Department toolkit

The Design & UX Student Toolkit

Everything to set up before you start sharing your work — in the order design reviewers actually look.

Why this order, for design & ux

In design and UX, the portfolio does the interviewing before a person does. A reviewer opens the case studies first — looking for process, how you got from a brief to a finished screen or layout and what you tried along the way, not just a polished final shot. That's why this path leads with a design portfolio and a personal site: get the work in front of people in the order they'll actually look at it.

Everything after the portfolio exists to not get in its way. A profile, a resume, a headline — none of them need to impress on their own; they need to be clean enough that nothing contradicts the work a reviewer already liked. Entry roles on this ladder are won by a strong case study far more often than by a strong bullet list.

  1. 1A design portfolio that shows your processDesign hiring starts with a look at your process, not your paragraph — case studies that show sketches and iterations tell a reviewer more than a finished shot alone ever will.
  2. 2A simple personal site you can stand behindOne page that gathers your portfolio link, your story, and your resume in one place — a reviewer checking your work will usually only click through once.
  3. 3A professional photo and headline, done in an afternoonA visual field is unforgiving about presentation — the same eye that judges your layouts will notice a cropped or blurry headshot instantly.
  4. 4Set up LinkedIn like a professionalBy the time someone reads your headline they've usually already seen your work — let it name your track (product, brand, motion) rather than re-selling what the portfolio already proved.
  5. 5A one-page resume structure that worksKeep the resume plain and legible — it exists to confirm dates and titles, not to carry the visual argument your portfolio has already made.
  6. 6Go straight to the source: company career pagesStudios and small in-house teams often post openings on their own site before a larger board picks them up — checking a handful directly gets you there first.

Before you apply — the checklist

  • Portfolio published with at least three case studies showing process, not just final shots
  • Personal site live, linking your portfolio, story, and resume in one place
  • Headshot and headline set, matching across every profile
  • LinkedIn headline names your design track (product, brand, motion, or similar)
  • Resume saved as a clean one-page PDF, named FirstLast_Resume
  • Career pages bookmarked for the studios or teams you'd want to work with
  • Know where you stand: your free Knock Number
Print the checklist (PDF)

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The Design & UX Student Toolkit · Knock