Imagine two mid-level architects with nearly identical resumes: five years of experience at respected firms, solid project management skills, and proficiency in AutoCAD and Revit. At first glance, they look the same on paper. Candidate A’s portfolio, however, is little more than a set of basic project summaries. It shows that they are capable, but it does not offer much insight into their design philosophy or what role they played in the work. In contrast, Candidate B’s portfolio is curated and narrative-driven, with projects that demonstrate their range paired with write-ups that explain the design problem and how they contributed to the solution. Who do you think is most likely to move forward in the architecture hiring process?

This is something we’ve seen time and again at Archipro. The truth is, the creative portfolio for architects is the single most critical hiring tool, providing the clearest window into their vision, skills, and potential. A portfolio that demonstrates the candidates real-world impact, storytelling ability, and design eye inspires confidence and excitement.

The question many firm leaders and hiring managers ask when evaluating architectural portfolios is how to judge their true value. Just because a portfolio is impressive at first glance doesn’t always mean that individual is the right one for the job. Let’s take a closer look at how to assess portfolios when you’re recruiting architecture and design talent to make sure you’re truly identifying the best candidates.

Why portfolios matter in architecture hiring

A portfolio is more than just a collection of drawings. It’s a storytelling tool that shows not just what an architect has designed but also how they think and bring their ideas to life. Because of this, a strong portfolio can reveal a candidate’s creativity, technical skills, and real-world impact in a way that a resume alone never can.

For hiring managers, this storytelling power can accelerate the decision making process. When a candidate presents a well-curated portfolio, it quickly answers critical questions. Do they have relevant project experience? Can they communicate ideas clearly? Are they able to design at the level you need? When you’re selecting architects based on their portfolio, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of these determinations and makes it easier to identify the right fit with confidence.

Key criteria for evaluating architectural portfolios

When you’re conducting an architecture portfolio review, you want to go beyond the surface-level aesthetics. There are five key areas where the strongest candidates stand out:

Design quality and creativity

A portfolio should reveal the candidate’s design vision and originality. Seek projects that show original ideas and innovative thinking while still addressing the needs of clients and end users.

Technical skills

Renderings by themselves don’t give a complete picture of an architect’s skills. The strongest portfolios also include construction drawings, detailed plans, and examples of proficiency with drafting, CAD, and BIM software. These elements demonstrate that the candidate can turn design ideas into practical, buildable solutions.

Project relevance

Just like a resume, a strong portfolio should be tailored to the firm and role the candidate is applying for. Pay attention to whether the projects highlighted align with your firm’s focus. If the projects they include are relevant, this signals both intentionality with their portfolio choices and a strong likely fit with your firm.  

Presentation and communication

A clear and professional layout shows that the candidate is capable of communicating their design ideas in a way other people can easily understand. This is a crucial skill for working with clients and project teams. Look for a clean, well-organized portfolio with concise explanations of the candidate’s role in each project and their design approach.

Collaboration and teamwork

Architecture is rarely a solo effort. Effective portfolios demonstrate the candidate’s role in team projects, clarifying their responsibilities and contributions to help hiring managers gauge how the individual functions in collaborative environments.

Common red flags in architectural portfolios

One of the biggest missteps we see firm leaders make during design portfolio evaluation is getting pulled in by a polished look without verifying that there’s real depth there, too. Beautiful visuals can obscure a lack of substance. Glossy renderings can be a good sign, but only if they’re paired with construction drawings and insight into the design process that show the candidate understands the work.

There are other red flags to watch for in how the projects are presented. A cluttered or confusing portfolio signals a lack of clarity about their design thinking, and could be a sign that they’ll bring the same chaos to team communication. Another warning is excessive use of jargon and buzzwords, which may be overused to mask the fact that the content itself is weak.

Many projects are collaborative in architecture, which can make it difficult to pinpoint each individual’s contributions. This is why text explaining the candidate’s specific role is crucial to effectively use an architecture portfolio review in hiring. You also want to see evidence that projects made it off the drawing board. While renderings and concepts are valuable, built work demonstrates follow-through, constructability, and practical experience.

Best practices for reviewing portfolios during hiring

Knowing the right criteria to focus on, and the common red flags to look out for, is a good start to get the most value out of candidate portfolios. There are also some review strategies that you can employ to ensure the fairness and effectiveness of the process. Here are some architectural portfolio tips to follow.

Standardize criteria across candidates to reduce bias

Having a consistent set of portfolio review criteria for architects ensures fairness and helps you to compare portfolios more objectively. If you lack this kind of shared framework, hiring decisions are more likely to be influenced by the personal feelings of interviewers, which makes it more difficult to compare candidates and identify which one is truly the best fit for the role.

Creating a simple checklist or scoring rubric can go a long way here. Identify the key skills, traits, or types of project that reviewers should focus on and give them a straightforward process to evaluate these qualities. This streamlines the process and creates a clear record of how your hiring decisions were made.

Tailor your evaluation to the role

Different roles call for different strengths. The candidate’s level of experience is one big factor. For a junior designer who hasn’t yet completed many real-world projects, the main things you want to see in their portfolio are foundational skills and future potential. When it’s a senior architect, their portfolio should highlight complex problem-solving and experience working directly with clients. Certain positions may also require specialized skills, such as green building practices, adaptive reuse, or computational design, which should be reflected in the portfolio.

Before you start reviewing portfolios, you should have a clear list of the role’s specific responsibilities and the skills that will be required to fulfill them. This helps you to target capabilities and experience that are directly relevant, and prevents you from overvaluing qualities that aren’t critical for the job at hand.

Look for growth over time, not just end results

Polished final products can be impressive, but the process behind them often tells you more about the candidate’s abilities. This is where sketches, models, and written explanations of the project and design choices can be very useful, giving you insight into how candidates think and approach challenges.

Look for an evolution and progression in the projects included in the portfolio, especially when you’re reviewing early-career architects. This can give you insight into how the candidate adapts, learns, and innovates, which can be just as important for their long-term success with your firm as their end products.

Involve multiple reviewers to get a balanced perspective

More so than application materials like the resume or skill tests, a portfolio is inherently subjective. What excites one reviewer might not resonate with another. Involving a diverse group of reviewers helps you get a balanced set of perspectives that can reduce the impact of individual preferences on the final decision.

Encourage each reviewer to complete their evaluations independently before discussing them as a group. Taking this approach gives you a more well-rounded assessment, helping to ensure that strong candidates aren’t overlooked because of individual preferences.

Key questions to ask candidates about their portfolios

A portfolio isn’t just a stand-alone evaluation tool. Integrating the portfolio into the interview process can help to gain even deeper insights from it, giving the candidate the opportunity to put their projects in context and share additional details about their work process or design aesthetic.

Some portfolio review interview questions that can be very helpful to ask candidates include:

• What part of this project was your direct contribution? This clarifies the candidate’s specific role within a team effort, helping you determine the impact of their skills on the outcome.
• Can you talk us through your design process from concept to completion? With this question, you dig deeper into how the candidate structures projects and transforms ideas into buildable solutions.
• How did you balance the client’s needs with your design aesthetic in this project? Architects often need to balance creativity with practicality and work within others’ constraints or vision. Hearing how they’ve approached this in the past can help you get a sense for their potential impact on client satisfaction.
• How did you collaborate with engineers, contractors, or consultants on this project? Teamwork and communication are essential in multi-disciplinary projects, and learning about the candidate’s approach to collaboration can give you a sense for how well they’ll fit into your team dynamic.
• What challenges did you face, and how did you resolve them? Problem-solving, resilience, and creativity are all crucial skills for architects, and hearing how the candidate navigated complex issues in the past can help to demonstrate them.
• How did you handle feedback or revisions during this project? This demonstrates their adaptability, as well as their professionalism and their ability to separate creative design work from their personal ego.
• How would you improve this project in hindsight? The way an architect responds to this question reveals whether they have the self-awareness to evaluate their own work and grow from their experiences.
• Which project best reflects your design philosophy? This reveals the candidate’s values, creative vision, and approach to architecture, which can be valuable for deciding if they align with your firm’s culture.
• Which project in your portfolio had the greatest real-world impact, and why? Responses to this question give insights into the candidate’s values and priorities, as well as their ability to connect design choices to meaningful outcomes.

While you likely don’t need to ask every candidate all of those questions, choosing the three to five that are most relevant for your firm and the role can broaden the insights you gain from their portfolio.

Turning the architecture job portfolio review into a hiring advantage

Reviewing architectural portfolios is more than just a box to check during the hiring process. The truth is, there’s more to a strong portfolio than glossy photos of finished projects. Its true value is how it serves as a window into the candidate’s technical skills and approach to solving problems, as well as how they think, create, and communicate in a broader sense. Approaching the portfolio review process with structure and intentionality will not only help you to identify the right hire faster, but will also ensure you bring in professionals who align with your firm’s values and project needs.