Interview Portfolio Tips for Architecture

Your portfolio is a creative expression of you, your skills, your ability to communicate and a general self-promoting tool! It provides a brief snap shot of your talent and gives you the chance to create a great first impression. Therefore, you need to spend the time to get it right.

There are a few quirky things you can do to leave more of an impression on potential employers. Firstly, do send out a mini portfolio with your application. Give them just enough to leave them wanting more. Show them a few snippets of your work that will impress them, then they’ll want to meet you in person – which is then your time to really shine.

Make sure you know your portfolio. This is something we can easily forget to do. You may be asked in your interview “so, talk me through your portfolio” – be prepared for that. Make sure to get across the key points of the portfolio. Don’t be afraid to do this – it shows that you are organised and passionate about your work, and the interview! Go through your portfolio and practice telling someone about your work, pick out some key features that you would want to discuss. Be prepared for questions you that might be asked about your work.

The Details

• Make a plan. Have a look at your work and figure out what you want to show, how you want to present it, and get ideas of how it will go together. You want the portfolio to flow, so consider this first instead of randomly placing images and text to create an architectural muddle!
• Keep it simple and clear. As always, don’t try to overcomplicate things. The bottom line is that people want to see your work, so make sure that you portfolio does just that – shows your work. If in doubt a few really good impact images are far better than a mish mash of ‘ok’ images. Think quality not quantity.
• Try and include variety. Show the different skills you have by demonstrating them in a variety of projects you have worked on. For example, if you are a bit of a ninja when it comes to model making, get that stuff in your portfolio! Make sure you take really good photos that show the model off at its best. Or, if you spend hours sketching ideas and design processes, scan it and get it in there. Don’t forget, you are unique, demonstrate.
• Make it digital. I would highly recommend that your portfolio is digital and not an old school cut and paste job. It is so much easier to adapt a digital portfolio for specific interviews/reasons, and have different versions for different uses. You can also add new work easily, and take out old irrelevant work.
• On a digital note – make sure the images you use are high quality. Don’t use pixelated or out of focus images, it looks terrible and makes you out to be unprofessional.
• Quality and quantity again. Don’t forget you are trying to show your best stuff not as much as possible. If you did a project that wasn’t great or you weren’t particularly proud of, leave it out. Or just pick out the good bits. Say you did some great drawings of the site, but your design was a bit rubbish, just show the drawings!
• White is alright. I have seen a few portfolios that have got a bit carried away with fancy backgrounds. I say, go white… or grey… or some light pale colour. The big old crazy backgrounds often detract from the images you have worked so hard to create. So, I’d say, white is alright.
• Show a range of image sizes through the portfolio. Think about how the portfolio reads, if each page is the same it could get a bit boring.
• If you have text on your pages make sure it is clear, a good readable size, and consistent. Maybe use bullet points or captions if you want to demonstrate particular elements of a project, or give a brief description. Whatever you do, don’t use too much text as it takes away focus from your images. 
• When putting your portfolio together consider: flow of presentation, range of images, portrait or landscape, size, binding, format, balance, variety, impact.