From UX Portfolio Rewrites to Hired as a Principal Product Designer: How Steve Owned His Career Story

[00:00:00]

Sarah Q1

—

Steve Sanshwe: when I was interviewing with Meadow, they were like, you know, we say five minutes, but if you can do it in one minute to present, you know, or talk about yourself, that’ll give you more time to go through all of your work.

So yeah, it’s like when you’re in the process of like kind of writing everything and doing everything, you know, you might feel like, oh, like when am I gonna use this? But I just wanted to say like, once you start taking this course, you’re gonna use them.

Intro: Hey, I’m Sarah Doty, 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 [00:01:00] place.

Episode Intro: Hey, this is Erin. I am one of the coaches inside of Career Strategy Lab, and I wanna let you know that this episode you’re about to listen to, number one, is awesome. And number two is actually from our open house. So in this conversation, you should know that there were other people on this call and there was a live audience.

So if some of the editing seems a little bit weird or abrupt, that’s why it should still make sense for you. There’s so many gems of wisdom to grab from this episode, so we hope you enjoy, and if you do like this format where you really can get to know someone and learn more about their career journey, please let us know.

You can send Sarah a LinkedIn message, or you can email hello@sarahduty.com. We love the feedback and we wanna create more of what you enjoy and find helpful. All right, let’s get into the episode.

Sarah Doody: So I think the first thing that we should do is tell us a little bit about what you’re doing right now and a little bit about what you do within user experience.

Like are you more research, are you more design systems, content? And then let’s add a [00:02:00] new question that we thought of this morning. Why did you decide to get into user experience and maybe why have you stayed in user experience?

Steve A1

—

Sarah Doody: All right. Steve, welcome.

Steve Sanshwe: So I’m Steve. I’ve accepted an offer at a tech company here in New York City, so I’m joining as a principal designer starting up in June in a pretty interesting and exciting space in like supply chain, which I never thought that I would get into, but sort of given the kind of breadth of all the different companies out there yeah, it was the most exciting outta the lot.

So I started CSLI, I would say, maybe around January, around the holidays. And part of the reason why I did that was I’d sort of, you know, in the last 10 years working in New York City, amassed a lot of work and it was really a challenge for me to kind of, create that narrative around the work and make it meaningful.

I, I’ve been across so many different projects at, at so many different levels of complexity, and there was probably a bit of confidence that I was lacking in representing that story. And if you, you know, I’m sure all of you have gone online [00:03:00] and, and, and looked at, you know, the vast majority, the vast sort of array of resources that you’ve got out there.

And one of the things that I think Sarah and her team had put out was just like a free little PDF guide on how to write a a portfolio case study. And I was, I was like, okay, I’m getting somewhere with this. I like how, you know, they’re framing the story. And that’s when I decided to join up. I was like, you know what, I, I’m seeing some good signals here.

Let me just put in the investment in, you know, my storytelling and, and whatnot. that was a huge accelerate for me, honestly. Did that a couple weeks later, got all my stuff together, assets out the door, and I had, I, I mean, it could be a combination of, you know, location, experience and skills and whatnot, but had a lot of inbound leads.

And honestly, from the very first phone call maybe took about two and a half weeks for me to land another role. So. Yeah, right now I’m just in a holding pattern just because I’m starting in June and we’re, my wife and I are doing a few vacations in between now and then. But a quick word on how I got into product design.

I moved over here [00:04:00] from Australia. I studied business as well as a pretty broad design degree. And it was cool to kind of get my foot in the door doing some work at a startup, and then it sort of just snowballed from there. Just, increasing complexity in, in like both design and projects.

And I feel really super fortunate to kind of be able to continue doing this. So, yeah, that’s my, that’s my story.

Sarah Doody: Lovely. And I don’t know if everyone picked up on it, but like, the speed at which you got hired was pretty impressive. And also, you know, you mentioned. You had a lot of inbound opportunities, let’s say, coming your way.

And I think it’s such a testament to going back to storytelling, right? Like the stronger the story is that you tell about yourself. And, and I would say maybe the more specific it is, the, the easier it is for your LinkedIn profile, for example, to become like a magnet of opportunities or when you submit that resume, it’s so [00:05:00] aligned and specific that you kind of just come across as the, you know, no-brainer, obvious candidate.

So I know everyone is going to have a lot of questions for you, Just because you recently, you know, within the past weeks have been through that offer period. Steve negotiated the offer, which was awesome. And not to give it away, but Steve got hired for a role higher than he applied to, which was awesome.

So we may get to those details.

Sarah Q2

—

Sarah Doody: I wanna shift a little bit more to the topics of kinda like confidence mindset, because I know if you put yourselves in the shoes before you joined Career Strategy Lab, to think about what you were doing, how your approach to your job search was, or if you had even started your job search.

And just give us a sense of what was life like before you joined Career Strategy Lab and, maybe, you know what that shift was like once you [00:06:00] got into career strategy lab and started, you know, doing the work and working on your compass and your resume and all of the things.

Steve Sanshwe: Yeah. I think before CSL I’d spent many. Sort of iterations reworking a lot of my case studies. Like one of the ones that I worked on over and over again was for this project called The Knowledge Graph, which is a huge, like complex database to user experience challenge that I developed at my last company.

And I’d spent so long, so much time, like weeks and weeks re rewriting this thing over and over again. And I still didn’t feel like I was at a place where it was communicating what I did. If anything, all it was demonstrating was kind of the chaotic element of working, you know, in the environment that I was in.

When I, again, after seeing some of the resources that you had put out for free after I joined CSL, I think rather than working on those case studies sort of from the get go, what I ended up doing was just following the program and taking a step back. To do things like the, you know, [00:07:00] career assessment, like really sort of digging in on how I’m representing myself online.

You know, even engaging in LinkedIn, like all the stuff that I used to think was pretty gross and kind of, a bit cringe like, you know, when you’re working and you don’t have to deal with, you know, jumping on another social media platform to have to engage with people. Like, you know, you have the luxury of being able to avoid it, but, you know, taking those steps to actually get better at those things and finding, you know, it’s not a black and white you know, good versus bad sort of situation, but more so like a, a value prop.

Like what’s the value that I can, you know, kind of get from each of these different activities. Like, I think that’s when I started to see the progress, like both in how I was representing myself, how I was talking about my work, and how I was also thinking about my work. Like rather than thinking about my work as this really complex nest of, you know, chaotic projects and.

To be honest, I and the people that I worked with were really the only ones that knew about the complexity and the chaos. Like we ships like actually pretty good stuff [00:08:00] in the end. It’s just one of those things, right? Like you don’t see it for what it is till you’re kind of, you know, at that 10,000 foot level and trying to sort of work through that narrative.

So I think, yeah, kind of like to sum it up, like there was a lot of chaos. There was a lot of reframing that happened for me especially around like, you know, how I represent myself and way more intentionality around like my career and development, which I thought, you know, again, working for the last 10 plus years, like, it wasn’t stuff that I was being super cognizant or, or intentional about, but seeing it more as like, oh, actually, you know what, these are some things that interest me.

These are some things that do not interest me. Like I, you know, I’m not really super into B2C exchanges or something like that. Like it just being able to say no to stuff and. Seeing where my sort of skill sets and experiences have strengths like actually really helped me a lot. Like it helps me attract really the right companies that wanted to talk to me and allowed me to have really like [00:09:00] productive conversations with ’em.

Like there were even times where I thought, oh, are some of my projects a little bit too complex? And to be honest, for some of the people that I spoke to, they were, they, they really were like, oh, I don’t really know what, you know, an ETL is. And I was like, okay, like that, that’s fine, but like, why are we having a conversation if you don’t need a somewhat technically, you know, sort of leaning designer.

Like, I get it. So, yeah, it was cool. It’s just like a nice way to say reframe. Way more intentionality and, and a ton of learning.

Sarah Doody: I took some notes while you were speaking, but one of the things I wrote down as. Being able to say no to stuff. And I think that is so powerful, like the example you gave in that if you don’t take the time to identify those things, then it makes it hard to attract the right opportunities or like decide if an opportunity is right for you.

And I think [00:10:00] maybe this is a, a moment for everyone just to, to give you all permission to not feel the pressure to be everything to everyone, right? Like, do you need to become an expert in the latest bell and whistle feature in Figma or know every in and out of AI and all this stuff? Like there’s a time and a place depending on what is on your, you know, personal career roadmap.

Because trying to be everything and being the unicorn, it’s a great way to burn out if you ask me.

Steve Sanshwe: Absolutely. And I think it just hones in on like, you know, the way that I wanna develop as a designer, as someone who wants to maybe continue doing this for the next, you know, 10 years, right? Like taking a job at a financial old school company might cap me in certain ways versus like going to a company that’s a bit more tech forward and a bit more interesting, you know, will at least keep me engaged a bit more fulfilled.

So yeah, I think I was lucky to have, you know, those options and being able [00:11:00] to kind of decide those paths.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. And, and you know, the, the theme that I feel like just keeps coming up is the framing of your experience and the ability to tell that story across everything from your resume, what you post on LinkedIn, as you said, your, your portfolio, everything, because it’s all really.

Working in concert, it’s not just, you know, one of those things. They, they all have to tell the same story and that you have to be able to tell that story in interviews. Right.

Steve Sanshwe: Yeah. And I do wanna add though, that this was like an iterative process. Like for everyone who’s just seeing this today, and if you look at any of my stuff, there’s polish to it now, but it didn’t always look like this.

Like this was many, many little steps, slight adjustments and, and headlines like what I present in or what I have presented in interviews during my case studies resembles what’s online. But it’s like a whole other beast. But again, it would, it didn’t just happen on, on [00:12:00] day one. Like it was kind of this like incremental thing where, you know, I used what we did with CSL, the feedback loops, all of those things that were part of the program to kind of do that.

So, yeah, I mean, especially, I’ll even point to the Compass statement, like I ended up using that a ton because when. Like I was doing calls with internal and external recruiters. Like I didn’t really wanna waste 10 minutes talking about myself. I wanted to spend maybe 30 seconds and then have them do the, do the pitch because I wanted to hear about the role.

And I think the people in the audiences that I was engaging with, like appreciated that. Right? Like getting it down to the elevator pitch. Like even when I was interviewing with Meadow, they were like, you know, we say five minutes, but if you can do it in one minute to present, you know, or talk about yourself, that’ll give you more time to go through all of your work.

So yeah, it’s like when you’re in the process of like kind of writing everything and doing everything, you know, you might feel like, oh, like when am I gonna use this? But I just wanted [00:13:00] to say like, once you start taking this course, you’re gonna use them.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. That, that is a great interview tip that, you know, just because they give you five minutes, if you can do it in one minute, you’ll have more time to show you actual work.

I can recall many times when I’ve been on the receiving end of an interview and I just think, wow, I, I don’t need to hear that much of your life story. Just like get to the point here people.

Sarah Q3

—

Sarah Doody: Alright. We may get back to the compass statement here. The, the next question I’m curious about is, you know, thinking back to everything you did in career strategy lab, because, you know, if, if you’re new to hearing about career strategy lab, really we’ve sprint applied everything related to the job search, so you’re all familiar with, with sprints.

And so we have, you know, a resume sprint and a LinkedIn sprint and a Compass statement, sprint portfolio obviously. And I’m curious, maybe you cannot identify only one, but was there a certain sprint or element let’s widen this [00:14:00] of career strategy lab that really stood out to you in your experience?

Steve A3

—

Steve Sanshwe: I’ll talk to the element of the sprints actually. I noticed with both the compass statement and the resume and the portfolio case study writing piece is that it’s time boxed and it’s iterative, meaning I noticed like the way that we’re guided to, you know, put together and, and write and, and sort of collect all that information.

It happens in, in sort of these chunks that are sort of overarching and then they get a bit more refined, a bit more refined, a bit more refined. But you know, at each stage you’re almost building the entire picture. Just, you know, with a little bit more detail as you kind of move forward in the process.

And I think that was really, it’s funny, it’s, it’s super obvious seeing that in retrospect, but that’s one of those things that I think really accelerates how fast you can go through each of. The main sort of big artifact chunks. Like, like I said before, I spent weeks rewriting my case [00:15:00] studies pre CSL, and then the minute that I started doing CSL, my first one took two weeks, and then that was online and published.

And then my second one took less than a week. And then by the time I’d finished that, I was pretty much, you know, ready for interviews. I went on vacation, came back and went straight to interviews. So, like, you know, old to say that I, I enjoyed the compass statement, the case study, writing resume, the whole process, but really the way that it’s framed to be iterative and almost like you are building a product.

I think that was, well, I was like, oh, obviously, like, duh, like how did I not, why didn’t, why didn’t this occur to me earlier? Like, why was I spending hours on a single slide or, or, you know, a single. Bit of the story when I probably could have just spent, you know, a couple, a couple hours just fleshing out the entire thing and then kind of finding out, you know, sort of honing in on, those next stages.

So yeah.

Sarah Doody: I love that you brought that up because it reminded me of how I ever sprinted career strategy lab. [00:16:00] So I had this idea to sprint apply it, but similar to you working on your portfolio, spending hours on a slide. You do not wanna see the iterations of how this was sprinted. ’cause I took probably months and then what did I do?

I hired a curriculum developer to work with me and help me get it over the finish line, you know, and it’s always like, you and I both had these parallel experiences except your product was, you know, you and getting hired and my product was Career strategy lab. But by pulling ourselves out of the weeds and having someone, you know, chunk it out for us, we were both able to achieve our goals.

So yes, sprints game changing because it gives you the time, it gives you small wins, it helps take the overwhelm out of it and you know, we’re all familiar with it. Right.

Sarah Q4

—

Sarah Doody: Okay. One last question ’cause I, I love this question. I think the last one should be, I. What is one tip you [00:17:00] would give someone who decides that they’re going to do career strategy lab?

Like, is there, is there one, one thing. It could be super actionable, it could be some like mindset thing, whatever you want.

Steve A4

—

Steve Sanshwe: I know it’s probably been said many times before especially in these calls, but it’s definitely about progress and not perfection.

And what I mean by that is like if you are just focused on getting, you know, the perfect case study, the perfect resume, the perfect, you know, like talk track, like forget about it, it’s not gonna happen. Like if you focus on that, you’ll never, like, you’ll never get. To where you need to be. I think instead just focus on making progress.

And the program, thankfully has those checkpoints and kind of that ability to move you forward, that you just throw your blinders on. You don’t have to worry about, you know, what people are saying online. Like there’s tons of negativity and if you were to listen to all of it, you would, you know, just be perpetually stuck.

So, yeah, it’s really just about making progress. Once you’re gonna just focus on, you know, the next [00:18:00] step. Use the Pomodoro timer, right? Like time box it. You don’t have to. Yeah, you don’t have to keep yourself like going, you know, super, super, super, like hardcore that you’ll just burn out. So just, you know, focus on making some progress.

Sarah Doody: I love it. You took the words right outta my mouth, that’s for sure. Because it’s so true. And you know, , I get stuck in perfection and I’m like, why am I not using the Pomodoro timer that I tell everyone to use, you know, so it’s easy to fall out of it, but I think that’s the power of, you know, being in community with like-minded people that have a similar goal so that you have those reminders and you don’t, you know, go on this wild detour and then come back three months later and you’re like, what, what the heck did I just do for three months?

Sarah Conclusion

—

Sarah Doody: All right, so that is all the time we have time for, for our panelists, but this is my moment for all of us to thank Steve for your time, for sharing so openly about everything.

Alright, [00:19:00] bye everyone. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. See

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 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 [00:20:00] 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, 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.