Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research
Published by Sarah Doody from Career Strategy Lab
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Welcome to the Career Strategy Podcast, with Sarah Doody, a UX Researcher & Product Designer with 22 years of experience who is helping UX and Product people design their careers. You’ll learn how to advance your UX or Product career including how get hired in UX, stay hired, get promoted, and build a personal brand and visibility. You’ll also hear no BS tips to optimize your UX resume and portfolio, navigate your UX job search, and prepare for UX job interviews so you can stop being invisible and be seen as an in-demand UX professional. Get ready to UX your career, ironic, right?!
185: The one thing you can't DIY in your UX job search
DIYing your UX job search feels productive right up until you realize you've been doing it for six months, twelve months, or longer with nothing to show for it. If you've been telling yourself you're one tip away from finally landing interviews, this episode is worth sitting with. The core question Sarah asks is simple and a little uncomfortable: if you gave yourself three more months on your ux job search, your portfolio, or your resume, what would actually be different? Because more time doesn't automatically mean better results. More applications don't automatically mean more interviews. If you can't answer what you'd change, you're just planning to spend more hours doing the same thing that hasn't worked yet. Sarah backs this up with research from her own program, Career Strategy Lab. After analyzing over 1,700 responses from people who didn't join, the two most common reasons were not feeling ready, or wanting to keep trying the DIY approach first. But when she surveyed people after they did join, a pattern showed up just as clearly: regret over not joining sooner, and months lost to portfolios or ux job searches that stayed stuck. The episode also gets specific about the one thing Sarah says is genuinely hard to DIY, which isn't your resume or your portfolio. It's relationships and proximity to people who are actually hiring. She shares two real examples, Marcus and Heather, both laid off, both stuck after months of solo applying, and both hired only after they stopped going it alone. Topics Discussed ✅ Why simply giving your job search "three more months" rarely changes your outcome unless your strategy actually changes ✅ The specific question to ask yourself before committing to another few months of DIYing your portfolio or resume ✅ What over 1,700 survey responses revealed about why job seekers hesitate to get outside help, and what those same people said after they finally did ✅ The popular portfolio myth about needing three to five projects before you can apply, and why it can quietly cost you months ✅ How one person got hired with only one project in her portfolio, and was found on LinkedIn without even applying ✅ Why relationships and proximity to people hiring are the hardest thing to build alone, no matter how much networking you do on LinkedIn ✅ How a referral from someone he knew got Marcus hired as a user researcher after six months of rejections and ghosting ✅ How one person's post about her manager hiring a contractor turned into a job for someone else, which then led to five more people getting hired at that same company ✅ Why being part of a smaller, closer network can make you more visible than posting into the endless scroll of LinkedIn Links & Resources 🔗 Episode 122 of the Career Strategy Podcast, Marcus's full story in his own words 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
184: Natalie got hired for a Director level UX role (and now she's the one hiring for UX roles)
39 min
Landing a Director level UX role doesn't happen by accident, and neither does becoming the person on the other side of the hiring table a few months later. Natalie Kurz did both. She spent six months on a UX job search after a layoff, landed a Director of Experience Design and Content role at NextGen Health, and within months found herself reviewing over 600 applications for her own open positions. Natalie spent 25 years in UX, most recently as a people manager, before being laid off last May. She joined Career Strategy Lab during that UX job search, and the shift she describes isn't really about tactics. She stopped using the "spray and pray" method long enough to get clear on what she actually wanted in her next UX role. She let her LinkedIn profile, UX network, and a background she almost left off her resume, do some of the work for her. What makes this episode different is that Natalie is now the one hiring for UX roles. A few months into her new position, she's already brought on multiple UX designers, including someone from Career Strategy Lab. Natalie now experiences the exact hiring process she was on the other side of not long ago. So this conversation moves between her UX job search story and what she now looks for as a UX hiring manager, which gives listeners a rare before-and-after view of the same process. If you're currently employed in a UX role and feel like your resume, portfolio, or LinkedIn presence isn't ready to go if an opportunity showed up tomorrow, this episode is worth sitting with. Topics Discussed ✅ How a recruiter found Natalie and reached out about a completely unrelated UX role, purely because of how her LinkedIn profile came across ✅ Why she eventually stopped applying to every job with "UX" in the title, and what she focused on instead ✅ How a cold, polite message to a lead UX designer on a team she wanted to join turned into a warm handoff before she ever talked to a recruiter ✅ The background she almost left off her resume entirely, and why it ended up being a key reason she got hired ✅ What it was actually like reviewing over 600 UX applications as a hiring manager, and what made a resume or portfolio stand out in the first three to five seconds ✅ The line she now tells every UX applicant about generic resume bullet points, and why it matters more than people think ✅ Why she doesn't see contract roles, career gaps, or career changes as red flags in a UX resume, even now that she's the one hiring ✅ How she uses AI to check her own UX hiring decisions for bias, rather than to write applications ✅ Why she believes she'd be far more prepared for her next UX job search than she was for her last one, and what she does now to stay that way Links & Resources 🔗 Episode 180 with Eric - UX Hiring Insights: Eric Shumake on Healthcare UX, Specializing, & Thinking of Your Career as Gigs 🔗 Natalie Kurz on LinkedIn 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
183: 3 Things I’d Do If I Was Laid Off From a UX Role Today
19 min
Just laid off from a UX role? If you’re tempted to open LinkedIn and easy-apply to every role with UX in the job title, don't do it! In this episode of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah Doody breaks down what she would NOT do after a UX layoff (e.g. play the numbers game) and the 3 things she’d prioritize instead. You’ll walk away with a clear order of operations: get specific about the UX role you want, get visible where hiring actually happens, and start showing up for the work you want to be hired for. 🎯 In this episode we discuss: - Why easy-applying to every “UX” job backfires after a layoff - How to get ruthlessly specific about the UX role you actually want - Auditing past jobs and naming your “superpowers” (and why to ask others) - Where UX recruiters and hiring managers actually hang out - The LinkedIn order of operations: headline first, then everything else - Why turning on Open to Work is a signal, not desperation - What to post on LinkedIn so your profile gets found, without becoming a “thought leader” Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:30 Why I wouldn’t play the numbers game in my UX job search 02:50 Step 1 — Get specific about the UX role you want 07:37 Step 2 — Increase your visibility 13:23 Step 3 — Post about what you want to be hired for 16:17 Putting it all together 17:44 UX Layoff checklist + final word 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
182: 6 ways you'll get hired in UX faster with Career Strategy Lab (the tour you've been asking for)
10 min
This episode is a full walkthrough of how you'll get hired in UX faster with Career Strategy Lab and exactly what happens after you join. Sarah shares what genuinely helps UX people in their job search, after coaching UX and Product people since 2017 and running Career Strategy Lab since 2021. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: ✔️ The six things that help UX and product people get hired faster ✔️ What your first 30 days inside CSL look like ✔️ Why positioning comes before your LinkedIn and resume ✔️ How the portfolio, case study, and critique process works ✔️ How monthly recruiter Q&As and the 850-alumni referral network help you get hired Topics Discussed: ✅ The 6 things Sarah has found consistently help UX people get hired faster ✅ How the first 30 days inside Career Strategy Lab are structured and why every step is intentionally sequenced to build on the last ✅ What a Compass Statement is and why it comes before everything else in your UX job search prep ✅ How getting clear on your positioning makes fixing your resume and LinkedIn significantly faster ✅ How the weekly critique system works and why submitting imperfect work early beats waiting until everything feels ready ✅ The monthly recruiter and hiring manager Q&A sessions: who shows up, what you get to ask, and why this is one of the most underrated parts of the program ✅ How Career Strategy Lab's 850-person alumni network functions as a UX-specific job referral network and how members are actively using it to get hired ✅ The open to work area, interview debriefs, and hired recaps and why watching other people get hired in real time is some of the most useful intel you can get in a job search 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
181: How UX people are leveraging relationships to get hired with the help of Career Strategy Lab
13 min
The UX job market is rough right now. If your LinkedIn feed looks anything like Sarah's, you already know that. But while everyone is complaining about the market, almost nobody is focusing on the part of the job search they can actually control. In this episode, Sarah breaks down why the job market feels so impossible right now, including the surprisingly outsized role that one-click apply has played in flooding recruiters with hundreds of applications per posting and what you can do about it. (Hint: The answer isn't more applications.) Sarah shares real examples from inside the Career Strategy Lab community of how alumni are leveraging relationships to get referrals, introductions, and job offers, including one person whose hire two years ago has now led to four or five other alumni landing roles at the same company. The through-line is simple: the people who benefit most from their communities are the ones who actually show up in them. Topics Discussed ✅ How the one-click apply button has made the job search harder for everyone and what that means for your strategy ✅ Why relationships matter more than ever in this job market, and why you need to start building them before you need them ✅ Why people say no to referral requests and how to change that ✅ Real examples of Career Strategy Lab alumni using community relationships to get referral links, introductions, and job offers ✅ How one hire two years ago has cascaded into multiple alumni landing roles at the same company ✅ The difference between existing in a community and actually participating in one Links & Resources 🔗 Jared Spool: Why is the UX job market such a mess right now? 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
180: UX Hiring Insights: Eric Shumake on Healthcare UX, Specializing, & Thinking of Your Career as Gigs
58 min
Most UX professionals spend years trying to be good at everything. Eric Shumake, founder of HXR Labs, spent 20 years getting really good at one thing and it kept opening doors he didn't expect. Eric is a principal UX researcher and a well-known voice in healthcare UX. His career has taken him through companies like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Myriad Genetics, and AliveCor. He also teaches, including a popular course on Maven on breaking into healthcare UX, and has been exploring how AI can meaningfully (and responsibly) augment research without replacing the judgment that makes research trustworthy. In this episode, Eric and Sarah cover a lot of ground: how specializing almost always beats generalizing, what surprises people when they try to bring standard UX practices into clinical environments, why Eric thinks of every role as a gig, and what he'd prioritize if he were managing someone's job search like a product. Topics Discussed ✅ Why specializing beats generalizing and how to niche down even when it feels risky ✅ How transferable skills work in practice: why experience in one highly regulated industry (like finance) can open doors in another (like healthcare) ✅ The biggest blind spot people bring into healthcare UX ✅ Why "recommendations are where insights go to die" and how to tie research to decisions and numbers so stakeholders actually act on it ✅ Treating every role as a gig and why that mindset is more practical than it sounds in today's job market ✅ Why posting consistently on LinkedIn is one of the highest-leverage things a UX professional can do in a job search right now ✅ Where AI genuinely helps in UX research (desk research, competitive analysis, automating the time-consuming parts) and where to draw a hard line ✅ What neurodivergence in the workplace looks like from the insideduring a job search Links & Resources 🔗 Eric Shumake on LinkedIn 🔗 HXR Labs 🔗 Eric's Maven course on breaking into healthcare UX 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
179: Feel Burnt Out & Invisible in Your UX Job Search? How Emmanuel Re-Entered the UX Job Market After a Career Break
31 min
Re-entering the UX job market after years away is harder than most people expect, especially when you're doing it alone. After 12 years at Constant Contact, growing from associate interaction designer to principal UX designer, Emmanuel relocated, took a deliberate career break, and then tried to re-enter a job market that had completely changed. He spent three months rebuilding his portfolio alone, then another three months applying and hearing almost nothing. His LinkedIn hadn't been updated since 2017. He burned out. In this episode, Emmanuel shares what finally got him unstuck; why working on his resume, portfolio, and LinkedIn in parallel changed his messaging faster than tackling them one at a time; how early feedback from coaches and a community shortened iteration cycles he'd been stuck in for months; and what shifted when he started applying only to roles that actually fit. He's actively interviewing now, and the inbound LinkedIn requests have started coming in too. Topics Discussed: ✅ What re-entering the UX job market after a long tenure at one company feels like and how to close the gap ✅ Why working on your resume, portfolio, and LinkedIn in parallel sharpens your message faster than doing them one at a time ✅ How long iteration cycles quietly stall your progress and what to do instead ✅ W hy submitting imperfect work for feedback early is one of the highest-leverage moves you can make ✅ What AI tools genuinely help when job searching and where human judgment still matters more ✅ The confidence cost of mass applying ✅ W hat changes when you get more selective about the roles you apply to 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
178: Stop Mass Applying: How Carlos Got Hired in UX and Promoted to Senior Product Designer
25 min
If you're sending dozens of applications per day and you aren't hearing back, this podcast is for you. Carlos was applying to dozens of UX jobs a day, swiping through listings like a job board version of a dating app, and hearing almost nothing back. Out of hundreds of applications, he got two responses and both were rejections, but he knew he was a good designer. In this episode, Carlos shares how he went from mass applying with no traction to landing a product designer role at Covenant Eyes and then getting promoted to senior product designer within the same year. He talks about what changed when he stopped treating the job search like a numbers game, how he used the same frameworks he learned in Career Strategy Lab to make his case for a promotion once he got there. Topics Discussed: ✅ Why mass applying isn't productive and what to do instead ✅ How to use the skills from your job search to land a promotion ✅ Why confidence in interviews matters more than having a perfect portfolio ✅ A portfolio website vs a portfolio presentation ✅ How research a hiring manager before your interview helps you stand out ✅ How the skills you learn during your job search transfer directly into your work after being hired ✅ W hy waiting until you feel confident enough to start is the wrong approach Links From This Episode: 🔗 Free UX Case Study Template 🔗 Career Strategy Lab Syllabus 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
177: Getting ghosted in your UX job search? You're not invisible — you're unpositioned
22 min
Are you getting ghosted in your UX job search despite knowing you're qualified? When you have 5, 10, 15 years of experience and you're applying to 20+ jobs a week without hearing back or you're not making it past the first round, it's natural to start thinking you're the problem. You're not. You're just unpositioned. In this episode, Sarah makes the case that ghosting is usually a positioning problem, rather than a skills issue. Positioning is how you communicate what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters. It's the thread that connects what you've done in the past to what you could do for a team if they hired you. When that thread is missing, recruiters and hiring managers move on because your materials aren't clearly paining the picture for them. Sarah walks through what it actually takes to fix your positioning, starting with the one foundational step most people skip: getting clear on who you are and what makes you different, before touching your resume, portfolio, or LinkedIn. Topics Discussed: ✅ Why getting ghosted in your UX job search isn't usually a qualification problem ✅ What causes recruiters to move on from your resume ✅ What "positioning" means in the context of a UX job search ✅ The step most people skip that ties everything together ✅ How applying to fewer jobs can get you more interviews ✅ Creating a Compass Statement and how it acts as a filter for every career asset you create ✅ How niching down your job search to a specific industry or type of company can transform your UX job search Links From This Episode: 🔗 How to stand out as a candidate by focusing on your benefits vs features 🔗 Developing your positioning through a career roadmap and compass statement 🔗 Free UX Case Study Template 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
176: Stuck at the Final Round of UX Interviews? Andrew Re-Did His UX Portfolio and Got 3 Offers (Including Blue Origin)
59 min
What do you do when you have years of experience, you're making it through rounds of interviews, but you still aren't getting offers? For Andrew, the answer was scrapping his entire UX portfolio and starting over. Andrew had been applying to jobs for a year. He was making it to the final interview rounds at companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google, but he wasn't getting offers. On paper, everything looked great. He couldn't figure out what was missing. Eventually he did. After six years at GE, he'd gotten so deep in the work that in interviews, he'd talk at length about how interesting the products were and the intricacies of the industry. He was selling the products instead of himself. So he scrapped everything and rebuilt his portfolio around a single core message: what he does, what he's good at, and what he can bring to the companies he's applying to. The clarity changed how he talked about himself in interviews. By the end of each conversation, hiring managers knew exactly who he was and how he'd be an asset. Three offers followed, including one from Blue Origin, where he accepted a role that brought him back to the intersection of hardware and software that drew him to UX in the first place. Topics Discussed: ✅ The difference between selling the product you worked on versus selling yourself to a potential employer ✅ The value of working on your resume, LinkedIn, and portfolio in parallel rather than sequentially ✅ Why making it to the final round but not getting the offer might signal a problem with your portfolio ✅ How perfectionism and long iteration cycles quietly destroy your confidence and what breaks the pattern ✅ What it looks like to rebuild your career materials around a single core message and how that clarity shows up in interviews too Links From This Episode: 🔗 Free UX Case Study Template 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
175: How to Deal with NDAs When Creating Your UX Portfolio
14 min
NDAs stop a lot of UX professionals from including their best work in their portfolio, but they might not be the obstacle you think they are. Sarah has spent nearly a decade coaching UX professionals, and one of the questions she gets most often is how to handle NDA-protected work in a portfolio. In this episode, she walks through what NDAs typically do and don't restrict, how to write about protected work without violating your agreement, and why UX recruiters and hiring managers aren't looking for pixel-perfect deliverables (and what they are looking for instead.) Sarah also shares a concrete example of how to frame a confidential project in a way that's compelling, specific, and respectful of any agreements you've signed. If you've been leaving projects out of your portfolio because you weren't sure what you could share, this episode is worth a listen. Topics Discussed ✅ What NDAs actually restrict vs. what most people assume they restrict (they're not the same thing) ✅ A concrete example of how to write about a confidential project without naming the company, showing screens, or violating any agreements ✅ Why UX recruiters and hiring managers care far more about how you think than what the final product looked like ✅ Practical ways to include visuals from protected projects without revealing anything proprietary ✅ How NDA concerns often uncover the real problem: not knowing how to structure a UX case study ✅ How to go back to a former employer and ask the right questions to clarify what your NDA actually allows ✅ Why your UX portfolio doesn't have to be a website and how a presentation format can sidestep a lot of NDA concerns entirely Links From This Episode: 🔗 Free UX Case Study Template 🔗 UX Hiring Insights: Alexander Zeh of ManyChat on Diverse UX Teams and Standout Portfolios 🔗 UX Hiring Insights: Ben Peck on UX Generalists, Soft Skills, & Standout Portfolios 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
174: The Bar to Stand Out As A UX Candidate is Lower Than You Think
17 min
Have you been applying to UX jobs you know you're qualified for and still not hearing back? Chances are, your experience isn't the problem, it's how you're presenting it. After nearly a decade of coaching UX and product professionals and reviewing thousands of resumes, portfolios, and LinkedIn profiles, Sarah has seen the same red flag mistakes show up again and again. The candidates making them are talented, experienced designers who simply were never taught how to market themselves. In this episode, Sarah breaks down one major red flag mistake for resumes, portfolios, and LinkedIn. Spoiler alert: fixing it doesn't require months of work. Sarah also shares the story of Jonathan, a UX director with 20 years of experience who was getting ghosted on 75% of his applications. He was qualified, but his materials weren't telling his story effectively. Once he addressed the right things, he landed an executive-level role at the University of Houston. Your materials don't have to be perfect... they need to be 10% better than everyone else making the same, avoidable, mistakes. Topics Discussed ✅ What hiring managers and applicant tracking systems are silently penalizing you for ✅ Why showing deliverables without context, process, or decision-making is leaving hiring managers cold ✅ What to put in your LinkedIn headline instead of just your job title and company name (and why) ✅ How to optimize your LinkedIn profile for the algorithm ✅ How to rewrite vague resume bullet points so they communicate scope and outcomes ✅ Why talented UX professionals with years of experience still struggle to get interviews ✅ How to break out of the perfection trap that's keeping you in research mode Links From This Episode: 🔗 Free UX Portfolio Case Study Template 🔗 Optimizing Your LinkedIn Headline 🔗 How to optimize your resume for the ATS so you can get more UX job interviews 🔗 EP 170: Jonathan's Journey From UX Layoff to UX Executive 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
173: UX Hiring Insights: Jeni Bible, UX Manager at Home Depot, on How She Got Hired, What She Looks for in Candidates, & Presenting UX Case Studies
1 hr 2 min
Do you ever wonder what happens on the other side of a UX job application, like who's reading your portfolio, what makes them keep going, and what makes them close the tab? Sarah sits down with Jeni Bible, a UX Manager at Home Depot who has a uniquely full-circle perspective. Jeni went through Career Strategy Lab, landed her role at Home Depot just four months later, and is now the hiring manager evaluating candidates for that same type of position. Jeni brings 27 years in the design industry, starting as a graphic designer, running her own agency for two decades, and making her way into UX through e-commerce. She now leads the online UX team at homedepot.com, focused on critical touchpoints like checkout, payments, and promotions. In this conversation, Jeni gets candid about what she looks for in a portfolio, why most candidates miss the mark in interviews, and what she told recruiters to help them filter the right people for her team. If you're in the thick of a UX job search or considering a career pivot, this interview with Jeni will be insightful. Topics discussed in this episode: ✅ How to get your application through a UX recruiters initial filter ✅ What portfolio format impresses UX recruiters more than a polished personal website ✅ The questions to ask a UX recruiter that the job description won't answer ✅ Why UX recruiters want to see failed tests and pivots, not just polished outcomes ✅ The panel interview move that almost always advances candidates to the next round ✅ How to include a canceled project in your UX portfolio without it hurting your chances ✅ Home Depot's UX career ladder explained and how contractor roles can open the door ✅ How Jeni uses peer feedback as a hiring manager Links From This Episode: Home Depot Careers Contractor Depot Timestamps: 00:00 Introducing Jeni Bible, UX Manager 01:13 Online vs. enterprise UX at Home Depot 02:32 Jeni's 27-year path into UX 05:35 Translating agency experience to in-house roles 07:47 What to ask recruiters on the first call 11:32 How CSL helped Jeni find direction 15:04 Tailoring a portfolio for a manager role 22:36 From 1,500 applicants to 10 24:07 Password-protected portfolios 29:08 What Jeni looks for in case studies 33:32 Candidates who don't ask about the team 36:27 Let the hiring manager choose your case study 39:22 Video case studies and prototype demos that stood out 41:48 The art of the pause during portfolio presentations 49:40 How to handle a canceled project in your portfolio 51:27 Reaching out on LinkedIn: what works, what doesn't 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
172: UX Hiring Insights: Alexander Zeh, Head of Product Design at ManyChat, on Building Diverse UX Teams, Scaling Design Teams, and What Makes a Portfolio Stand Out
54 min
What does it take to build a UX portfolio that makes a hiring manager stop scrolling? Alexander Zeh, Head of Product Design at ManyChat, is here to share how he approaches hiring and what many candidates get wrong. In this episode of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah Doody sits down with Alexander Zeh, a design leader with over 20 years of experience who has scaled UX teams from 5 to 43 people. Alexander is refreshingly direct about what he's looking for and what sends candidates straight to the 'no' pile. He breaks down how he structures his hiring process to reduce bias, why a failed project can be a stronger case study than a polished one, how to handle NDA-protected work, and why the "hero designer" narrative is working against you. Whether you're actively applying to UX roles or just trying to understand what hiring managers are really thinking, this conversation will change how you approach your next portfolio presentation. Topics discussed in this episode: ✅ Why Alexander treats team diversity as a design decision ✅ The grading criteria that lets hiring managers make a confident call ✅ Why clear writing and articulation matter more than Figma fluency ✅ How constraints and failed projects can make a stronger case study than a polished outcome ✅ How claiming to do it all might be a red flag to hiring managers ✅ Whether UX job seekers in different countries need different portfolios ✅ How to handle NDA-protected work ✅ Why showing your thinking at every fork in the road matters more than the final product Links From This Episode: ManyChat Careers Page Metaview CSL Podcast Episode Archive Timestamps: 00:57 Intro: Alexander and ManyChat 03:10 Alexander's career journey 07:26 From consulting to in-house leadership 12:36 Building diverse teams intentionally 15:26 Why grading criteria beats "I'll know it when I see it" 16:22 Blind submissions to avoid groupthink 18:16 What hiring managers actually look for 22:19 What standout candidates do differently 28:09 Does location affect your UX job search? 35:25 Showing impact without a happy ending 44:34 Resilience, vision, and holding the tension 47:55 Handling NDA work in your portfolio 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
171: The 6-Word Post-It Note To Speed Up & Fix Your UX Job Search
10 min
Are you spending hours on your UX job search but not actually making progress? The problem usually isn't effort. It's focus. Most job seekers stay busy tweaking portfolios, scrolling job boards, and hanging out in Slack groups, but at the end of the day, they can't point to anything that moved them closer to getting hired. In this episode of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah Doody shares a simple Post-It note hack that transformed how she runs her business, and how you can use the same concept to cut through the noise and focus on what actually matters in your job search. Topics discussed in this episode: ✅ The 6-word question a business coach told Sarah to write on a Post-It note ✅ Why "being busy" in your job search is not the same as making progress ✅ How to identify what your job search actually needs right now ✅ Why tweaking your portfolio for the fifth time probably isn't the answer ✅ How to create your own Post-It note filter for your UX job search ✅ The difference between false productivity and real momentum Timestamps: 00:00 The best productivity tool might be a Post-It note 00:24 The 6-word question that changed how Sarah runs her business 02:24 Why "is this a revenue generating activity" was a game changer 04:49 Your job search is like a business 05:45 How to write your own Post-It note question 06:30 The trap of tweaking your portfolio all Saturday 07:06 False sense of productivity and why it's the enemy of getting hired 08:45 You don't need more time, you need the right focus 09:33 Send Sarah your Post-It note on LinkedIn 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
170 - Finding Your UX Niche: Jonathan's Journey From UX Layoff to UX Executive in Higher Education
28 min
After being laid off, Jonathan spent months applying to everything and getting almost nowhere. Even with 20 years of UX experience, 75% of his applications ended in silence or rejection. In this episode of Career Strategy Lab, Sarah Doody catches up with Jonathan now that he's landed an Executive Director of Web Experience role at the University of Houston Downtown He shares what changed in his job search when he stopped applying to everything and started being intentional about where, how, and to whom he was presenting himself. Topics discussed in this episode: ✅ Why applying to everything actually slows your job search down ✅ How getting more specific and intentional led to significantly more callbacks ✅ The power of peer accountability and working sessions in a community ✅ How to think about your portfolio presentation vs. your website ✅ Why two versions of your resume matter in today's ATS-driven hiring landscape ✅ The "ugly first draft" mindset and why it helps you move faster Timestamps: 01:03 Jonathan's new role: Executive Director of Web Experience 02:32 Why DIY-ing his job search wasn't working 03:16 The tipping point that led him to join Career Strategy Lab 05:30 How niching down changed everything 07:00 From 50 applications a week to 5 12:02 The "ugly first draft" mindset 13:40 Treating your job search like an experiment 14:29 How to stay objective about your own work 15:08 Why confidence is a byproduct of action, not a prerequisite for starting 15:49 Imposter syndrome 17:16 Keep a log of wins to fight negative self-talk when you're stuck 18:36 Walking into interviews with a 30-60-90 day plan 21:32 Portfolio website vs. PDF deck 23:16 Two versions of your resume: ATS vs. human-readable 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
169 - 3 ways to stop wasting time in your UX job search
17 min
Every month your job search goes on is a month of lost salary. And the thing is, most UX and product people who are stuck aren't lazy. They're working hard, spending hours a week on their search. But they're also spending a lot of that time just waiting: waiting for a response after they apply, waiting after an interview, waiting for the right job to show up. In this episode, Sarah Doody breaks down 3 common ways you waste time in your UX job search and what to do instead so you can start getting interviews, and hired, faster! Topics discussed in this episode: ✅ Why waiting around after applying or interviewing is costing you opportunities ✅ How to follow up without seeming desperate ✅ Why the "numbers game" approach to job applications backfires ✅ How tailoring your resume and UX portfolio helps you apply to fewer jobs but get more interviews ✅ Why cold messaging on LinkedIn almost never works ✅ How to build warm relationships before you need them so people actually reply Timestamps: 00:00 Every month your job search continues is a month of lost salary 01:08 Time waster #1: Not following up after you apply or interview 03:15 Why following up isn't desperate, it's proactive 04:30 Follow up or be forgotten 05:20 Time waster #2: Sending the same resume and portfolio for every job 07:00 Why applying to fewer jobs with tailored materials gets you hired faster 08:45 How to quickly tailor your resume and portfolio for each role 10:15 Time waster #3: Waiting to build relationships until you need them 11:30 Cold messaging vs. warm messaging 12:45 How to invest in relationships before your job search 14:00 Who to prioritize building relationships with 15:15 Recap: 3 ways to stop wasting time 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
168 - UX Hiring Insights: Steph McDonald UX Design Recruiter at HubSpot on AI in Hiring, Portfolios & What Gets You Hired
58 min
What does it actually take to get hired in UX Design and stand out to UX recruiters? Steph McDonald, a UX Recruiter from HubSpot is here to share how she approaches UX hiring. With 300+ applications often coming in for a single UX design role, the competition is intense. And behind every application is a recruiter making real decisions about who moves forward and who doesn't. In this episode of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah Doody sits down with Steph McDonald, a lead UX design recruiter at HubSpot who has spent over 25 years in recruiting. Steph is refreshingly honest about what's happening on the other side of your application. She breaks down exactly how candidates are evaluated, how AI is being used in hiring right now, and the resume and portfolio mistakes that get you skipped. She also shares what she actually wants to see in a portfolio (spoiler: the messy stuff), why one-page resumes drive her crazy, and why those AI-powered bots that apply to jobs on your behalf are doing more harm than good. Whether you're actively applying to UX roles, this conversation will change how you think about showing up as a candidate. Timestamps: 00:00 Meet Steph McDonald, UX Design Recruiter at HubSpot 01:55 How Steph got into recruiting by accident 03:39 How the job market has shifted post-COVID 05:28 Why companies are hiring fewer people at higher levels 06:35 How long it actually takes to get hired at HubSpot 07:51 How HubSpot tweaks its hiring process like a product 08:41 Trauma-informed recruiting and candidate empathy 10:03 How HubSpot gives candidates real feedback after interviews 13:53 How AI is used inside HubSpot's hiring process 16:23 Auto-reject questions and how they work 18:04 Why AI application bots are hurting candidates 21:49 How recruiters feel when they spot AI-generated answers 24:58 Resume hot takes: font size, page length, and impact 29:22 What Steph looks for in a UX portfolio 33:46 Portfolio format: website vs. presentation vs. Google folder 34:49 Diversity and inclusion in HubSpot's hiring process 38:45 How many people actually get interviewed per role 41:21 Can you reach out to a recruiter after getting rejected? 45:15 Using video in your portfolio: supplement, not replacement 46:02 What "experience with ambiguity" really means 50:03 Is HubSpot hiring right now? 51:29 Lightning round: first job, dream career, interview pump-up song 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
167 - Stop Asking How: Speed Up Your UX Job Search With This One Question
20 min
If your first move when updating your resume, building your UX portfolio, or preparing for an interview is to Google "how do I…" — you're falling into a trap that's slowing down your entire UX job search. In this episode, Sarah Doody breaks down the "Who Not How" framework and explains why the question you should be asking isn't how — it's who. You'll learn why DIYing your job search with Google searches and Reddit threads is costing you time, money, and momentum, and how to start thinking like a high performer instead. Topics discussed in this episode: ✅ The "Who Not How" framework from Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy ✅ Why Googling "how to get a UX job" keeps you spinning your wheels ✅ The hidden time and money cost of DIYing your job search ✅ How high performers think differently about getting help ✅ A 3-step exercise to identify where you're stuck and what to do about it ✅ Why this concept applies to your career, business, and life Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction: Are you stuck in the "how" trap? 01:43 The concept I can't stop thinking about 02:11 The "Who Not How" book explained 03:30 The physical therapist analogy 04:36 How this applies to your UX job search 05:30 The how trap costs you time, money, and momentum 07:04 Why asking for help is not a weakness 08:15 The "how trap" with your resume 09:29 The "how trap" with your portfolio 10:15 The "how trap" with job interviews 11:44 Takeaway 1: Audit where you've been stuck 14:09 Takeaway 2: Match your "how" list to a "who" 16:36 Takeaway 3: The real cost of staying stuck 17:30 How I took 20 minutes off my marathon with a coach 18:54 This applies way beyond your job search 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
166 - UX Hiring Insights Dan Maccarone on Thinking Over Tools & UX Career Reinvention
1 hr 5 min
UX hiring insights from a UX veteran with 25+ years in UX and product. In this episode, Sarah Doody interviews Dan Maccarone, co-founder of Hard Candy Shell and Charming Robot, fractional Chief Product Officer, and a UX expert who's worked on products for Hulu, Rent the Runway, Foursquare, and the Wall Street Journal. In the episode Dan shares about what he actually looks for when hiring UX people (spoiler: it's not your Figma skills). Dan shares why he doesn't care about tools, why he conducts interviews over drinks instead of in conference rooms, and how he evaluates candidates based on curiosity, empathy, and how they think, not what software they know. He also gets into career reinvention, the rise of fractional leadership roles, and why your hobbies outside of UX might matter more than your case studies. If you're a UX or Product professional navigating your next career move, this conversation will challenge what you think hiring managers care about. What's discussed in this episode: Why Dan has hired people who didn't know Figma — and doesn't care What curiosity and a humanities background signal to a hiring manager Why Dan prefers to conducts interviews with candidates over coffee or drinks, not in conference rooms How he uses observation and empathy cues to evaluate candidates (the same way you'd do user research) Why he hates design assignments and considers them insulting What "career reinvention" looks like after 25 years in UX and how to know when it's time The real requirements for going fractional (and why it's not for everyone) Why your identity and hobbies outside of work actually make you better at your job\ How he's re-invented his own UX career multiple times 💸 See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program 📋 Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program 👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube
