Professional Presence
You're communicating the moment you walk in.
Why this matters
Your portfolio and your conversation are how a firm evaluates your design ability. Your professional presence is how they evaluate whether they want to spend a year working with you. Firms make both assessments simultaneously. The goal is to make sure the second doesn't undermine the first.
Dress and appearance
Business casual is the minimum. Err on the side of dressing slightly above where you think the firm's culture sits — you can adjust downward once you're in the studio, but arriving underdressed to an interview is a first impression you can't retract. Nobody has ever been turned down for an internship for being too well put together.
| Standard | In practice |
|---|---|
| Business casual | Clean, pressed clothing that fits well. Neat footwear. Nothing revealing, nothing baggy or disheveled. |
| Grooming | Oral and personal hygiene are non-negotiable professional requirements. This should go without saying. If you notice a friend is dealing with an issue, help them out. You'd want them to do the same for you. |
| Details | Shoes matter more than most people think, be comfortable and stylish if you'd like, but your shoes must be clean and well cared for. Trim your nails and take care of your hands; they're at portfolio level when you're presenting. A portfolio held by visibly unkempt hands is a distraction. |
Body language
Shake hands firmly when you arrive and when you leave. Make eye contact — engaged and direct, not staring. Sit up. Don't fidget with your portfolio, your phone, or anything else on the table. These aren't personality traits you either have or don't have — they're habits that improve with practice and awareness.
Verbal presence
The most common issue in student interviews isn't the content of what's said — it's the delivery. Filler words — "like," "um," "basically," "you know," "so..." as the first word of every answer — become distracting at high frequency. The same is true of common phrases — "and that sort", "and what-not", "literally", "actually" — They signal nervousness, which is understandable. But they also signal a lack of preparation, which is avoidable.
The fix is not to eliminate nervousness. Interviewers know you're nervous, they were to when they were on your side of the table. Accept this reality and practice talking about your work so many times that familiarity reduces the frequency of tics. Record yourself presenting your portfolio. Present it to a classmate, a professor, or a wall. Present it until the conversation about your work stops feeling like a performance and starts feeling like something you actually know.
Other verbal habits to watch: repeating the same phrase across multiple answers ("That's a great question"), trailing off instead of landing a sentence cleanly, and filling silence with sound instead of thought. A brief pause before answering is professional. Filling every pause with "um" is not.
What not to do
- Business casual or above
- Firm handshake, direct eye contact
- Practice your verbal delivery beforehand
- Phone silenced and out of sight
- Casual or disheveled clothing
- Looking at your portfolio instead of the interviewer
- Winging your answers without prior practice
- Checking your phone at any point