right, and the footer at the bottom. There is nothing compelling about presenting what your audience can clearly see. Instead, point out where key features exist.
Use the end to talk about difficult aspects of the project. Where did you really struggle? How did you overcome it? If your work is from a conceptual project that never got developed, talk about it. Were there business decisions that prevented the success of the project? This is an opportunity to have a preemptive answer for a question that is inevitably going to come up later: Can you describe a time that you struggled during a project, and how you overcame it?

Ux Leads And Recruiters Want Tohear About Your

Creating a Portfolio for an Interview

Role: What were yourresponsibilities in the project?
Team: How and who youworked with?
Design story: What ideas laybehind your design?
Design decisions: How you translatedbusiness or user needs into your design?
Way of thinking: Why you did what youdid during the project?

A case study is the best formatto present your work, as it provides wholesome answers to all these questions.Fortunately, a good UX portfolio is made up of case studies.

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How To Use Your Portfolio To Advocate For A Raise Or Promotion

You can also use your project management portfolio to advocate for a raise or promotion. Get in the habit of updating your portfolio after each successful project you deliver, and youll have a ready-made presentation to share with your supervisor when it comes time for performance reviews.

Keep in mind that your supervisor likely also needs to advocate for you with their superiors. Sharing the portfolio with them makes their job easyinstead of writing up a review from scratch, they can simply forward along the file with a sentence or two of added endorsements in their own words.

Keep in mind these dos and donts when using a project management portfolio to advocate for a raise or promotion:

Do
Emphasize outcomes Use client testimonials or kudos Highlight your unique contribution Showcase training or areas where you sought outside knowledge to improve your performance	Justify a promotion based on hours workedfor salaried positions, hours dont matter if they dont translate into outcomes Explain that you need a raise for personal reasons, like needing to make rent

How Do I Create An Online Portfolio

Creating an online portfolio is easy and, for the most part, free. Here is a quick guide!

1. Collate the strongest work samples

First, decide on the samples that effectively illustrate your capabilities. Recruiters want to see your best and not have to scroll a lengthy portfolio to find something that piques their interest. Think about the following:

What are your core skills necessary for your career?

This will help you organise your portfolio into easy-to-digest sections.

How old are these samples?

A general rule of thumb is to choose samples that are no more than five years old.

Do you have permission to publish these online?

Check in with your past employers if there are non-disclosure agreements on the work you have done.

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How To Build A Great Student Portfolio For Your First Interview

Many students dread putting together their portfolios, especially just after graduating. They feel that their lack of work experience is a roadblock. However, you do not need years worth of experience and hundreds of projects under your belt to create a great portfolio as a student!

In fact, you probably already have everything you need at your fingertips. In this article, we will show you what you should be looking out for, some general pitfalls, and how you can successfully build up your portfolio as a student to land you an interview, university position, or even that new job.

Include Your Professional Background

UX Portfolio Presentation: How To Structure Your Portfolio For An Interview

After the introduction, offer a brief look at your professional background. This should be a visual timeline of your education, training and career. Include the most critical accomplishments from each stage of your professional career to show the employer how you have progressed.

An effective and creative way to create this section is to include an infographic with a timeline of your career.

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Choose A Format For Your Portfolio

Your portfolio can take many forms:

Stored digitally
Your own website
Hard copy, such as pages in a binder, or a volume that you get professionally bound

If youre planning to give a copy of your digital portfolio to an employer, use a USB flash drive or a link to your website. Whatever form your portfolio takes, it should offer concrete examples that show the abilities and skills youve acquired in your career and life so far.

Pay close attention to the medium you choose, especially if the job you want requires you to be skilled in a specific medium. For example, if youre a web designer, you should build your portfolio online to show your skills. If the position involves public speaking, you could include a video or a link to a YouTube copy of a presentation you have given.

Every time you present yourself to an employer, you have a chance to show your skills. You want to convince them that hiring you will make their organization more effective. Make sure your portfolio makes the most of the opportunity.

How To Present Your Portfolio At A Software Design Job Interview

I recently had coffee with a young professional designer. She was lacking confidence after leaving her current position and needed a bit of encouragement. We talked for over two and a half hours about her portfolio, interview skills, and the industry in general.

While every person is different, I find myself giving young designers many of the same pieces of advice about interviewing for a software design position.

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