Reflections from a hiring manager. Tips for Product Designers trying to land their first job.

iManage has been looking for a junior product designer for the past month or so. Having poured over 100+ resumes in those 30 days, it's become clear to me that a lot of people are engaging in job application self-sabotage and don't even know it. Specifically, there is an overwhelming sameness in the applications coming from junior designers.

Rather than grumbling to myself about the problem, I figured I’d share my perspective with the internet. Bear in mind these are just my observations. Do what you want with them.

For starters, we received a lot of applications. I'm talking 400+ in the span of 4 weeks. This was a remote position (restricted to North America), so that likely increased the volume of applicants. Regardless, I suspect this pattern holds true for other design positions. As a junior designer, one of the biggest hurdles you face is that you're up against a lot of other people, so it's critical that you stand out. Like really, really important that you stand out.

If your resume and portfolio (you have a portfolio, right?) fail to attract my attention, how can you expect to get an interview? Failing to stand out at the first point of contact guarantees your application is dead in the water.

But "How do I stand out?" you ask. Well, here are things successful applicants did that made me sit up and take notice. And if you can make me sit up and take notice, you're one step closer to getting the job.

5 things that help you stand out from the crowd

1. Show the work

This seems obvious but I'm going to say it anyway: you need a vehicle for showcasing your work. This is typically a portfolio, but there are other ways to package your work that can be effective. The only reason I'm even mentioning this is because we received a considerable number of applications that offered no portfolio, case studies, or other supporting proof that they've invested any time at all in becoming a designer. If you have no professional experience, and you provide no material for us to evaluate your design skills, it's pretty hard to take your application seriously.

Don't have professional experience through which to build a portfolio? That's ok. Use school projects (be careful with these, see #4 below), or self-initiated projects. I love seeing self-initiated or hobby work as it shows ambition and curiosity. I may be an outlier on this, but I regard self-initiated projects—especially those sustained over a long period—to be a very strong signal that an applicant has potential and is worth consideration.

2. Communicate effectively or die trying

Spend time crafting your portfolio. Structure case studies so they're easily digestible for the reader (aka me). Assume the people reviewing your resume and portfolio have the attention span of a labrador in a ball pit. They're likely juggling a half dozen things alongside reviewing your application, so they probably aren't in the mood to read a wall of text. Emphasize critical information using headings, text formatting, and lists. Use imagery strategically to support the ideas being expressed through text. Perhaps most importantly, be ruthless in editing.

Succinctly outline the business / user problem you're trying to solve. Highlight things that are unique to the project and avoid boilerplate UX'er babble like: "The process employed as part of this project was research > design > validate > iterate yada yada yada". Everybody uses some flavour of this same process. You are wasting time mentioning it. Tell me something unique to the problem you were trying to solve. Talk to me about business constraints (even if they're speculative), developing and deploying a research plan, or measuring outcomes. Just don't be predictable about it.

3. Avoid common clichés

When writing your bio, don't trot out the usual "I'm passionate about building products that improve the lives of others, blah, blah, blah." This statement, and other feel-good statements like it, are as predictable as they are ubiquitous. The only thing it tells me is that you don't have any original ideas. Be real; show some personality.

Unless you have strong justification, I recommend avoiding images of sticky notes on a wall, whiteboarding exercises, and the like. Without context this is just UX theatre and will do little more than elicit a loud groan from your reader.

4. Bootcamper problems

This one is for bootcamp grads. There are a lot of you. Most of your projects look the same because the curriculum in these programs is so standardized. This means you don't stand out if all you have in your portfolio is bootcamp projects. My advice is to design something on your own that breaks the mold. Perhaps take a stab at building your own product (you don't have to be successful!). Or team up with a developer and try to build something. Or volunteer with some janky startup just to get exposure to something other than "re-imagining the same pet finder app as 20 other people in my cohort". Ultimately we want to see that you're a problem solver and committed to making things, committed to the craft of building. If your portfolio consists of two bootcamp projects done over 6 months, that tells us nothing about your commitment to the profession.

5. Leverage skills and experiences from outside design

If you're light on professional design experience, which most junior designers are, leverage experience from other parts of your life. For career switchers moving into design, consider what aspects of your previous career may be transferable to your design practice. Find commonality between roles and lean on it.

It's trickier for younger designers with no professional work history. You'll have to create experience to convince people you're worth the risk. This could take the form of more education to build expertise and a body of work. Or, you could take the self-directed approach, whereby you develop your own project, or entrepreneurial endeavour, where you'll be subject to some of the forces that those of us in the profession wrestle with on a daily basis. This second option is demanding but when pursued with conviction, often yields superior results to the "more formal education" path. Many tech companies—start-ups in particular—desperately need self-starters that can solve fuzzy problems with scarce resources. Going your own way builds these muscles like nothing else.

That's my list for now. There are other dials people can adjust to improve success, but those will have to wait. I fully acknowledge that this process is hard and it's easy to feel dispirited. But if you create opportunities rather than wait for them, continue to grow your skills, and persevere in the face of rejection, you will find success.