How To Stand Out In The UX Job Search Funnel

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Average candidates do not get noticed. Candidates who sound like each other all sound the same and no one stands out. So you need to stand out by being strategic and intentional, by thinking about and putting yourself in the shoes of the recruiters and hiring managers. Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the career strategy podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients.

Sarah Doody [00:00:40]: You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Have you ever seen a job you wanted to apply to and noticed that 200, 300, or more people applied? How do you go from being one of the 400 people that applied to being the one person that receives the job offer? That’s what we’re gonna talk about today. I’m gonna break down what the UX job search funnel is and how you can stand out. Now here is the brutal truth and that is most candidates are average, and average does not help you get noticed. And I know this because we’ve now worked with thousands of people over the past couple of years in the career coaching programs I run, and through hiring my team and I did back in, I believe it was 2022, we did hiring for other companies and we got a firsthand look at what materials people are using to apply. And I can assure you that most candidates are average, if not below average to be frank. So that is the good news and we’re gonna get to how do you stand out from being those 1, 2, 300 applicants to being that one person who receives the job offer.

Sarah Doody [00:02:23]: So what is the UX job search funnel? If you have not heard of funnels before they’re quite popular in business and marketing, etc. And essentially it’s the idea of moving a large number of people through a process to then end up with a candidate who receives a job offer, or someone purchases a product, or someone goes from that free trial to the paid version. So if you’re not familiar with funnels, you can think of it like that. Now, what is the UX job search funnels? So we could argue on the semantics of what I’m going to share next, but I’m speaking in kind of broad strokes here. So, you know, use your own imagination if you have other words for these things. But we start at the top of the funnel with a lot of applicants, right? And then it moves to what we’ll call a screener call, and then there’s likely a conversation with the hiring manager, and then a series of interviews. TBD, how many there are? It depends from company to company, even team to team. And then after those series of interviews there is an offer and someone is hired.

Sarah Doody [00:03:52]: So that is the UX job search funnel at a super super high level, and each step or stage of that funnel has really unique challenges for you the candidate. And standing out is key not just at the top of the funnel when you’re in the mix with hundreds of other candidates, but you need to continue to stand out as you go down and move through those steps of the funnel. So we are gonna talk a little bit more about that. But before we go any further, it’s really, really important that you use your superpower of user experience. So much of what you already know can help you stand out in the job search funnel. We need to treat this problem of how do you stand out like a UX problem, and we need to think of the users, the stakeholders, in this funnel experience. And that is the recruiters, the hiring managers, HR people, people that might be interviewing you as a part of that series of interviews. So let’s dive in here.

Sarah Doody [00:05:10]: First of all, let’s talk about what I mentioned earlier that that challenge where so many candidates are average. Well guess what? When you are average you blend in. You sound the same. If you have a resume that sounds quite like someone else’s resume and says something like I’m passionate about design and wanting to use design to change the world, guess what? A lot of other people’s resumes are going to have phrases similar to that. And if you put yourself in the shoes of those recruiters and hiring managers every resume starts to sound the same. You’re not going to stand out. So you need to think about what makes you unique. You need to stop talking about your skills and experience in vague table stakes, generic words and phrases, and really sell you.

Sarah Doody [00:06:14]: Sell the product of you in specifics. Talk about the unique traits you have, unique experiences, etc. That is how you are going to stand out, and this is so important because we know recruiters and hiring managers spend about 6 to 10 seconds doing that initial scan of, say, a resume or a LinkedIn profile. But here’s the good news, they will spend longer than 6 to 10 seconds if you give them a reason to. And how do you give them a reason? Well, you stand out because you don’t sound like all of the other candidates. Of course, the same philosophy applies to portfolios, right? But when you are average, you sell yourself short. You don’t capture the attention of recruiters and hiring managers, so they literally will only spend 6 to 10 seconds on your resume. And as a result average candidates are often filtered out before the real hiring decisions are ever made.

Sarah Doody [00:07:20]: Is that frustrating? Yes. Is that reality? Also, yes. Alright. So number 2 here, like I said, think about the experience, the journey of the people who are doing the hiring. Right? So how to stand out in the UX job search funnel? That is a UX problem, right? We need to think of, as I said earlier, the hiring managers and recruiters as the users, and we need to design for their experience. So let’s think about some quick tips for each of those steps of that funnel that we went through. So applications, how do you stand out? Well we need to do something to make sure they spend more than 6 to 10 seconds on your resume, on your LinkedIn. This comes down to a combination of content of your resume and LinkedIn and the literal design of it.

Sarah Doody [00:08:19]: Of course, we don’t have time to go into the details of how to do all of that, so in the show notes I’ll link a few previous, articles and podcast episodes that could help you with your resume or your LinkedIn. But thinking about the users here, we need to tell them the specifics of what makes you unique. And I really like to challenge people to think of the top quarter of their resume as, you know, back in the day when well, people still read newspapers. Right? But, if you worked in design and worked on a lot of print, people talked about above the fold, meaning above the fold of the literal newspaper. Let’s think of your resume that way. What can you do above in the top quarter of your resume to get people’s attention? Well, you should have a one sentence elevator pitch, about me statement, whatever you want to call it at the top of your resume that is going to capture the attention and interest of these hiring managers, and it should absolutely not sound like everyone else’s. One phrase we hear all the time, and I’ll say it again, is that classic I’m a designer, I’m passionate about solving problems, and I want to use design to change the world. So many resumes say that.

Sarah Doody [00:09:42]: That tells me nothing about you. That tells me nothing about your experience. I don’t know what industries you worked on. I don’t know what types of products. I don’t know how many years of experience you have. Right? So that’s tip for the application step of the funnel. Moving down the funnel, the screener calls. We have a whole podcast episode about the screener calls, so we’ll link to that as well.

Sarah Doody [00:10:06]: These are normally 15 to 30 minutes tops really meant to give you an opportunity to talk to the specifics of your experience and how that matches and aligns with what is in the job description. We say this all the time on this podcast. We know job descriptions are not written well. We know it. So instead of complaining about that on LinkedIn, it is something we can’t fix. Right? That is not within our control unless you’re hiring, then go fix that. But as a candidate, what is the best use of your time here? The best use of your time before a screener call is to go read and study the job description. Literally have your job description and resume up on the screen in front of you before the call and study them and figure out based on what is in the job description what are the things from my resume that I should really really highlight in this call? That’s how you want to treat that screener call, because if you put this yourself in the shoes of that person on the screening call they’re trying to whittle down the 15, 20, however many people get this screener call into a lesser number of candidates who will then actually get to talk to the hiring manager, let’s say.

Sarah Doody [00:11:37]: So you need to figure out how do I stand out and you stand out through showing the person in the screener call that you have what they’re looking for based on the job description. Okay? Now moving down the funnel even further, you make it to the hiring manager call. Awesome. What should you be thinking about similar to the screener call? Same steps apply. However, in that screener call it’s possible you were given additional clues and information that were not on the job description that could help you pull more examples and stories and anecdotes from your previous experience that you could mention to that hiring manager. As with everything, the further you get in the interview process, it is less about ticking the boxes of the job description, but they want to hear more about not just what you did, but the why you did it, how you did it, what happened, what was the impact, etcetera. And so that hiring manager is going to want to hear about your decision making process, your thought process, etcetera. They don’t just want to hear that you have experience doing design systems and research projects and whatever is on that job description.

Sarah Doody [00:13:11]: They don’t just want you to run through a checklist of your experience. They want to hear a little bit more below the surface about specific examples from your experience. And guess what? If you did your homework and created a really good resume, which if you got this far you probably have a decent resume, go back to your resume and turn some of those bullet points into more in-depth stories you can tell about how you arrived at those outcomes, impacts, etc. Alright, so you do the hiring manager call, then you get to this series of interviews. What should you be thinking about? Same thing, except let’s think of the users here. Likely these people may be your future colleagues. It could also be people from other departments. This is why it’s so important before a job interview, especially the further along you get when you get into these panel interviews and things like that, ask for a list of who will be interviewing you and their job titles.

Sarah Doody [00:14:19]: Sometimes people are happy to give this to you, other times they won’t, but if you don’t ask you won’t know. And the benefit to knowing who is going to interview you is that you will be more prepared and you can think a little bit more about these specific examples you may want to share with that person. Let’s say you end up in an interview with some type of developer, like computer programmer, and you are a product designer. Great. You may talk more about specific examples from where you did things that may have meant collaboration with developers, it could have to do with documentation around designs and things like that. There’s so many things, but that’s what I mean when I say try and learn who will be in the interview beforehand so you can mentally prepare of how you’re going to tailor these stories and examples you share to what that person might be interested in. Alright. So next, we get to that offer stage.

Sarah Doody [00:15:31]: By now, there’s nothing more really for you to do. If you get that offer, then definitely don’t skip the negotiating process. Make sure you get the written offer. Don’t agree to anything on the phone. And then, of course, hopefully, you get hired. But between that 2, 3, 4 100 person applicant pool and you getting that job offer there’s a lot of steps to go through. And it is possible to stand out if you take the time to prepare and to really make sure that you are tailoring and aligning how you talk about your experience with what is in the job description. Now let’s think a little bit more about the recruiters and hiring managers.

Sarah Doody [00:16:21]: You know, they are overwhelmed by the volume of candidates and the monotony, let’s say, of how so many candidates all sound the same. Makes it very difficult for them to go through all the candidates if everyone’s materials sound the same. That’s why if you take the time to sound different, then you won’t sound the same, which is exactly what we want to happen in the job search funnel. You do not want to sound like all of the other candidates. You want to sound different, and you’re gonna do that through talking about the specifics of what you have done in the past. Alright, so next we are going to talk about how do you go from being average to outstanding. Right? Excellent question. How do you design for each step of the funnel? So applications, we kind of touched on this earlier.

Sarah Doody [00:17:16]: It’s a matter of making sure that resume and that LinkedIn are going to catch the attention, and that happens through the content and the design. One thing I am an advocate for, and I know people say the opposite. I love to challenge them on why though, but I advocate that you tailor your resume for each job you apply to. Now that does not mean you’re gonna spend 8 hours writing it from scratch for every single job you apply to. That would be ridiculous. What I mean is you’re gonna tailor it quickly. You’re going to maybe rearrange the order of bullet points. Rewrite bullet points slightly based on what is in the job description.

Sarah Doody [00:17:56]: You might tweak that about me or elevator one sentence pitch of yourself at the top of your resume. That is what I mean when I say tailor your resume. I’m not saying spend 8 hours making a new one. So tailoring is super super important. Of course, you can’t tailor your LinkedIn profile, and that’s why we don’t tell you to do that because you can’t. Next, screener call. Prepare, prepare, prepare, Study the job description. Keep your answers short because you only have 15 to 30 minutes.

Sarah Doody [00:18:31]: You don’t want to only be able to answer one question because you rambled on and on and on, and then all of a sudden the 15 or 30 minutes were over. Right? So that’s why it’s really important to practice. You could use a tool like loom.com to record yourself answering questions beforehand, and then you could listen to it. Or if you want, watch yourself. And I guarantee if you do this you will pick up on how you can be more concise. Trust me, when I listen to my own podcast episodes I hear examples of how I could be more succinct and maybe not go on for so long. But I digress. Alright, so screener call, hiring manager interview.

Sarah Doody [00:19:16]: To recap, we’re gonna research the company. We’re gonna research the team. We have an episode and maybe an article about this, so I will make sure to link to those in the show notes also. But remember, this hiring manager is wanting to make sure you don’t just say you can do the job, but they want to hear examples of you doing the job in the past at your previous roles. So keep that in mind. Examples speak far more than just saying you can do something, right? We want to show their receipts when we’re talking to the hiring managers. Same thing applies in those interviews. One little tip here, as you’re answering questions in the interviews, try and start with the outcome or the impact first.

Sarah Doody [00:20:10]: So instead of answering a question and saying, well, I did a survey and blah blah blah blah blah, start with kind of the ending, like, what was the result of that survey? What did you learn? Etcetera. And then move into how you went about doing it, the decision process around, say, why did you decide to do a survey versus other research methods, etcetera. So we want to start with the outcome. So what happened, why we did it, and how we did it. That’s why I like to structure answers in interviews. Alright. Then another tip I want to give to you concerning this whole job search funnels. We’re kind of stepping out of the funnel and looking at the whole job search right now.

Sarah Doody [00:20:53]: Being visible on LinkedIn is so, so important even before you apply for a job, to be honest. If you are in a job search right now, it is super important to stay visible on LinkedIn. But here’s the key. You want to be visible to the people that matter right now. Right? So if you know you are going to apply to certain companies, you want to try and be visible to people who work at those companies. So what should you be doing? You should be going and commenting on those posts by those people who work at those companies. You should be writing little posts on your profile that relate to skills that maybe are in the job descriptions of the jobs you’re applying to. Right? Because if you apply for a job someone’s gonna eventually look at your LinkedIn profile.

Sarah Doody [00:21:55]: And if your LinkedIn profile has like a little takeaway from an article you read about, you know, some research method or research software, great, and you’re applying to a job as a researcher that’s going to show more of your research experience, right? If you listen to some podcast about some research method or project or story someone shared and you write a little recap or takeaway from it and post a link to that podcast, again, that’s an example of you showing your interest and knowledge for that area that you work in. On the other hand, if your LinkedIn profile is just full of memes or you complaining about the job search or harping on recruiters and hiring managers and say how much of a jerk they are and the whole process is rigged and blah blah blah, that’s not creating a very good first impression. Right? So standing out in the UX job search funnel applies not only once you hit the apply button on a job, but there are also things you can do external to your application and your resume, etc, to help you stand out. And LinkedIn is one of the best places to try and increase your visibility because that is where everyone hangs out right now. If you happen to work in a different industry or you know there are communities where people hang out that you want to be visible to, whether that’s Slack or Discord or wherever, then fine hang out there. But it’s really important to be thinking about that visibility, part of things. So we need to be thinking like a UX designer throughout our entire job search. We need to approach this problem of standing out in the job search funnel like a design problem.

Sarah Doody [00:23:53]: Right? We need to think of our users. We need to think of what is going through their heads, what they are dealing with, the situation, the context, etcetera, the time they have available. Like so many people complain that a recruiter cannot provide individualized feedback to candidates. Well, let’s do the math. Right? If you have 300 candidates apply and you as a recruiter are theoretically going to give feedback to 300 people. Even if you spend 1 minute on feedback for everyone, that’s 300 minutes. Now, realistically you’re gonna spend way more than 1 minute. So once you start doing that math, you realize how it is literally impossible just from like a mathematical perspective to provide feedback to the hundreds of candidates who apply for jobs.

Sarah Doody [00:24:45]: There are other reasons why companies don’t provide feedback. Also, their legal teams often advise not to, but even if the legal team said, sure, you can provide feedback to every single person, have at it. The time thing still wouldn’t work out. Right? Because recruiters normally are not just recruiting for one job, they have multiple jobs. So if you’re recruiting for just 2 positions and you have 300 applicants for each position and you give 1 minute of feedback to each person, that’s 600 minutes. So that is a lot of time, and that is just that’s not how the world works unfortunately. So we need to do our best to consider the users in the UX job search funnel. So you can go from being one of the 3, 400 at the top of the funnel to being the select few that get the screener call, and the select few that get the hiring manager, and the even smaller number of people that get the interviews, and then, of course, the offer.

Sarah Doody [00:25:50]: That is the goal. So some key takeaways here. Average candidates do not get noticed. Candidates who sound like each other all sound the same, and no one stands out. So you need to stand out by being strategic and intentional, by thinking about and putting yourself in the shoes of the recruiters and hiring managers. You need to treat your job search like a UX problem, designing for those users, keeping in mind their exact journey as they themselves go through that funnel too, right? And we need to be focusing on tailoring the materials, meaning resume, portfolio, cover letters, etcetera, and what you are going to say in these interviews, and building visibility, and building relationships with key people, and doing things that allow you to showcase your unique value, not just only on the application and only on your resume, but even your LinkedIn. It’s a continuation of what you submitted when you applied, and it allows you to start building those relationships. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:27:07]: So that is all I have for you today. One quick thing though, I wanna remind you that on December 11th, I will be teaching a workshop all about this UX job search funnel. We’re going to go into a lot more detail about this with a lot of slides and examples. So you can really visualize and have even more actionable things you can do to stand out in the UX job search funnel. So if you want to join this workshop just go to careerstrategylab.com/events and you will see it on that page. It’s happening December 11th. So if you listen to this episode after, then make sure you sign up for our newsletter because we announce all our events in that newsletter. The newsletter is at careerstrategylab.com/newsletter.

Sarah Doody [00:28:05]: Alright. I hope to see you at that December 11 workshop, all about the UX job search funnel or at a workshop in the future. Talk to you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the career strategy podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts.

Sarah Doody [00:28:45]: Catch you later.