Finding Your UX Niche: Jonathan’s Journey From UX Layoff to UX Executive in Higher Education

Jonathan, tell people a little bit about what you’re doing now, maybe what you were doing before, and the role that you just got hired into.

Sure. So, um, I kinda came up through, um,

design roles and then as a UX strategist. Um, I was fortunate enough to kinda work my way up into a team leadership role, into a director role, um, got laid off last year, as you know, a lot of people have, and, um, was just sort of thrown into this mess of, “Oh, what do, what do I do next?” It was, um, um, not not quite sure what next steps would be, so went through the program last summer, and for me it helped really define it gave me a process to follow.

I, I’m, I’m a huge fan of process. So, um, right now I am executive director at University Houston Downtown for, web experience. Uh, just came on board about two months ago, so you know, moving into more of a purely leadership role where it’s, it’s where kinda defining how the team works and who needs to be on the team and, um, the goals and the vision and all the things that making sure that UX has a seat at the table.

But still very much rolling up my sleeves and, and, and, you know, getting my hands dirty when, when I can.

Yeah. And for everyone watching this, I interviewed Jonathan a little while ago while you were kind of still in the job search.

Mm-hmm.

so this is a follow-up now that you have been hired into this really interesting role at the University of Houston. What were you doing before you joined Career Strategy Lab?

I was trying to DIY it. It had been probably five or six years since I had been doing any type of real job hunting. Um, and obviously the landscape had changed significantly in that time. So, um, my last time to do it was, was, it was pre-AI, it was pre-keyword stuffing and, and Jobscan all those other platforms that are out there.

And LinkedIn was a very different game at that point as well. So I was pulling my hair out for at least two or three months, not understanding why I wasn’t getting traction anywhere, why I wasn’t getting any kind of callbacks. And I don’t have the, the slides with me, but I, I put a whole bunch of stuff in, in one of the, the, the chat threads of my before and after, where I think before Career Strategy Lab, it was probably 75% ghosts and rejections on, on what I was submitting.

I wasn’t leveraging my network the way I needed to. I wasn’t as coherent and concise in presenting myself in the right way, which very much shifted after going through the, the, the process.

Was there a specific kinda tipping point or moment that kinda just hit you in your tracks a little bit and you were like, “Wait a second. Like, what I’m doing is not working”? Does anything come to mind

I knew, I knew I could do the work and I knew that, that I could, um, um, excel at any of these roles I was applying for. I just, I could never get my foot in the door anywhere and, and I was just, it just beyond frustrated and, I had actually recommended CSL to a friend of mine like six months before I got laid off and then she was like, “Well, why aren’t you doing this?” I’m don’t know.” So I, I signed up and it just is, oh, this is what I’ve been looking for.

Like, it, gave me a structure to follow so that, um, it I, I wasn’t trying to, like I wasn’t trying to both define here’s my work and make my own process for, for trying to find my way through this, this maze of,

job hunting.

I love the phrase “maze of, of job hunting” ’cause I think that summarizes how a lot of people in, in your previous shoes are feeling right now. Yesterday I was just thinking to myself on something that someone had said about Career Strategy Lab, meaning they said it really feels like an operating system for your career.

And I’m curious what your reactions to that kind of parallel are.

There, there was, um, there was something in one of the sprints, um, and it’s, it’s been several months here, um, but it was, talking about how this is not like a short-term,

thing for just my portfolio for right now. It’s like if you, if you put the time into it and you do this right, these can be case studies that you take with you for the next 10, 15 years. When building up my portfolio, I really only had maybe three or four case studies in it, but like I feel confident about each of these things where I can maybe tailor them just a, a little bit to, to different, um, uh, places I’m applying to.

And like I’ve, I’ve now done the work that like I can use 10 years from now, um, as opposed to just kinda like a short-term fix.

You mentioned this post you, you did in the community and I pulled it up, so I’m looking at it right now. But, um, one of the things you said that, that stood out to me is that,

when you got hired at the University of Houston, you said, um, you’d had decent success with

Mm-hmm.

contacting you. But this position you applied to on your own and you said, “It’s also an industry where you have significant experience.” So I’m curious, when you set out on your job search, were you thinking about education or did that come to you through CSL?

So I think it, it,

I worked for about eight years in higher education and then, and then I, I at the time, I wasn’t sure that I would ever come back into it. in just talking to other people in the program and, um,

I don’t remember which of the coaches said it, but, um, just focusing in on the things that you know. Like, it’s, it’s, eh, we, we, we all know our craft, um, and intricacies of the different industries that, that you worked in. I think early on, I was just applying to everything I saw out there, and it didn’t matter what.

It, it could be FinTech, it could be banking, it could be just, uh, literally any of it. But if you don’t have, like, much experience in those areas, then it’s, it’s a lot harder to make the case for yourself. So I think coming through the program and then being on the other side of it, I was, I became much more, uh, I don’t know if restrictive is the right word, but just I, I was,

well, I’ll just say restrictive of, of the thing, the things I was actually applying to. And then, like, the, the batting average went up significantly. So I wasn’t, I wasn’t wasting so much time and energy just applying to everything. I was actually, like, tailoring to, “Okay, here’s where my skill set is, but here’s also, here’s the industries where I have the most experience and where I can leverage these case studies and I can sound like I’m really knowledgeable and I won’t have a learning curve when I, when I, when I step into that role.”

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think maybe also the word intentional, right?

Mm-hmm.

Like, not casting a wide net, but realizing that when you get more specific, you’re able to leverage your previous experience like you

Mm-hmm.

and also you’re not managing 50 applications a week or something like that.

Right. I think once I was being more deliberate, maybe five per week instead of 50 per week. But I was actually going through the process of actually tailoring what I was saying to them and, and, being very intentional and deliberate in reaching out to people at the companies, and it made a much better first impression.

But the proof is in all the data. It was in there, in those charts that,

I I put together, where it’s, it’s just a significant increase in the number of callbacks and second and third round interviews I was post CSL than I was pre CSL.

Yeah.

one question that comes to mind, and I’m asked this all the time, is

Is Career Strategy Lab for me if I am, you know, a mid or senior level UX person? And I think one of the concerns people have is like, how is it gonna be coexisting in Career Strategy Lab with people who have 5 years of experience and people who have 15 or 20 years of experience?

And I’m curious, could you share any reflections or insights about, like, that, um, community element of Career Strategy Lab and, and how that was for you?

I think, you know, from my perspective, being someone who’s 20 years into their career, um, it’s, eh, there’s still a lot of value that can be found if it, it’s with a mix of maybe people who are 5 years in, 10 years in, and there are some people who are further along than I was.

Um, there’s, there’s always something to be learned from, from speaking with people who have a fresh perspective or a different perspective from what you do. and then I think, I think there were, there were, even after going through the, the, the sprints and the regular program, um, there were people that I connected with who were in very similar positions that I was in, and we just kept on doing our own working sessions together.

And just, just working through, um, like, “Okay, we’re gonna meet every Friday morning, and I’m gonna present to you for 30 minutes, you’re gonna present to me for 30 minutes, and then we’re gonna critique each other, and then we’ll get back together next week and try it all over again.” And that was really beneficial for me, um.

I found someone who was, um, a little bit higher up, um, in her career than where I was, and just her perspectives were so unique in the way that, that, things I never thought of before.

Mm.

I, don’t think there’s any restrictions around where you are in your career. The process is something that you can apply to 5 years in, 10 years in, 20 years in. You can apply it to, uh, research roles, you can apply it to designer roles, you can apply it to leadership roles.

Um, you, you get out of it what you put into it.

Yeah, I, I can’t emphasize that enough. You get what you, you get out of it what you put into it, and I think what you just described is such an awesome example of that. And it, it reminds me of, like, a college experience, right? I mean, like, you get out of it what you put into it, and if you choose to be proactive and connect with other people like, are similarly motivated or have similar goals or a similar career stage or whatever it is.

You can really make a lot of progress, but also make, you know, potentially lifelong friends who, you know, you might end up working with someday. You never know.

I mean, I think, I think that if you just go through it and you just do the steps and the sprints, you’ll get a lot of value from it. But I think there’s, there’s so much more that you gain from the network and, and your other peers in the program.

Yeah. Um, so far we’ve had four people get hired at Liberty Mutual. I didn’t realize this till a couple of months ago, and then I looked at the data and I was so surprised. But yeah, like, one person get hired, gets hired somewhere, and then they come back because they know if they can help their company or team hire people faster, that is a win, right?

And oftentimes, they find, like, people in Career Strategy Lab have more buttoned-up resumes, portfolios, et cetera. They’re ready to go. And it can reduce that time to hire, which is enormous if you’ve ever been involved in hiring.

I’m, I’m trying to get a couple positions posted right now and, like, I’m gonna post them in in, like in, in CSL. That’s one of the first things I’m gonna do once it’s actually live.

And I’m curious, from, from the perspective of someone who will be hiring soon, sure, you can post jobs just on LinkedIn and see what happens, but how much of your strategy is, like, being intentional about groups like CSL where you’re gonna try and spread the word about these, these roles?

I think there… I mean, there’s, uh, anyone can post anything on LinkedIn. Like, there’s no LinkedIn police that can stop you from saying things. After going through this program on my own, there’s a credibility to

Mm.

for me. And so, and I think anyone who comes through it, it’s, it’s leveraging a little bit of the network’s credibility and then their, and then your credibility and just, and you, all the other coaches that this is someone who knows how to present themselves. They know how to talk about their work.

There’s, there’s the soft skills that are there that, you know, it’s not just, “Can I do the research? Can I, can I design this or can I think about this data in a different way?” It’s, um, you know, this is someone who’s going to be able to talk about their work and, and they’ll be able to like, to actually move things along once they get into your organization.

I’m curious,

you know, thinking back to your whole experience in Career Strategy Lab, or, maybe even after too, is there, uh, something you learned in Career Strategy Lab or something you did that kind of just jumps out as being really impactful or something that you’re gonna take with you, you know, for years to come at this point?

And it could be multiple things. I know that’s a big question.

Um, I think there, there are some of the concepts that, that I’ll take with me of, um,

the ugly first draft. So this is something that gets talked about a lot. Um, I think we all have this tendency to, um, live inside our own heads and be our own worst critics.

the hardest thing to do is put that first mark on a, on a blank canvas, um, because now you’re, you’re, you’ve put something out there into the world. Um, and that’s, that’s something that’s really encouraged is, like, to put an ugly first draft out there just to get the ideas out of your head, get them out into the real world, and have people react to them.

And it’s, you’re able to, um, move through a lot faster because you’re getting feedback from lots of different perspectives than just trying to iterate on your own ideas just from your own perspective. That’s something that I’ve been encoura… Like, everyone I’ve, I’ve worked with, um, since then and people I work with here, um, encouraging them just to, like, just get something out there, throw it out there, and let’s, and let’s talk about it.

Uh, let’s brainstorm on it rather than just trying to do it all on your own and, and wait until something is fully formed before you show it to anyone.

you know, the nature of a lot of people that get into user experience, it’s very easy to fall into that trap of kind of keeping it under wraps and not putting it out there. But yeah, this idea of kind of get this bad first draft out there is, is so key.

And one of the things I really encourage everyone is just start thinking about not just your job search, but, like, everything in life, but especially your job search as an experiment, right? Because I think when you approach everything as an experiment, it kind of just, like, takes the pressure off a little bit and makes you realize that, you know, this portfolio, it’s an experiment.

If I don’t start applying to jobs, I’m not gonna know if it’s ready to go. Like, it might be good enough versus me spending another two months on it, right?

I think the, the other thing I did that, um, I, I laugh a lot about now is I, I stopped thinking about myself as working on my own work, and I made this… So my, I’m Jonathan, but I made this client called JC, and that’s, that’s who I was doing all this work for.

And so it was, it’s a lot

Mm-hmm.

to,

remove myself from that. I, I don’t, uh, I don’t about you, but, like, I get really uncomfortable trying to talk about myself or talk myself up. Um, so if I can, like, just almost refer to myself in the third person while I’m doing this work, like, I’m not working on my resume, so I’m I’m working on JC’s resume, I’m working on JC’s LinkedIn profile, um, and, or, his portfolio, his case studies.

It’s easier for me to be more objective about it and treat my own work the way I would, um, uh, the work for a client and apply all the same, like, data and, and everything else that, that you normally would.

kind of reminds me of another question that comes up almost every time we do these, but it’s like, how can I become more confident? Or people say, “I think I’ll wait to do a Career Strategy Lab until I feel more confident.” And I always say to them, like, “You’re gonna be waiting a long time to feel confident, because confidence is the byproduct of,

making progress on your portfolio, writing a resume bullet point,” right? It’s like, confidence needs action.

Jonathan, do you have any thoughts on just this idea of imposter syndrome in general, whether it’s in your career or in your job search?

oh, so many. Um,

it’s so we all experience it, and it is normal, and I think the biggest thing to get over is just…You, you don’t have to judge yourself for it because I, I think it, anyone who cares about their work is gonna have imposter syndrome at some point. You’re always gonna see someone who is better, or you think is better than you, or you think is further along in their career than you are, or you think is more insightful than you, or a better designer, or a better researcher.

Um, I guarantee you, that person also has all the same thoughts. We, we, we all have that doubt and I think, um, I mean, something I tell my daughter is like, is you’re nervous about something because you care. Um, and so if you’re, if you’re feeling imposter syndrome, that means that you care about, about, you know, your, your career and your work.

Um, I, I think just getting things out there. You have, you have to be willing to make mistakes, and you learn from your mistakes and, and you learn from those people around you who you do see as mentors and, and,

coaches and, and design heroes and everything else. Um, they were in your shoes five years ago and if they’re worth, um, having as a mentor, then, you know, they’ll understand, um, you know, the, the kind of messy process to go from A to B. It’s hardly ever that, that, that straight line.

And sometimes it’s like do, do, do, do, do and sometimes you go backwards and sometimes you, you have to move forwards a little. But you,

the imposter syndrome, it’s just, it, it, it’s that, that anxiety voice that is always telling you you’re not good enough. And, like, it’s, if, if we’re all experiencing it, just showing up and being there and doing the work is, is, um, one of the easiest ways just to plow your way through it

Yeah, and I, I think too, like, the, the more that we focus on kinda taking action and not getting stuck with all these thoughts,

the more, kind of, wins we have to look back on. So let’s say tomorrow you’re sitting down to work on your portfolio and you’re starting to think, “Oh, that project was terrible and here are all the reasons why I don’t think it’s gonna work out.” But if you can look back in hindsight and remember, okay, two weeks ago I wrote a great case study and I went to an interview and it was really well received.

So why can’t I do that for this case study I’m sitting down to write? So I think just having almost, like, breadcrumbs of wins, if you will, um, is so valuable, to kind of like remind yourself of so you don’t get caught in this I can’t and I’m not thinking.

Yeah. I love that. Like, we, we all think about the times we made mistakes. Um, it’s worth remembering the times that you had the victories

Yes.

and the wins to show, hey, I can do this.

Yep. Well, and that’s something cool with the community. I think we added this after you were outta the community, but we added this wins space, and it’s very alive and vibrant. And the reason I added it is because, like, we often don’t celebrate our wins. We often are so focused on, like, what’s next, what’s next, or what didn’t go well.

And just by seeing other people’s wins and writing out your own wins, like, it just, it does something to just reinforce you’re good enough, you made progress. And if you’re procrastinating, sometimes seeing other people’s wins lights a little bit of a fire underneath you too.

Mm-hmm.

my next question is, thinking back to when you got hired, I’m curious, like, thinking about the first 30, 60 days of the role, were was there anything you did that you felt was really effective in helping set you up for success in that role?

I think from, from my perspective, and this plays more into going into a leadership role, is, um, in my interviews, I was walking in with a 30, 60, 90 day plan, where I could say, “Here are the things that, like, I need to be comfortable with after the first month.

Here’s all the, all the, the people I need to meet. Here’s all of the, um, the subjects I need to be familiar with. Um, here’s everything I want to accomplish by this point, by the 60 day mark, by the 90 day mark.” Um, and that opened up another conversation where, is there anything I’m missing in this where someone who, you know, looking back six months from now, if there’s someone who is successful in this role, is there anything else they would have done in those first one, two, three months?

And then that whatever answers I get, that gives me something else to add to my plan and, and then it means I’m more successful once I, once I actually got in here and get moving.

walking in with a plan, it, it, you know, It makes it seem like you really care about this thing. You don’t just want any job, like you want this job in particular so much that you’re going to put the work into it before you’re even there.

Yeah, I think the through line is really be intentional and have a plan.

All right. Another question. When you were looking for jobs, what did you do to figure out what hiring managers are looking for?

and how did you get opportunities to ask them questions? Or maybe you never made contact with a hiring manager, but I think the gist of this is really like, how did you make sure you understood what those hiring managers were looking for?

If you look at someone’s background on LinkedIn, you could say, oh, did they come from a technical background? Is it, are they, did they come up through something else? Did they come into marketing? They shifted over to UX. Like, so what is the kind of inherent language they would speak?

And then just sometimes I would, I would put the job descriptions into ClutterChatGPT and say, hey, like, what is if you were based off of this job description, what are the questions you would ask a candidate? Is there anything unique about this job description that kind of stands out?

And there were times where it would find things for me that I completely glazed over that were, you know, I found a way to casually bring up and I had multiple hiring managers say, oh, you actually read the job description. Like, and so I think there’s a lot of people out there who just assume they know what a role is without really digging into it.

And I probably did maybe an hour of research and practice for every 15 minutes of conversation that I knew I was going to have.

Yeah, I think read the job description. It sounds so obvious, but as you said, so many people don’t. And when you just take the time to read the job description, that alone could make you stand out. Like, this is why I often say the bar to stand out is so low because so many people are just putting minimal effort in, right?

So I cannot emphasize that enough.

when you were in your last job searches, were you using a portfolio presentation or website? The big debate of, you know, hiring these days. So what did you do? I may know the answer, but I’m curious. I want everyone to hear from you and not me.

So I had both. I developed my PDF deck first, and that’s much more granular in the details for each of the individual case studies. The website was based, it came second, and it was just not surface level, but it didn’t have as much detail that was there. With every application I sent out, I would include the portfolio, sorry, I include my website, but I would also include a link to Dropbox in my portfolio, and I set up some tracking so I could see if they actually read it or not.

But it was also something I could do as like a leap behind after conversations where, hey, you know, we talked about this and this yesterday. I think if you look through my case studies here, you’ll see some examples of how I’ve solved problems like that in the past.

Yeah, yeah. I think

if you choose to create a website, you can just use the content from that presentation. Right. And I think the presentation, as you said, is the priority because that’s also what you’re going to use in job interviews. Right. And then I think if you have time to make a website or if you already have a website, that’s great.

But also, at the same time, there’s been so many people from Career Strategy Lab who only had a presentation and still got hired. So I know we could debate about the pros and cons and strategy of website versus presentation for…. hours on end. Um, but the other thing that I wanna just touch on, ’cause I know this is kind of, um, something new that some people haven’t heard before, but this concept of having two versions of your resume, I’m curious, do you, do you think in hindsight, did that help you in your job search, you know, after going through Career Strategy Lab, or, while going through Strategy Lab, or was that something you already knew about, or was it kind of brand new when you joined us?

It, it was a new concept for me, and I think it, it’s absolutely valuable. Um, the, the ATS version of the resume is, I mean, that is just for the, the robots to read. Um, so much of, of what you’re doing when you’re applying through, through an ATS is, um, you’ve gotta get past the AI screener before you can ever get to a human.

And so, finding the right way to, uh, make sure everything can be parsed, um, there’s no crazy formatting in there, um, make sure you’re including keywords in the right ways, that, that you’re not keyword packing, but at the same time, you have to make it it has to be real, and it has to be, be true to your experience.

Um, but make sure you’re saying the right things that, that, that the, uh, ATS is looking for. And then once you actually get in front of a person, you can have that conversation, then you have something that’s better formatted, it’s easier for a person to read and to scan.

In the same way that, you know, when, the way you would look at a web page, or would look at any kind of layout, and it’s, it’s how easy is this to actually read and my eyes go here first, and they go here, and they see this, and they see this, making sure it, the flow is, is correct.

So, I absolutely, um, leveraged it, and any time I even, um, tailored a resume, I tailored two versions of my resume, just to admit that I got through and did get, uh, get to speak to a human.

The last, the last, yes, closing question here is, you know, if, if someone either was on the fence about joining Career Strategy Lab, or they join, what, what advice would you give them? Feel free to take that whatever direction feels right to you.

Yeah. Um, the work itself didn’t change. The way I talked about and presented my work is what changed, and the confidence I had, um, in presenting my work changed. The, the difference is, even if it’s a, if it’s a first round screener interview or second round interview, um, each time you’re talking to someone, you’re so prepared and you have such,

you’re, you’re the way you present yourself is, is in such a confident way that you’re creating advocates for yourself within that, that, that organization. So, the, the screener now becomes an not just someone who passes your resume along, they become an advocate for it. Even then like, the second round people, they’re so impressed by what you did that they’re passing you along and they’re actually remembering you afterward.

You’re not just, um, a name that was on a stack of resumes. I think the, the process itself is very thoughtfully put together, where, eh, there’s, there’s sprints, there’s, there is a way to do it where if you are working and you don’t have a lot of time to put into it, um, there’s a track for that.

If you’re in a similar position where I was, where I was laid off and I had all the time in the world, you know, I could do the much more thorough version of each of the sprints. And then, just the, the network of people is and the feedback that you get from other UX professionals was, is just as valuable as the process itself, um, practicing how you want to present yourself and how you wanna talk about yourself and getting real-time feedback from, from other people who are, who are going through it as well.

Yeah. I, I really appreciate that you said, you know, the, the work that you did didn’t change. It was just more about how you’re positioning that work. And I think that’s a great note to end on, because I think so many UX and product people believe their work isn’t good enough and they need to go invent new projects to work on.

And it, it’s not that. It’s you are qualified. You’ve done great work. It’s just that no one has taught you how to position that correctly, and that’s exactly why I do what I do. And that’s how you ended up getting hired, which is awesome. All right. That is all the time we have for now.

Jonathan, thank you so much for your time.