Since it is that time of year and my inbox is starting to get clogged with portfolio's that people email me blindly, I thought I would provide some insight into what people like me are really looking at when they see your portfolio. I can almost guarantee it isn't what you think.

If you are an architectural student – or a young architecture school graduate – Architectural Portfolios are extremely important. While they are probably not as important as you think, they are far more important that what most people outside the industry realize. This is the tool that will play THE key role in getting a job … the right sort of job. Resumes are important, they can help you get an interview, but few people coming out of architecture school will ever get hired based on their zippy resume.It all comes down to your portfolio.The problem is that most people:a) don’t know how to put a decent portfolio together, and b) focus on the wrong sort of message in their portfolio.Since it is that time of year and my inbox is starting to get clogged with portfolio’s that people email me blindly, I thought I would provide some insight into what people (like me) are really looking at when they see your portfolio. I can almost guarantee you that it isn’t what you think.When I graduated from architecture school, 25 years ago, things were a lot different. People didn’t have digital portfolio’s, and you didn’t have the option of creating a website wh...