A career break has NOT ruined your career or chances of getting hired, here’s why…

Intro: [00:00:00] Hey, I’m Sarah Doody, a user researcher and product designer with 20 years of experience. In 2017, I noticed something a little ironic. UX and product people, despite being great at designing experiences for other people, often struggle to design their own careers. That’s why I created Career Strategy Lab and this podcast to help you navigate your UX job search, grow in your current role, and avoid skill and salary plateaus all in a chill and BS free way.

So whether you’re. Stuck in your job search or wondering what’s next in your UX career. You are in the right place.

Your career break has not ruined your UX or product career. You can still get hired even in today’s job market, and you do not have to jump ship and leave the UX or product industry altogether. A career break doesn’t need to break your UX career. Here’s what can break your UX career, the story [00:01:00] that you’re telling about yourself as a candidate.

And how do I know this? Well, I’ve helped over 750 people in my UX job search accelerator, and 90% of the time the problem with their job search is the story they are telling about themselves. And so I’m gonna share more about that mistake. First, I wanna dive into this topic a little bit more because every week I am asked about this topic of career breaks, and I wanna pull up a message I received just last week.

They said, I am so lost in my UX job search. I have 10 years of experience. It’s been over a year since my last full-time job because I took a break to care for a sick family member. Do you think Career Strategy Lab? That’s my UX job. Search accelerator. So do you think career strategy lab will help me?

Am I now unemployable? Because I have such a big [00:02:00] gap in my UX career. I’m worried I’ve ruined my UX career and when I read messages like that, like my heart breaks for these people because. You believe that you’re not going to get hired, and that is not a good place to be mentally when you are in a job search, and I just want you to know that, as I said a few moments ago, a career break does not need to break your UX career.

You are not undesirable, you’re not broken. The story you’re telling about yourself may be broken. So before we get to that topic of the story you are telling about yourself, let’s talk briefly about career breaks, because I think when you’re applying to jobs and you’re not getting interviews or job offers, the first thing that comes into your mind is why.

Right? And it’s a natural instinct. Our brains don’t like uncertainty, and so our brains [00:03:00] tend to. Try and make up an explanation or a literal story about what is going on, and if you are similar to me and you often experience yourself kind of like in spiral thinking where you’re thinking, okay, well what if this happens?

And what if that happens and you kind of jump to conclusions? That’s kind of what’s happening in your job search. You’re not getting interviews, you’re not getting job offers. Your brain’s like, I need to know why. And so you’re like, aha. It must be the career break. Right. And I want you to just let go of that for the next 10 minutes or so.

Regarding career breaks, I actually did a whole other episode. It was episode 56 of the Career Strategy podcast and the title was how to describe a Career Break on your Resume. Why you should own it and not be ashamed of it. And I’m not gonna repeat everything in that episode, but it essentially goes into how this concept or label [00:04:00] of career break came to be, mainly because LinkedIn added a career break as an actual feature that you can add to your work history.

Right. And it was based on a ton of research. So go listen to that episode if you wanna dive into more about this concept of career breaks and the literal feature of career breaks on LinkedIn. But the main takeaway for that is that if LinkedIn added that feature based on research, then I don’t think it’s safe to assume that a career break is going to make you look bad in the eyes of people hiring.

Because that career break feature, it allows you to choose reasons. And those reasons have now somewhat normalized a career break, right? Because now you’re able to say, oh, it was a career break for, you know, caring for a, a sick family member or having a child or [00:05:00] traveling or like whatever it was, right?

And you don’t have to provide a reason for the career break. But I know that if LinkedIn did research with tons of recruiters and hiring managers about this. They wouldn’t have released the feature if they didn’t believe it was going to help both candidates and applicants. So go listen to episode 56, Let’s dive into more about this problem of the story you’re telling about yourself as a UX candidate. So in order to stand out as a candidate, everyone needs three strategies.

You need a design strategy, which is really all about having clarity around where you’re headed in your career, where you’ve come from. And the things that are unique about you, concerning your skills, your experience, the value you bring as a candidate, your life experience, even, et cetera. The second strategy that every UX candidate needs is a marketing strategy, You [00:06:00] You have to be able to have have marketing materials, meaning your resume, your portfolio, and your LinkedIn at minimum that are communicating. All of the things about you, your skills, experience, et cetera, and when you have a strong marketing strategy in place for yourself as a UX candidate. That helps you stand out as the obvious candidate instead of getting overlooked.

And the third strategy that every UX candidate needs is a sales strategy. And sales is not about manipulative tactics Sales Sales is just another word for relationships, in my opinion. And when it comes to your career and your job search, it’s really about how do you leverage professional relationships.

In your job search and career that really help build trust and connection with people that can help you either [00:07:00] now or maybe in the future. And here’s the thing about these three strategies, like I want you to imagine a stool, right with three legs. This stool only stands up if all three legs are in place, right?

Falls over if one of them is broken. The same thing applies to your UX job search. So in order to get hired and stand out as a candidate, you need to have all these three strategies in place. If even one of these strategies is missing, you’re not gonna stand out. And let me give you an example. So if you are applying to jobs and not getting interviews, think about these three strategies, and maybe you’re thinking to yourself, okay, but I have a lot of awesome relationships. I have connections at the companies where I’ve applied, et cetera. So sure, maybe you tick the box of having a solid sales strategy for your UX career and UX job search.

But here is where most candidates. [00:08:00] Make the biggest mistake. Most candidates overlook the design strategy step. Why do you do this? Because you jump right to your resume, your portfolio, your LinkedIn, right? It’s similar to designing a product. So many teams skip that. Of research strategy, et cetera, and they jump right to the making of the product, right?

They jump into design, prototyping, et cetera. And when you are working on products and you do that, you end up more than likely not building the right product because you didn’t do the work, the research to understand what product to build. And when it comes to your UX job search. The same analogy applies, right?

This first strategy of the design strategy and knowing where you’re headed and being clear on your skills and knowledge and experience and all that, that’s [00:09:00] very much similar to the research process that we use when we’re creating products, right? And so if you skip that first step, that design strategy step, then when you get to the making step.

Of your resume, your portfolio, LinkedIn, et cetera, you are not going to have clarity on what those marketing materials, your resume, your portfolio, et cetera, need to actually communicate. So what happens? The story in your resume, your portfolio, or your LinkedIn is disjointed. It maybe is inconsistent. It kind of only scratches the surface of what you did.

Because you didn’t do the initial work to deeply understand what you are really great at in terms of your skills, knowledge, experience, et cetera.

All right. So I wanna give you some questions to ask yourself that may help you identify [00:10:00] which of these three strategies might be lacking in your UX job search. So when it comes to that design strategy. If you feel like you are stuck in what we like to call identity fog, meaning you’re unclear of what you wanna do in the future, especially if you’ve been working in UX for a while, 5, 10, 15, 25 years, it’s great you have all that experience, but then the challenge often lies in, I have so much experience.

I don’t even know what I do anymore. Right? Because maybe you can do a lot of things. And so if you feel like you’re swimming in this identity fog and you’re unclear on where you’re headed and what makes you unique, et cetera, that might be a sign that it’s time to revisit the design strategy of you as a candidate.

Alright, the marketing strategy element, here’s a little clue that will let you know if [00:11:00] maybe that strategy is lacking. So if you think to yourself, I feel like an invisible genius. I know I have awesome experience, I’ve done great things in my past roles, but why the heck do I feel invisible every time I apply for a role?

I see this all the time on LinkedIn. There are people that I come across my feed all the time and they post about how they’ve been in their UX job search for one or two or more years. And I think to myself like, you do great work, but the problem is that you’re probably not communicating that strong enough in your marketing materials.

So that’s an example of what I mean by being an invisible genius. And so. When you’re invisible, what happens? You don’t stand out because maybe you sound like every other candidate, and therefore you don’t come across as someone that that recruiter or [00:12:00] hiring manager is thinking, oh my gosh, we have to talk to this person.

Right? So if you feel like an invisible genius, that’s a sign you need to go back to your marketing strategy and maybe also that design strategy, because if you’re not clear on the design of you as a candidate. It’s probably likely that it’s not also reflected in your resume portfolio, et cetera. And then let’s go back to that sales strategy that I mentioned.

So what is a clue that maybe you need to revisit that sales strategy? Here’s a clue. It’s called the stranger syndrome. And what I mean by that is if you are applying to jobs and you’re. Uh, messaging people on LinkedIn or sending connection requests or emailing people and following up multiple times, and they’re not getting back to you and you feel like you’re getting ghosted or that people don’t have a clue who you are and you [00:13:00] can’t figure out why.

That might be a sign that you have not invested in relationships soon enough in your career. And here’s what I mean, multiple times a week. I receive messages from people in my LinkedIn inbox or email, and they are people I have never talked to in my life as far as I know, and they are asking me for favors or to introduce them to people, et cetera.

And. I am not gonna reply to those people more than likely because number one, my LinkedIn inbox is a mess. But number two, I don’t know them right? I can barely keep up with the relationships that I have, let alone spend time on relationships with people that I don’t even know. So when I do receive a message on LinkedIn from someone whose name I recognize.

Because we’ve conversed [00:14:00] in the past, and I know a little bit about them, when we have somewhat of an existing relationship, I am more likely to engage with that person. It’s not because I’m trying to be a jerk and ghost people, it’s just because we a function of we are more likely to spend time with people that we know versus replying to messages from people that are total strangers our email, in our LinkedIn, et cetera.

So that is why it is so, so important to be strategic with relationship building in your career and not aim for a gigantic network of people, but really focus on nurturing the relationships in your career that, number one, excite you, right? And that don’t drain you. And number two, to be strategic with those relationships.

And let me give you an example. If you know that you wanna apply. For a job at, I don’t know, Delta Airlines. [00:15:00] I’m flying Delta later today to Paris. So if you wanna apply to a job at Delta Airlines, it’s like one of your dream companies. We actually had someone get hired at Delta Airlines as a UX writer. But if Delta Airlines is on your dream job list, guess what?

It would be valuable to try and start building relationships with people at Delta Number once you can get a sense of like, what is it like to work there in ux? What is the culture like, et cetera, right? You can make an informed decision about, even though it’s on my dream list of companies, do I really wanna work there based on what I know from people on the inside?

The other reason why it’s so valuable to do that is because then, you know, six or eight months before you ever apply for that job, if you have those existing relationships in place, then when you do see a job for a researcher at Delta Airlines, you will have relationships that exist. You may be able to ask those people for a referral link or something [00:16:00] like that, right?

So those are three clues that will let you know if maybe one of those strategies is lacking in your career. So let’s go over those clues again for that design strategy. If you feel like you’re in a total identity fog, that could mean you need to go revisit your design, meaning the design of you as a candidate if you feel like an invisible genius.

That is a sign that maybe something is wrong with your literal marketing materials of your resume portfolio. Linked it. And I will add, it’s not just the design of all those things, it’s also the content because as we know, design and content work together. Right. And then for the sales strategy as a candidate, if you feel like a stranger, that might be a sign that something is wrong with your sales strategy.

So. You came here, you listened to this episode because you thought it was about career breaks and it is. We know that career breaks are [00:17:00] a real thing in our careers. Sometimes we cannot help them. It doesn’t mean you’re broken as a candidate, it’s just part of life, frankly. And I really challenge you to not latch on to the assumption that the career break is the problem.

Because that assumption is distracting you from the root problem, which is likely the story you are telling about yourself and or a lack of one of these three strategies that design strategy, the marketing strategy, and the sales strategy for you as a candidate. And don’t forget to go listen to episode 56 where I went into more details about.

The nuance and nitty gritty stuff around that career break feature on LinkedIn. And if you are curious about how to optimize these three strategies for your job search, the design strategy, the marketing strategy, and the sales strategy, I invite you to go get on the wait list for [00:18:00] my next live workshop.

I teach a workshop every couple of weeks, all about these three strategies. So you can just head over to career strategy lab.com/workshop to get on that wait list and we’ll you know when the next live workshop is. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Hope you stop freaking out and stressing out about your career breaks and refocus your attention on the story you are telling about yourself as a UX candidate.

Alright, I gotta go to the airport, so have a great rest of your day.

Outro: Thanks so much for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Now make sure to follow so you don’t miss an episode, and you can check out all of our episodes@careerstrategylab.com slash podcasts now to learn more about how to apply UX and product strategy to advancing your career. Whether that means leveling up in your current role, getting a new role, getting freelance work, or just being ready for the unexpected, then I invite you to watch my free [00:19:00] UX job search workshop@careerstrategylab.com slash hired.

And please feel free to send me a DM on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you.

Post Roll: Hey there. Before I go, I wanna speak to you specifically if you’ve applied to 50, 100, 200 or more jobs and you haven’t secured an offer or interviews yet. First of all, I want you to know it’s not your fault. It is challenging out there and learning how to navigate the job, search, interviews, negotiation, et cetera.

It is not something that we are taught. Your boss is too busy to help you. Your friends just give you vague advice. Your family doesn’t really know how hiring in UX works. This is why I created my career strategy lab, UX job search accelerator. If you are tired of your DIY approach. Not leading to the results you want, [00:20:00] then I challenge you to consider.

Maybe it is time for a pivot, just like products pivot. Maybe your job search needs a pivot too. So head over to career strategy lab.com/apply to learn more or have a call with someone on my team or myself so we can answer all of your questions. Hope to talk to you soon.