Ambitious·Designers
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Designer Credibility Index

You are not losing interviews because your work is weak.

Your portfolio, LinkedIn, and resume have to survive three evaluators with three different standards. This scores all 35 signals they respond to and ranks what to fix first. From $149, and it is not open yet.

Overall score

73/100
C
Gate 1 · AI and ATS screen7 of 8
Gate 2 · Recruiter scan6 of 9
Gate 3 · Hiring manager3 of 10
Credibility and freshness2 of 4
Top gaps, ranked by impact:
No quantified outcome No constraint named Titles, not outcomes Contribution buried in "we" Systems thinking

What you are up against

Three gates, three different standards

Every design candidate clears three separate filters before anyone discusses a job. Most application materials are built for one.

10 signals

The AI and ATS screen

Automated systems score keyword alignment in context and reject anything that parses badly. Fail here and no human ever sees your work.

10 signals

The recruiter scan

A person moving fast. Five seconds to decide whether to keep reading, two to three minutes total if they do.

10 signals

The hiring manager review

Where strong designers lose. Not because the work is weak, but because the materials never state the constraint, the reasoning, or the result.

5 signals

Credibility and freshness

The quiet ones. Stale dates, mismatched history, dead links, a site that looks parked. They cost you before anyone can articulate why.

What you get when it opens

Every signal scored, with the evidence

A score and a grade

Out of 100, with a letter grade, calculated against every signal we could actually observe.

All 35 signals, individually

Strong, weak, missing, or not observable. Each one cites the specific thing on your site, profile, or resume that earned the status.

What is working

Named specifically, with the signals that back it up. You should know what to protect, not only what to fix.

Your top gaps

The three to five highest-impact problems, stated plainly, with no cushioning.

A prioritized fix list

Ranked by expected impact on interview conversion, not by how easy each one is. Usually five to seven items, each tied to the gate it affects.

Nothing guessed

If a signal cannot be observed, it is marked not observable and excluded from your score. Nothing is inferred and nothing is softened to be polite.

Who is scoring this

I have sat on both sides of the chair.

Twenty years in design and technology, most of it building enterprise systems. Most recently inside an institutional bank. I have written the requirements, sat on the panel, and read the portfolios that got passed over. I know what a hiring manager says out loud about a candidate and what they say after the call ends.

I have also been the one applying. In November 2024 my employer replaced half my team with outside vendors and I was part of what got cut. So I went through the same screen you are going through: the automated filter, the recruiter who never replies, the portfolio you rebuilt twice that still did not land an interview.

Job hunting in design and tech is exhausting in a way people outside it do not see. The silence is the worst part, because silence teaches you nothing. You cannot fix what nobody will name. That is the entire reason this exists. It names the thing.

The 35 signals are not my taste or an opinion. They are what I watched decide outcomes from the hiring side, checked against what actually failed for me on the candidate side. No cushioning, no guessing, and no telling you your work is the problem when it is your evidence.

Three ways to take it

The report runs without me. My attention is the part that runs out.

Same 35-signal report in all three. What changes is whether you also get me looking at it with you.

The Index

$149

Unlimited. The scoring is automated, so there is no queue.

  • All 35 signals scored, with the evidence cited on every one
  • Score out of 100 and a letter grade
  • Your gaps ranked by impact on interview conversion
  • The 14-Day Fix Sprint, your fix list turned into 90-minute assignments
  • The Signal Library, a before and after for all 35 signals
  • The Portfolio Fix Kit and a daily check-in for those 14 days
  • A free 30-Day Re-Score, so you see exactly what your work moved
Put me on this list

Delivered in 24 to 48 hours.

The Index + The Read

$299

Six a week. That part is my calendar.

  • Everything in The Index
  • A 10-minute video of me reading your report out loud
  • Which gap I would fix first, and why that one
  • What I saw that a score cannot say
  • The one thing in your materials I would not touch
  • Yours to keep and rewatch
Put me on this list

Video lands with your report.

The Index + The Walkthrough

$499

Six a week. Same calendar, longer session.

  • Everything in The Index
  • Twenty minutes live, recorded, and sent to you afterward to rewatch
  • The live session replaces The Read's video rather than adding to it
  • Bring the disagreements. The score is not the last word
  • Bring the work you could not submit, including anything under NDA
  • Bring the roles you are aiming at and we will talk about the gap
Put me on this list

Booked after your report lands.

What none of it does It does not rewrite your case studies, match your resume to a posting, or write your LinkedIn. That is an operating system, not a report. Something I want to build together so it becomes the Ambitious Designer OS. This tells you where you are failing and in what order to fix it. What you do with that is yours.
If it does not name five real gaps, the refund is automatic A gap is any signal that does not come back functional, which means it is marked weak or missing. Signals I could not observe do not count, because there was nothing there to judge. If your report names fewer than five, I refund it when I deliver it. You do not have to ask, you do not have to argue, and you keep the report and everything that came with it. What I will not promise you is a job. Nobody honestly can, unless they are a hiring manager, and even then there are hoops to jump through.

Before you sign up

Fair questions

When does it open?

I am not putting a date on the page until I can hold it. The waitlist gets told first, and it gets told the day it opens, not a week of teasers beforehand.

Am I paying anything now?

No. This is a list, not a checkout. Nothing is charged, no card is collected, and joining does not obligate you to buy when it opens.

What do you do with my email?

I email you when the Designer Credibility Index opens. That is the whole use. It is not sold, it is not rented, and it does not get added to a newsletter you did not ask for.

Which one should I buy?

$149 if you trust yourself to read a ranked list and act on it. $299 if you want to hear which gap I would fix first and why, because the ranking tells you the order and the video tells you the reasoning. $499 if you think the score is going to be wrong about something and you want to argue with me about it, or if your best work is under NDA and needs a conversation.

Why is there a cap on two of them and not the first?

The report is automated. It runs whether I am asleep, on a call, or on vacation, so there is no queue and I am not going to invent one. The video and the walkthrough are me, and there are only so many of those in a week. Six of each. When the week fills, the next opening is the following week.

Is this portfolio feedback?

No. Portfolio feedback tells you what one person thinks of your work. This tells you where your candidacy structurally fails a screening process. Two designers can get identical feedback on their visual work and score forty points apart here.

What counts as a gap?

Any signal that does not come back functional. Every one of the 35 is marked strong, weak, missing, or not observable. Strong is functional. Weak and missing are gaps, and each one is named with the evidence that earned it. Not observable means I could not see it at all, usually a password wall or something you did not send, and those are excluded from your score and from the gap count, because guessing is not scoring.

If your report comes back with fewer than five gaps, the refund is automatic. I issue it when I deliver the report. You do not have to notice, ask, or argue about it.

Will fixing everything get me a job?

No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. This finds where your candidacy is failing a screen. Getting through that screen is necessary, not sufficient.

What is Ambitious Designer OS?

The report is the diagnosis. The OS is the system that fixes it and keeps fixing it: you build your own evidence library and a set of skills that take a job posting in and produce a matched site, case studies, and outreach for that specific role. It is being built now, and the quiz below is how I decide what goes in it.

Eight questions, about two minutes

Tell me what the system has to do before I finish building it

Ambitious Designer OS is the thing that comes after the report. It is not finished, and I would rather build what you actually need than what I assume you need.

The quiz asks where you are in your search, how you work now, what is actually blocking you, and what a system like that is worth to you. You get a straight answer at the end about whether it is a fit, including when it is not. No sales call, no pitch.

Take the quiz Your answers change what gets built.

The screen is running whether you know your score or not.

Get on the list and find out where you actually stand.

Join the waitlist