In 2025, recruiters have to sift through more portfolios than ever before to make a hire. This post by Michael Riddering and Dan Winer highlights the growing emphasis on visual design as an early talent filtering mechanism:
LinkedIn post by Michael Riddering and Dan Winer on the importance of visual design
While visual design is certainly not the most important skill, it is the skill that is most often used as a reason for rejection.
I often use this Yelp analogy to determine the best restaurant:
The first thing I do in Yelp is sort restaurants by “Highest Rated” (takes 3 seconds).
I then look at the photos and reviews of the top 5-10 results (takes 5-10 minutes).
Only then would I dine at the restaurant (takes 1-2 hours).
Note the exponential increase in time required of each successive step!
The restaurant’s rating is probably the least important aspect; there are 3-star restaurants that I’ve enjoyed more than 5-star restaurants. Yet, it serves as an effective early signal to determine where to further invest time and energy.
Visual design is similar—it only takes 3-5 seconds to grok whether or not someone’s portfolio looks good or not, so it’s a great early filter and signal at scale, when you have hundreds of candidates to assess.
“But I know I’m the most experienced and qualified candidate, and they rejected me before even speaking to me. I know I’d land the job if they just spent a few hours chatting with me.”
The employer’s goal isn’t to find the true best design candidate ever, as that would entail interviewing hundreds of candidates (completely unrealistic). It’s to find the best candidate possible within the time allotted using an efficient system.
Unfortunately, this emphasis on visual design means that otherwise strong candidates who are can certainly do the work once hired, will never get the opportunity to prove their worth due to their sub-par visual design skills.
The visual design filter leads to mono-hiring where most companies are only hiring 1-2 types of designers (generalists with a strong lean toward visual craft), while ignoring design strategists, researchers, and service designers. Design teams are undoubtedly becoming less diverse with generalists replacing once robust research, content and service headcount.
My favorite comment from the post I wrote on mono-hiring was by Chris Andrews, design recruiter at Notion. It’s worth a read if you want a glimpse into what companies like Notion are looking for. Note how craft-oriented designers land most of the job offers (2-5 at the same time!), while many designers I know struggle to even land an interview.
LI comment by Chris Andrews
The reason I’ve been reluctant to focus on visual design in my career is because it has never been the difference between business success and failure at any of the companies I’ve worked at. Bad strategy, politics, bets, and knowledge gaps are the usual culprits.
However, now is not the time to stand on principle. We’re only about a week away from the official start of OnlyFAANGs (Sept 1), and I’m narrowing down the tools and services I’ll be using during the speed run to a job offer.
Some early tools:
Mobbin (Affiliate link)- As Dan Winer says in his Dive Club video, “does your portfolio have the visual design level of the company you aspire to work at?” I’ll be using Mobbin and their thousands of UI screens to benchmark my designs against the FAANGs.
Sunsama - to keep me focused with ADHD.
Playbook - to help me curate a portfolio of visual assets.
Builder.io / Subframe / Magic Patterns - Trialing some of the AI-first design tools that have been making waves.
Mobbin is also the first company to sponsor my OnlyFAANGs project, thus helping me keep the newsletters, LI posts, and live streams 100% free during the 6 months when I’m not pulling an income. Hitting my affiliate link means supporting the OnlyFAANGs project so I appreciate every signup!