Intro

There are numerous tips and tricks on how to improve your job applications, avoid common mistakes and make the right moves. But when you look for specific advice on applying for the position in your field, guidance from specialists is invaluable.

We put together this guide — composed of tips based on real life experiences from our colleagues — that will help you upgrade your job application as a designer.

Turn your portfolio into your story

Let’s make this clear: your portfolio is the most important element of your application. Designers who review job applications will not continue reading your CV and motivation letter if you have a messy, unclear portfolio with bits and pieces from your projects.

Content

You might think that you don’t have enough projects or materials to create a portfolio (especially if you’re a junior designer). But here an old cliche holds true: Quality is more important than quantity. You can present your rather small contribution to any relevant projects in much bigger ways. Spend extra time to create proper mock-ups for the concept ideas you had that didn’t make it into the project, design extra touchpoints to show us the full-package in professional en convincing way. This will also improve your overall design skills.

You might also fall into the trap of including too many projects that are not very relevant. Just to show more variety, some applicants put in their hobby projects or vacation photos which do not add anything to your portfolio. If these extra elements show some genuine added value to the role and organization, that’s not a problem. But your reasoning shouldn’t be about presenting every single skill you have.

CLEVER°FRANKE Utrecht studio, photo by Tom van Huisstede

Many people assume that the output is what counts to judge a project, but the result of your work is not more valuable than the process you went through to create it. Show your strategic decisions and thinking. Include your site maps or sketches. The end product always tackles a problem, but if you don’t include your process, no one can see how you get to your solution. In a strategic design company like CLEVER°FRANKE, you won’t be asked to create the exact same project that we found impressive in your portfolio. We’re interested in your problem solving skills that helped you create those striking designs, or UX solutions.

On a more practical level, don’t bombard the interviewers with pages and pages of work. If you have very strong 2–3 big-scale cases and 2–3 smaller projects, that will be enough (unless something else is specified in the requirements). Try to make these cases as diversified as possible. For example, if you’re a UX designer, include one case with a highly specialized audience, and another one that tackles a complex problem. At C°F, we change our focus between a variety of projects, so we need to see that you’re capable of doing the same.

Presentation

Even if you’re a beginner, you cannot assume that you will learn how to design from scratch at work. You need to show that you are able to present your work professionally and at a high quality. Take inspiration from the website of the organization that you’re applying for. How do they present their work? What kind of things do they highlight? You don’t have to copy the style, but this will help you have a fresh look at your portfolio and maybe improve the photography or the mockups.
Keep in mind that if your design solutions and projects have not been actually produced or used, that’s okay. We want to see your design skills, not your ability to have put something in production.

If you’re a UX designer, your portfolio should focus on the story and look simple, neat and clean. We are aware that you’re not a visual designer, so try to present your work clearly instead of pushing your visual design skills.

Putting a lot of effort into your portfolio should not misguide you towards creating flashy websites. You need to spend a considerable amount of time (100–200 hours) to design a solid portfolio, and you should spend it wisely. Plus, you’re not applying for a developer position, so your portfolio can be a simple PDF document.
If you really want to put something online, stay away from websites where logo’s and popups steal so much attention from your own work (like the free version of Wix). Note that there’s nothing wrong with using Behance: Every designer is familiar with it, so it’s easy to navigate, and focus on the work itself.

Lastly, always pay attention to your use of language. Spelling or grammar mistakes, or an unclear story lowers your chance especially for UX designers. Good use of language shows your effort and intelligence.

Take another look at your portfolio. Does it tell your story as a designer: your style, focus, ambition, the way you approach problems and imagine solutions?

CLEVER°FRANKE Utrecht studio, photo by Tom van Huisstede

Make your CV relevant and easy to read

After spending the majority of your time on your portfolio, you can be very straightforward with your CV.

• Your design skills belong to the portfolio, so make sure your CV is simple, easy to read and gives the information that the interviewer needs.
• Another important tweak you can make, if you haven’t done so, is to put your most recent occupation at the top. This applies to your education as well. It’s more logical to see the order from newest to oldest on a CV.
• If you’re a beginner and anxious to fill your CV so that you have more to show, don’t do this by putting all your student job experiences. Your CV should be curated just like your portfolio. It’s fine to include hobbies, but give priority to the most relevant information.

CLEVER°FRANKE Chicago studio, photo by Bob Corporaal

Find your motivation beyond yourself

Your personal motivation is obviously very important when you apply for a position. But as a designer, you’ll be working with clients and a team with different specializations and backgrounds.

• Being part of an organization means that you cannot be driven merely by personal motivations. You need to tell how your contributions will make a difference in the company.
• If your motivation letter is abundant with sentences starting with ‘I’, this leaves a bad impression. Show us how we can benefit from your client-oriented approach, your time management abilities, your team-player attitude, or your great sketching skills. You don’t have to have super powers; it’s about being aware of your strengths and presenting those in the context of the organization you want to work for and add value to.

Bonus tip: This might change from company to company, but here at CLEVER°FRANKE we value sincerity over many other qualities you might have. So, when you come for an interview, just be yourself. We don’t expect you to have the perfect answers in perfectly formulated sentences. Being prepared is always good, but too much preparation might cause you to come across as someone else than who you really are. And people who do a lot of interviews develop a special skill to understand whether you’re being authentic or not right away.

CLEVER°FRANKE Utrecht studio, photo by Tom van Huisstede

Closing

Job applications take time because you need to adjust all your materials based on the organization you’re applying to. In this article, we share primarily our advice for designers who would like to be part of our team. To tie things together:

• Portfolio comes first. It’s a curation of your work, so make it concise.
• Don’t focus only on the end result. We want to see your process, so include sketches, site maps and any other item that reflects your working style.
• Every project is a story about your way of thinking, so show us how you strategically came up with a solution, what kind of trade-offs you had to consider.
• Don’t shy away from spending extra time to improve your presentation skills (good photography, mock-ups for your extra ideas that did not become part of the project, etc.).
• Your CV has one major function: conveying factual information. Make it clean and easy to read. The order is always from most recent to oldest.
• Make your motivation relevant for the organization. Don’t only mention what you want to improve, but tell us how your skills and personality will contribute to our team.

Are you interested in designing a future that combines humanistic values, technical possibilities and business goals? Or do you want to help us create groundbreaking visual concepts for our interactive products and push our interface design skills to the next level? Then check these out: https://www.cleverfranke.com/team-and-jobs