A strong CV and portfolio isn't just about communicating your experience. It's about clearly demonstrating your individual contribution to the outcomes achieved and helping potential employers understand the capabilities and mindset you could bring to their organisation.
In this article, we share some practical tips to help strengthen your CV and portfolio, including how to approach and communicate your use of AI.
Your CV
In terms of length, one to two pages is plenty. It can be tempting to include everything, especially when starting out, but listing every project and every tool can make the best bits harder to find. Keep what supports the role you’re going for. Anything else, like hobbies, can usually live in the ‘About’ section of a portfolio, where it adds personality without taking up CV space.
Before applying, take time to understand what the role is asking for and consider how your CV and portfolio demonstrate the relevant experience. You don't need to rewrite everything for every application, but highlighting the most relevant skills, projects and contributions can make a real difference.
A personal summary at the top of a CV is a great way to give readers a sense of who you are, and it works best when it sounds like the person who wrote it. Familiar phrases like “balancing user needs with business goals” are easy to reach for, but they can end up blending in with other UX CVs. Instead, think about what best represents your experience and strengths. Maybe it’s a career change, a mix of design and delivery experience, a background in a different but related field, or work across both customer-facing and internal products. Focus on what best describes who you are, your strengths and the type of role you're looking for. Use plain language so a recruiter or hiring manager can quickly understand what you have to offer.
Describing what you did in each role is important, but it's only half the story. Hiring managers also want to understand what your work achieved or contributed to. Did the contact centre get fewer support calls? Did your research inform an important product decision? Did the design system become the starting point for new work?
If there are no numbers available, that’s OK too. Just say what can honestly be backed up. For a project completed during studies, that might be what a tutor or a visitor from the industry said about the work, what testing showed, or how the design changed because of the feedback.
Having a broad range of skills can demonstrate adaptability and a willingness to learn, but focus on those you can confidently apply in your work and that are most relevant to the role. It also helps to distinguish between the tools you use (such as Figma, Miro or Claude Code) and your design or research capabilities (such as workshop facilitation, conceptual thinking or research synthesis), as they're quite different things. And if a skill like accessibility is on the list, be sure to show it in action somewhere in your role description or in a portfolio case study.
Finally, pay attention to the details. Check spelling, keep tenses consistent and make sure dates add up. A clean, easy-to-scan CV is important, but bringing elements of your portfolio's visual style into your CV, such as consistent typography and subtle graphic elements, can help create a more cohesive impression.
Your portfolio
The most common issue we see is the portfolio design competing with the work it’s built to showcase. The way someone moves through your portfolio is a case study in itself, and if it's slow or hard to navigate, that can be what people will remember, even if the work is great. Heavy use of animations and transitions, overly complex graphics, complicated case study layouts and unintuitive interactions can all bury the great work that should be on show. Adding personality is definitely a good thing and can be a real point of difference, just make sure the way into the work is really obvious, with easy-to-find links and clear labels.
Similar to our advice on CVs, not everything needs to be included in a portfolio. Pick the projects that best demonstrate the kind of work you want to be doing, and three to four strong case studies beat a big collection of light ones.
Storytelling is such a big part of UX, and a portfolio is where you show how you think. The aim is to tell the story of the project, not to walk through every step of your process. Working through “discover, define, design, test” and the activities within those describes the process, but they don’t necessarily show how you think, which is what a hiring manager wants to see. Having a consistent structure across your case studies can make them easier to follow. While every project is different, we suggest covering:
- The problem: The situation, the evidence, and the question you set out to answer
- Your approach: How you tackled it and why you chose those methods
- Key decisions: The key ones that mattered, along with the reasons and what testing told you
- The outcome: What changed as a result, and what you can honestly back up
- Your reflections: What was learned and what you'd do next
It also helps to open each case study with a short summary of the project, the problem you were addressing, your role and the outcome. That gives someone an overview of the project and a reason to explore the work in more detail.
Be clear about your individual contribution, particularly on projects involving a wider team. What were you responsible for? Which decisions did you influence or make? How did your work contribute to the overall outcome?
Like any good UX project, make sure you test it. Ask peers, colleagues or mentors to click through it on a laptop and on a phone. They’ll help spot things like broken links, hard-to-find navigation, text that looks clickable but isn’t, and anything that doesn’t work well on mobile. Most people are happier to help than you'd expect, and it's a great way to grow your network too.
And just like in CVs, typos in a portfolio do get noticed, so it's worth a final check.
Where AI fits in
AI is increasingly becoming part of how designers and researchers work, and demonstrating confidence with these tools can be valuable. But knowing how to use AI is only part of the picture. What's equally important is showing your judgement: when to use it, how to evaluate its outputs, what to challenge and where it adds value.
Don't hide your use of AI, but don't just name-check it either. Rather than simply listing AI tools on your CV or portfolio, show how you've used them in your work. What problem were you trying to solve? How did AI support your approach? What did you change, challenge or reject along the way?
For a project where AI was part of the process, it helps to show:
- Where AI was used, and which tool
- How the work got started: sketches, Figma explorations, or straight into prompts (an example of the brief or prompt can be a nice addition)
- How the initial output were refined e.g. what was changed or rejected, and why
- Where AI helped, where it got in the way, and what could be done differently next time
It's also important to demonstrate an understanding of responsible AI use, including how you protect confidential information.
And be ready to walk through any AI claims in an interview. If you can't comfortably explain how you've used AI, it's best left out. Remember that interviews go both ways, so it's also a good idea to ask how an organisation you're meeting with views AI and how they're using it in their work.
Key points to remember
- Be clear about who you are and what you offer and tailor your CV and portfolio to the role you are applying for.
- Show your contribution and impact. Explain what you did, why it mattered and what changed.
- Tell the story behind your work. Focus on your thinking, decisions and learnings rather than documenting every step of the process.
- Let your portfolio showcase the work. Personality is great, as long as the way into your projects is obvious.
- Demonstrate your AI judgement, show your reasoning, and be ready to talk it through in an interview.
- Test your portfolio with other people, then do a final check for clarity, consistency and errors.
Ultimately, a strong CV and portfolio should help potential employers understand not just what you've done, but how you think and the value you could bring to their organisation. Communicating that clearly can help you secure the first conversation.
