Newsletter issue: #166
Read time: 1m 30s

​Your portfolio looks perfect.

Colours? Just right.

​Case studies? Polished.

You hit publish and...

Crickets. 🦗

Been there? Yeah, me too. And it stings.

Most portfolios fail not because you lack talent, but because you're making rookie mistakes that scream "AMATEUR HOUR!" to hiring managers.

I've reviewed 1000+ portfolios (seriously), and my internal monologue goes something like:

Me reviewing your portfolio:

"Does this person solve problems?"
"Can they communicate clearly?"
"Will they fit our team?"

Most hiring managers spend less than 30 seconds reviewing your work. It's speed dating, but with more judgment and less awkward small talk.

Here’s the top 5 portfolio killers:

1. No clear contact info. Don’t make them fill in a random contact form. Put that email somewhere obvious!
2. Weak visuals.Your UI looks like it's stuck in 2015. I still have nightmares from seeing Comic Sans.
3. Corporate buzzword generator. "Leveraged synergistic design thinking to revolutionize the user paradigm." Please stop.
4. Zero personality. Your portfolio reads like ChatGPT's boring cousin wrote it. Companies hire people, not robots.
5. Missing metrics. You claim success but show no proof. Without evidence, your "success" is like me claiming I'm tall. I'm 5'4".

This is coming from someone, me, making ALL these mistakes.

My first portfolio was a WIX template I customised poorly. The case studies were vague. My "about" page section read like a LinkedIn profile written by an AI trained exclusively on corporate jargon.

No wonder I got ghosted.

But there's hope!

The most underrated portfolio fix? Show your personality.

Let’s say I review two portfolios:

• One with perfect visuals but zero personality
• One with decent visuals but shows the human behind the work

I pick the second one. Every. Single. Time.

Remember: hiring managers are humans too. We want to be excited about your work. We want to find great designers. Make it easy for us to say yes.

Now go fix your portfolio. Your future self (and future hiring manager) will thank you.

Want the full breakdown of all 11 portfolio red flags + my proven UX portfolio checklist?

Avoid These 11 Portfolio Red Flags

🔥 HOT THIS WEEK

The goings ons

Happenings & shenanigans in the (design) world and beyond

OMFG. Notion Offline mode is HERE! Ivan Zhao, CEO and Co-founder of Notion, announced this on Twitter. Finally, I can write on the airplane. Loving feature launch video too.

The deal of the year? Quite possibly. Tommy Geoco (from UXtools.co) just released his limited bundle. Only $129 for 6 months subscription to Framer, Mobbin, Jitter, Notion, Magic Patterns, Perplexity, Weavy, Play, Bolt, and Granola. Snap it up here. Maybe I should release a bundle too, which discounted tools should I include?

It's been a week since I got home from hitting 9 countries in 3 months! Highlights of my trip on IG 📸: UK, Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, New York, Mexico, and Japan. Did you enjoy these? Should I do more behind-the-scenes content? Let me know.