Crafting a Standout Design Portfolio

Welcome to Growthmates. This is Kate Syuma, Growth advisor, previously Head of Growth Design at Miro. I’m building Growthmates as a place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Canva, Loom and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Get all episodes and a free playbook for Growth teams on our brand-new website — growthamtes.club, and press follow to support us on your favorite platforms. 

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Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).

In this episode, I met Lena Kul — a seasoned design recruiter with vast experience at companies like N26, Miro, and now a User Researcher. Lena shares her journey from design recruitment to user research, providing valuable insights for anyone looking to shift careers or land a job in the current competitive market.

By the end of this episode, you'll learn how to make your job search more effective, craft a compelling portfolio, and negotiate your worth confidently 💪

P.S. Lena is launching a new course, and I’ll be also there hosting a life session. It starts on the 5th of August (and she has just 2 spots left 🏃‍♀️).

This episode is supported by Appcues — the platform that helps you design, deploy, and test captivating onboarding experiences.

Appcues created the Product Adoption Academy to help you level up your product adoption for free. Check out the template that I created to help companies uncover meaningful improvements. Find an example of Dropbox Onboarding inside and apply it to review any growth flows: appcues.com/growthmates

Key highlights from this episode that you can implement right away 👇

1: Networking Strategies: Lena's tips on leveraging your network and reaching out to connections to stand out in a crowded job market.

2: Portfolio Best Practices: The importance of adding a personal touch, maintaining a clear structure, and showcasing the impact of your work.

3: Interview Preparation: The significance of asking insightful questions and demonstrating your process and thoughtfulness during interviews.

4: Negotiation Tips: Starting salary discussions early, understanding your worth, and confidently pitching your value during the negotiation phase.

Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).

Early birds 🎁 Get a 100€ discount on my Self-Service Onboarding course!

Have you ever wondered — why some people start using the product, but never come back after the first session? The problem is that they can’t easily uncover the value that your entire team has been working hard on. 

We created a course intending to help you design the most valuable Onboarding experience. The course is filled with best practices we gathered from over 80 companies and frameworks that will help you uncover improvements in your onboarding, run user research, and create a fresh roadmap of new experiments. 

The new cohort starts already on the 2nd of September, and for dear listeners, we provide a discount of 100€ with the promo code “Growthmates”.  I would like to interact with each participant directly, and hope to see you there!

— The early bird discount is valid till the 14th of August

— The course is limited to 25 seats, feel free to invite your colleagues! 🏃‍♀️

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Where to find Kate Syuma, Growth Advisor (ex-Miro):

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

* Newsletter: katesyuma.substack.com

Where to find our guest — Lena Kul:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-kul/

* Lena’s Course: https://maven.com/lena-kul/master-your-product-design-and-ux-research-job-search

What we’ve covered in this episode:

[00:00] Introduction

[00:41] Career Journey

[01:36] Shifting from Recruitment to User Research

[03:07] Design Recruitment Insights

[06:41] Evolving Role Requirements

[10:17] Importance of Storytelling

[16:46] Networking Strategies

[27:00] Portfolio Best Practices

[40:07] Interview Preparation

[54:47] Negotiation Tips

📕 Resources Referenced

* Hiring Criteria — Chapter I, “The Holistic Growth Playbook”: https://growthmates.club/playbook

* Elvis Obanya, Design Portfolio:

https://www.elvisobanya.com/

* Angela Laspriella, Design Portfolio: https://www.figma.com/deck/SDjeNkM7d1BrBhJSPirlxb/Portfolio?node-id=2-26&viewport=111%2C-67%2C0.65&t=JAKIHkMT6yiwUf2m-1&scaling=min-zoom&content-scaling=fixed&page-id=0%3A1

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get the free playbook with frameworks and insights. If you find this valuable, please share it with your friends and colleagues, and subscribe to this show on your favorite platforms to get new episodes. Let’s keep growing together!

For sponsorship and other inquiries reach out to hello@growthmates.club

Thanks for reading Kate's Syuma Newsletter & Growthmates! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.