What really matters when hiring Product Designers

After screening over 800 portfolios for a Senior Product Designer role in a high-bar, technical B2B SaaS product, I’ve distilled the essentials of what works (and what doesn’t) into this cheat sheet so that Recruiters are better equipped with Designers tips and so that Designers understand what’s behind the curtains.

Context

The following advice is tailored to our requirements for visual craft and product thinking and reflects insights from candidates across Pacific to Central Europe time zones in 2024.

• We’ve been hiring for a Senior Product Designer role in full remote

• We discarded locations that were not part from US Pacific time to Europe Central Time

• We’ve reviewed collectively more than 800 portfolios in the last quarter and I filtered +500 out

• We have a very high bar for visual craft, and product thinking

• We have been hiring for a technical B2B SaaS product

• Storytelling that simplifies the problem or doesn’t dive into the essential details

• Displaying the perfect methodology in case study versus reality and how candidates have navigated complex human and company dynamics. There is no ideal context, we’re looking to understand how the candidate has been advocating for what’s best for the product instead of applying methods by the book

• Non-well-framed or fuzzy success metrics added at the end of the case study preparation

• Specific components that make your portfolio stand out

• A few key visuals to set the stage

• What do you genuinely believe in your designer work

• Easy to digest case study content

At Feedly, we want to ensure fairness with every candidate who applies. We’re not using any AI tool to filter out candidates like more prominent companies. This takes time and energy, but we deeply think that’s the key to attracting talent and building great products.

As I’ve reviewed hundreds of candidates’ submissions over the past few months, I’ve consolidated a mental framework. It’s not bulletproof, but it may help some of you review or apply more accurately.

Preliminary filter:

• Does the candidate's location match our time zone?

• Is the number of years in Product Design matching our job opening?

30s check:

Is there a visual match? First impressions are key. This is a hard reality, but as Senior Product Designers, we’ve trained our eyes to filter out visuals that don’t hit the mark—that padding, that font or color association, that shadow. We can see it. Recruiters or AI can’t. Yes, it’s a hard truth, and I assume entirely.

3min dive:

Are the case studies well-structured and easy to digest? Am I interested in diving deeper and reading in more detail? If so, I generally hop on LinkedIn to see if the experience matches before diving more in-depth. Once these are checked, I move to reading mode and take time to do proper judgment.

The hard truth:

~70% of candidates don’t pass the 30s check

~90% of candidates don’t pass the 3min dive in

• Distant mockups without close-ups

• ChatGPT-generated cover letters

• Specific components that shouldn’t be designed like this

• Sub-optimal portfolios links (ranking from okish to red flags)

  • Free domain URLs (What’s holding you back from committing to a $20/year domain?)

  • No code tool using templates (Yes, recruiters know the most common templates)

  • Figma prototypes (it takes forever to load and you know it)

  • Notion / Squarespace (Can’t use a no-code tool?)

  • Google Slides / Keynote (Are you proficient in Figma?)

  • Google Drive / Dropbox / iCloud links (Think about the recruiter’s experience)

• Portfolio link not displayed in the LinkedIn profile. Often, it is a good proxy of the portfolio quality. Learn to be proud of your work.

I’m still hiring a Senior Product Designer to join our team and make a strategic impact through design. If you're a designer passionate about craft, and elevating products through thoughtful, impactful design, I’d love to hear from you, ideally without red flags.

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