Six Reasons Why Your Portfolio Isn't Getting Looked At
I hope this doesn't come off as too harsh, because it's really not meant that way.
You've got some fantastic hand skills, a creative streak a mile-wide, and you love doing design work the way most people love eating cheesecake. You might even be perfect for this job, and in a tight market, that's really saying something; the good openings get positively flooded with applications. But I couldn't say if your portfolio is one of the good ones, because I didn't look at it. I'm sure it was phenomenal. A real eye-popper. But you skipped a few simple, non-negotiable steps, and that just wrecked it before it even got a chance. Sorry.
It's not just me, either. I talk to plenty of seniors and HR directors who hire designers and review portfolios on a weekly or even daily basis, and two incredible themes recur in these conversations as faithfully as the sunrise: how universal the basic rules of application are, and how few applicants seem to know them. So I hope you don't mind me enumerating them, but here are the six most glaring reasons why your splendid document or website never saw the light of day.
1. I have no idea who you are. Initially, that might sound a little rough: how could I know you if this is the first time you've sent me your information? Actually, there are plenty of ways. The creative professions are surprisingly tight communities, and you'd be surprised how many of the applications that roll in are attached to vaguely familiar names. Some are people that I chatted with briefly at an event, or who freelanced for an old college friend, or wrote a smart, thoughtful comment on a design article last year, and that's enough to strike a tone of familiarity. I'm going to look at their portfolios first, because I've got a ready-built process for looking up references on them, and finding out what they'd be like to work with. You? You're an unknown entity.
I looked you up online too, of course. And I didn't find much. Don't you ever Google yourself? SEO isn't just for megacorporations, you know.
2. You have no idea who I am. I'm not all that big a deal, but if I'm in a position to be hiring a designer, chances are pretty good there's information out there for you to find. Look up my name or my company, find me on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn. Find out what I've been working on, what I've written, what my studio's been up to. Then let me know that you know. Flattery, you say? Not really - you're showing me that you a) understand what you're getting yourself into, b) have the smarts and resourcefulness to research your target market, and c) aren't lazy. If I don't get all three of those from you I'm not going to sink 20 minutes of my day into reviewing your work, because no matter how good it is, you're probably not going to make a good employee.
3. It doesn't sound like you really want this job. Just because you're a good designer doesn't mean you'll be good here. The creative professions are more idiosyncratic than most, and the trick of making the right hire is as much about how you'll fit into our team as it is about your mad skills. Our team works because everyone on it wants to be there. It's a labor of love. We get excited about our projects, and if you're not excited about them too, you're going to crush the delicate, beautiful structure we've worked so hard to create. So you need to convince me that the kind of work we do is the kind you want to do. If you can't, I'll move on to someone who can.
4. You sent me a form letter. I can spot generic copy-and-paste emails a mile off, and I don't like them (if you're not sure why, re-read numbers 1, 2 and 3 above). I know you're probably making multiple applications, and there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're using exactly the same text for every one of them, I will notice. At least modify it enough to make it clear that you're aware of your recipient. Show me that you give a damn.
5. I can't tell yours apart from the seven others that arrived this morning. Like I said, this position's been generating a lot of interest, and my inbox is just crammed. I make a point of reading every application once through though, because notwithstanding the criteria above, you never really know where the great candidate will come from.
But damn, it's a tedious process. It's astonishing, really, how so many different applicants, with such a diversity of training, cultural background and style of work can all write nearly identical cover letters, attached to portfolios with nearly identical front pages. Put yourself in my position for two minutes: if you received a dozen of these a day, and only had time to really scrutinize three or four, would your portfolio be one of them? Does it stand out, whether because of its artfully worded introduction, its astounding first page, or an embedded portfolio link that impresses me in five seconds flat? Or is it just another lukewarm three paragraphs and a predictable nine page PDF?
6. Did you even look at the application requirements? I've got a pretty clear idea of the designer I need, and have put some effort into describing him or her. I've also put some effort into explaining what sort of application I'm looking for. So please do me the favor of responding in kind. If I asked for a PDF under a certain size, please keep it down. And if I absolutely require that you know Flash and Illustrator, and currently live in Atlanta, don't send me an architecture portfolio from Hawaii. If you've really read the requirements, and think you'd be a good fit despite not matching them, at least offer an explanation of why you need consideration anyway. If it's a convincing argument, I'll pay attention, but shotguns are for grouse hunting, not job seeking. Conducting a broad job search means tailoring a lot of applications, not adding more addresses to your Bcc list.
Note: This article was originally written by Carl Alviani.