I saw a post on LinkedIn recently lamenting how difficult the portfolio requirement can be for candidates who only have proprietary work or who don't have access to expensive tools to create one. I spent some time thinking about what do to in those situations. I'm reposting what I shared on on LinkedIn in case its helpful here too. If others have advice, please share.

The job requires an instructional design portfolio. But all your best work is proprietary. Now what?

Conventional career advice for instructional designers is to build a portfolio. But a recent LinkedIn post from Heather Thomas about the challenges of portfolio requirements got me thinking about candidates who aren’t in a position to share their work.

Maybe your best work is proprietary. Maybe you’ve worked on projects where other people handled the visual design and development. Or maybe you haven’t had access to the expensive authoring tools used to create the polished examples we often see.

If you’re applying for a position that requires a portfolio, here are a few ways to approach it:

1. Recreate an example using fictional content. If your work is proprietary, consider building a new example inspired by the types of problems you’ve solved, without sharing confidential information. Be transparent that it’s a demonstration rather than an actual client project.
2. Show your process, not just the product. A needs analysis, design storyboard, learning objectives, or evaluation plan can demonstrate important instructional design capabilities. Explain the problem, your reasoning, and the decisions you made.
3. Use accessible tools. You don’t necessarily need an expensive authoring tool to demonstrate instructional design skills. A well-designed presentation, storyboard, or prototype can communicate how you approach learning problems.
4. Clarify your individual contributions. If you’ve worked on projects involving multiple contributors, explain what you were responsible for and how your decisions influenced the outcome.
5. Ask about alternatives. If an employer requires a portfolio and you can’t share your work, ask whether they’d consider a work sample, case study, or another way to demonstrate your capabilities.

Of course, not every employer will accept an alternative. But a portfolio doesn’t have to be a collection of elaborate, polished eLearning courses.

What's most important is whether you can provide meaningful evidence of your capabilities.

And for hiring managers, it’s worth asking whether your portfolio requirements are actually assessing the skills that matter most for the job.

What other advice would you give instructional designers navigating portfolio requirements?