Design & Docs Tools
Canva, Figma, Notion, and other workspace tools for building resumes, portfolios, and business docs.
10 resources filed here — every one is completely free. Open these in the Resource Hub to filter by collection, type, or price.
The tools that turn your experience into something someone can look at — resumes, one-pagers, decks, and portfolio sites.
10 of 10 free · Curated and reviewed personally by Justin Smith
My picks if you only have time for three
Free, good-looking pitch deck and one-pager templates you can edit in minutes.
In plain terms: This website offers free templates for pitch decks and one-page overviews. You can quickly customize the designs to present your business ideas.
Why I recommend it: Ten slides, one idea per slide. Design is not your bottleneck — clarity is.
A public, continuously updated calendar of events, workshops, hackathons, networking sessions and career programmes aimed at students and early-career people. Each row lists who it is for, the date, the application deadline, the location, the cost and a registration link, with ready-made views for free events, online events, London events and things closing soon.
Details: Free to view, no account needed. The "Free Events" and "Closing Soon" views are the fastest way in. It is UK-heavy, with a lot of London listings — check the location column before you plan around anything. Always confirm the date and deadline on the organizer's own page, since a shared calendar can fall behind.
Design and prototyping tool used across the industry, with a free Starter plan that covers design files, FigJam whiteboards and slides. Useful for portfolios, pitch decks, wireframes and simple brand assets.
Why I recommend it: Free Starter plan has limits on the number of files and collaborators, and some features (Dev Mode, advanced Figma Make usage) sit on paid seats. Enough for one person building a portfolio or deck without paying.
More on Design & Docs Tools — broken down by tools, advice, news, case studies, then voices
3 resources
The apps, builders, and features you can use directly.
A third-party Airtable form shared with the library.
Why I recommend it: I added this link as requested, but I need a bit more context to categorize and describe it properly.
Popular design platform with AI features for creating graphics, videos, presentations, and marketing materials.
Why I recommend it: If you only learn one design tool for your business, make it Canva.
Large library of free, editable professional resume templates — good for design-adjacent roles, with clean single-column options for ATS.
In plain terms: This website provides a large collection of free, editable resume templates. You can choose clean single-column layouts for ATS screening or select designs suited for creative roles.
Why I recommend it: Pick a simple single-column template — heavy graphics confuse applicant tracking systems.
3 resources
Guides, courses, templates, and playbooks for using it well.
A fellowship with Vals AI, the team that benchmarks how AI models actually perform, for people who want to work on model evaluation.
Why I recommend it: Evaluation work is where a lot of AI hiring is heading — careful, skeptical people do well here even without a PhD.
Announcement of the expansion of Next Chapter, a paid apprenticeship program that hires formerly incarcerated people into software engineering roles, to additional technology companies.
In plain terms: This article explains Next Chapter, a software engineering apprenticeship program designed for formerly incarcerated individuals. Job seekers can learn about paid training, mentorship, and career opportunities at technology companies like Slack, Dropbox, and Zoom.
Why I recommend it: One of the few second-chance tech pipelines with real hiring behind it. Share this with anyone who thinks a record ends the conversation.
How the Next Chapter model was documented and packaged so other employers can adopt fair-chance hiring practices for technical roles.
In plain terms: This resource details an initiative that helps formerly incarcerated individuals build careers in the technology sector. You can learn about paid software engineering apprenticeships, mentorship programs, and tech companies committed to fair hiring.
Why I recommend it: If you are advocating for fair-chance hiring at your own employer, this is the playbook to hand your leadership.
1 resource
Primary documents, studies, and worked examples.
A shared Notion workspace collecting 120 reusable LinkedIn post structures alongside AI prompts for drafting each one.
Why I recommend it: Frameworks fix the blank-page problem. Use them for structure, then replace every generic line with something only you could have written.
