Eight portfolio mistakes that make hiring teams hesitate

Hiring teams skim quickly and are looking for reasons to say yes. These eight things hand them reasons to say no, and each is fixable in an afternoon.

1. Low-resolution images. Soft, blurry screens make polished work look careless. Export sharp.
2. Hard-to-find contact details. If someone has to hunt for how to reach you, many won't.
3. Outdated work. Projects from years ago with nothing recent suggest you stopped growing. Remove or refresh.
4. Broken links. Dead links signal that nobody is looking after the site. Check them regularly.
5. Typos and sloppy formatting. One slip is human. Several suggest a pattern.
6. Vague positioning. A generic label like "Product Designer | UX | UI" tells a reader nothing. Say what you do and for whom.
7. No process or context. Finished screens without the problem, your role and the decisions behind them leave reviewers guessing.
8. Unclear structure and uneven quality. If one project shines and the next looks rushed, people doubt the consistency. Cut the weakest, and give every case study the same shape.

Print this list, then read your portfolio the way a stranger would, in under a minute. Fix what you wince at.