How to Create Product Manager Portfolio Samples

Looking for a job? Build a portfolio. Not just a résumé. If I were job hunting in 2025, here’s what I’d do. Build ONE great portfolio project in the next 30 days. Something that shows - not tells - your skill, thought process, and creativity. I say this as someone who's also hired half a dozen people in the past 2 years. There's too much noise out there. You've got to find a way to stand out. Here are 3 roles and 3 portfolio projects you can build in the next 30 days to stand out: 👩🏽💻 1. Product Manager Build: A new feature for an app you love → Pick a product (Spotify, Notion, Duolingo) → Design a new feature: user problem → solution → wireframes → Write a PRD (problem, KPIs, edge cases, success metrics) One of the most creative ways I've seen a friend get an interview was this: He mocked up a "Spotify Social Listening" feature - then sent it to Spotify PMs. This got him an immediate response and interview. Tool stack: Notion, Figma, Canva, ChatGPT, Whimsical 📱 2. UX/UI Designer Build: A 2-week redesign challenge → Pick a real-world flow that sucks (e.g. booking train tickets on IRCTC lol or the entire Goodreads web app) → Interview a few users (just ask around within your friends) → Redesign the flow with better UX → Share your case study on Behance or your website Write a post on the entire process you followed. Tool stack: Figma, Maze, Framer, Medium 📊 3. Data Analyst Build: A dashboard + case study → Choose a public dataset (NYC taxi data, Netflix ratings, upcoming Indian startups) → Clean + analyze it using SQL/Python → Build a dashboard in Tableau or Power BI → Publish your insights + charts as a case study Once again, write a post on the entire process you followed. Tool stack: SQL, Python, Tableau, Canva, Medium ... It's easy to get stuck in the rut of applying to jobs every day. Try something a tiny bit different... and you can easily stand out from the noise. Best of luck! 🌿 Found this useful? Repost it to help someone who’s job hunting. 🟢 Want a free guide to acing your first PM interview? Comment below “portfolio” below and I’ll send it over. :)

Confession: While I've reviewed thousands of portfolios, I've never read a case study all the way through. I ALWAYS scan them. I just don't have the time to look through every detail. And I know that most other folks who are reviewing portfolios are doing the exact same thing for the same reasons. This means that your portfolio should: 1. Make it easy to scan 2. Use big, high quality visuals 3. Tell quick, concise stories 4. Most importantly, make that story easy to consume in two minutes or less If I were to build my portfolio today, here's how I would do it using these principles: 1️⃣ I'd have a top overview section that has a short blurb of what to expect/what I accomplished AND the final mockups/prototype of what I created. 2️⃣ I'd write out each case study using a word document first to make sure that my headlines told the entire story quickly and concisely. I'd use a classic story arc 1. Context/background 2. Conflict 3. Rising action 4. Climax 5. Falling action 6. Resolution The simpler version of this is the 3 Cs of storytelling: 1. Context 2. Conflict 3. Change (AKA what improved as a result of your work) 3️⃣ I'd optimize my headlines below the overview to tell the story of what I learned. Once everything was written out in a Google doc, I'd edit everything down to the essentials. I'd make sure to pull out the important learnings/quotes and make them big so reviewers could easily scan them. 4️⃣ I'd break up sections with large images to make it feel more interesting and less fatiguing. 5️⃣ I'd ask friends and family to read it and provide feedback about clarity and how much time it took them. If they can easily understand it, see my impact, and quickly go through it, then I'm on the right track. 6️⃣ I'd use LinkedIn and adplist.org to find more folks to provide feedback. Again, I'd focus their feedback on clarity and the amount of time it took for them to go through it.

Many aspiring product managers asked me for application advice recently. This is the advice I give 99% of the time: Show how your work influenced the success of the product. Success is not only defined by revenue. It can also mean improvements in efficiency, usability, customer satisfaction, etc. Why is this important? Because great product managers are able to make decisions that improve key metrics for the product and business. This is far more impactful than simply listing your job responsibilities. A good framework for this: 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝗹𝗲𝗱, 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱, 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲, 𝗲𝘁𝗰.) + 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 (𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲) + 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 (𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗫% 𝗼𝗳 𝗬). When I was applying to my first PM job, I became discouraged after facing many rejections. It felt like I couldn’t get my foot in the door. I had never worked as an official PM, but I had gained transferable discovery skills from my experience in a research lab. After using the above framework to reframe my experience, I saw immediate improvement in my job search. For example, a bullet initially read: • Collaborated with a research professor and team to understand healthcare provider goals and workflows. After refinements, it became: • Led user testing with 30 clinicians, achieving a 60% increase in usability across three prototype iterations. The key is to help the recruiter or hiring manager visualize you excelling as a PM. Showing your impact on the product is one of the best ways to do this. -------- Feel free to reach out for personalized advice on how to craft your PM resume! #ProductManagement #Careers #JobSearch