UX Hiring Insights: Jeni Bible, UX Manager at Home Depot, on How She Got Hired, What She Looks for in Candidates, & Presenting UX Case Studies

Sarah Doody (00:00)

So everyone, ⁓ I want to introduce you to Jenny Bible. She is a user experience manager at Home Depot. ⁓ And the cool thing is Jenny’s been on both sides of hiring, right? She actually got hired at Home Depot and now has been involved in hiring ⁓ for the product and fulfillment team for homedepot.com where she’s focusing on

Jeni Bible (00:14)

Okay.

Sarah Doody (00:26)

critical touch points in fulfillment, cards, checkout, pricing, promotions, gift cards, and a ton of other things. And the really cool perspective that Jenny also brings is that she also went through Career Strategy Lab and got hired at Home Depot in February, 2023,

Jeni Bible (00:34)

Yes.

Yes. It was.

Sarah Doody (00:45)

which was only four months after joining Career Strategy Lab, right? Awesome. Did I miss anything? Do you wanna call out any other highlights that…

come to mind after hearing that?

Jeni Bible (00:57)

I don’t think so. know. don’t think so. You touched on a lot of points. work on. I guess I would clarify. I work on Home Depot dot com. So in app and online. So I am an online.

Sarah Doody (01:11)

Okay.

Jeni Bible (01:13)

UX manager. So we have two areas of UX. We have enterprise and then we have online. So I’m assuming we’ll have questions about that at the end. If that’s not a known, there are differences in the UX.

Sarah Doody (01:23)

Yeah, and

Yeah.

And I’m curious, like, what about the in-store kiosks and stuff? Does that fall under you or is that something else?

Jeni Bible (01:38)

No, some of the journeys that I do work with are in store, for example, payments. So some of our credit cards, you can use them in the store and you can use them online. You can sign up for the cards in store. You can sign up for the cards online. So it really just depends on what the product is that we’re working on. But we always do work with the enterprise team to connect the full end-to-end user journey from the store side to the online side.

Sarah Doody (01:42)

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Got it, got it. Yeah, maybe we will get more into that in a little bit, but I’m just curious, I’d love to kick off these conversations and just give us ⁓ a little bit more context on your path into user experience. ⁓ And then maybe more recently, like how did you end up at the Home Depot? So take us back in time and tell us a little bit about your journey into UX.

Jeni Bible (02:32)

Yeah, so I have around 27 years or so within the design industry. I started out as a graphic designer. I worked in a sign company of my very first job out of art school, right? So I worked in in that domain, in the print world. And then this thing came across, changed our life called the internet. And then I began developing websites and e-commerce. I adopted that was one of the, I was a

very early adopter in that and I began my own company. I worked to, ⁓ it was a full service agency. So we did print ⁓ web, the flash stuff back then. ⁓ that is where I fully got engaged in more of the user experience stuff. And then when ⁓ my client base got so large, they were like, hey, can you come consult with us on a larger basis?

So then I started working in more of a corporate environments. I’ve worked with ⁓ companies, ⁓ Crown forklift companies. I’ve worked with Procter & Gamble. I’ve worked with very large brands like Apple and Mars and some of the other ⁓ jobs that I have had with different agencies and different corporate roles. So how I ended up at Home Depot is I was in an agency role and I thought, you know what, I would like to…

see what it’s like to be on the inside of an in-house UX department. I had started officially in the UX role because I was a web designer. So I did the web design. I coded. I had all of that experience. I thought, well, how does this translate into UX? And UX is really about the user and how they work with the product that you’re building and understanding it from their perspective. So it was a whole world that opened up that

As a web designer, wasn’t quite taking that into consideration. It was more of advertising or the business needs this. So that was a really important piece that I was missing as a designer. So I loved it and I thought, is, I really need to work with this more. So I was a UX strategist at Crown and from there I went to, ⁓ had to move. So ⁓ during COVID, ⁓

I had to move and I got an online role at an agency. And that’s where it opened up to more of those larger companies that I worked with. And then, ⁓ you know, I just needed a change of pace. I wanted to see what it was like to be in-house in a large, huge retail company. And I did a lot of research. I used your strategies and I joined your team because I was like, I don’t know where I want to go next.

Sarah Doody (05:24)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (05:25)

I really

didn’t know where I wanted to go next, but I knew I wanted to join a company that had matched the values and the needs that I wanted in my next role.

Sarah Doody (05:35)

And I’m curious because I’m asked this question all the time. Maybe you are as well, but like what challenges, if any, did you face when you were trying to kind of package your experience working at an agency setting for a role in-house? Because people often kind of get hung up on that part of their job search. And I’m curious, you know, as someone who made that leap from agency to in-house,

⁓ What’s your perspective there?

Jeni Bible (06:09)

It’s an interesting perspective because it depends what type of work you’re doing in the agency and whether that translates into the enterprise or the online world. So online, we are very customer facing, which matches very well with the agency work that I was doing. I was doing e-commerce agency work. So we built nothing but e-commerce sites and engines. So the different platforms and the clients that we had.

Sarah Doody (06:14)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (06:38)

So those skill sets and everything that I was working on there translated really well into the e-commerce and the retail that I had. So I guess it’s all about trying to tie your current experience into what the company that you’re going to or you’re applying to needs. So a lot of times job descriptions online are very vague.

Sarah Doody (06:59)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (07:05)

So when you get that phone call or you make that connection with those TAs, like ask about the role, ask about the team. How do they work with the teams that they work with? What are they working on? Because then that can then help you tie in your experience to what they are looking for, because it’s very specific.

Sarah Doody (07:28)

Yeah, that kind of leads us into our next question. And I’m glad you mentioned the importance of reading the job description, even if we know a lot of them are not well written, but kind of using that as an opportunity to either do research or ask questions, right?

Jeni Bible (07:47)

⁓ 100%. Yes. So when, ⁓ you know, if you are, aren’t building your network now, build your network. you like career strategy lab helped me understand where I wanted to go and it helped me target where I wanted to go. And the, one of the first things I did was go to their website to see if they had anything open and Home Depot did and other, other companies did not. So my first question to that recruiter was,

What does the team work on? Where are they going? What challenges are they coming across? What skill sets do you feel like that hiring manager is looking for? Because when we as managers work with our recruiters, they ask us that and we give them that information. So they are looking for that information while you are having that conversation with that initial screen.

Sarah Doody (08:40)

Yeah, I think that’s a really important point because I think many times candidates are wondering like, how can I maybe even just bypass the recruiter and get to the next person? But I think what you just said is like, you at least at Home Depot are kind of working hand in hand with those first line of defense recruiters, if you will, to feed them the answers to questions that candidates may have. So it’s in the candidate’s best interest to be asking really pointed questions to make sure, as you said, you

that the company is a fit for you as much as you think you’re a fit for the company.

Jeni Bible (09:14)

Yes. you know, and if when I have roles open, I post them on LinkedIn and I get a flood of people, hey, you know, introducing themselves to me. I would say because you have a piece of this in your course of how to write that cold call type of message to create that relationship and to kind of introduce yourself. And I say that I’ve seen so many of those come through. And what really grabs my attention is

Sarah Doody (09:33)

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (09:43)

if they ask those questions. What’s your team working on? I see you were working on fulfillment. Are you hiring for a fulfillment role or are you hiring for a payments role? Like what are you, what are you hiring for? And here’s how, what I can bring to your team. So I think that’s, that’s missing in a lot of things. Like, here’s what I can bring to your team. What are you looking for that I can, I can bring to your team? So, you know, I’m looking, I’m looking for a very specific skillset sometimes. Sometimes that’s not.

Sarah Doody (10:08)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (10:13)

able to be found, right? But if you’re willing to learn or you have some other experience that might fit in well with the strategic pieces that we’re working on, it would be a great match. And if they bring that to that initial, hey, what are you hiring for? you hiring for, you know, just asking more questions about the role rather than a generic like, hi, I have x my y and z experience.

What is your experience in? Dig a little deeper.

Sarah Doody (10:44)

Right.

Yeah, it reminds me of that book, Don’t Make Me Think, right? And I think it, Don’t Make Me Think is like the perfect tagline for like the mindset you should have when approaching interacting with recruiters and hiring managers.

Jeni Bible (10:50)

Yeah, you asked it.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. If it’s scannable, it’s got to be scannable too. lot of things coming on, you know, and that would be your way to bypass that recruiter is to if a hiring manager is posting that reach out to them with that specific thing in mind.

Sarah Doody (11:03)

And

I’m curious, looking back to your own job search of getting hired at Home Depot, did you use these strategies or did you even see the role posted by someone who was working at Home Depot, like you said on LinkedIn?

Jeni Bible (11:32)

I did not, I did not know who the hiring manager was. I just, after filling out, I think it was the career compass. And then like where I want it, like what that did for me, cause I was actually, I was really lost at that point. Like, I don’t know, what do I want to do? Right? Where do I want to work? What do I want to do with my UX career? What my design career? Where do I want to So many avenues we can go as designers. What do I want to do?

Sarah Doody (11:51)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (12:00)

What am I looking for? Because I didn’t want to just like, like you, I didn’t want to just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck. I really wanted a purposeful direction and where I wanted to go. And then you wanted to know why I wanted to go. That’s why I signed up for Career Strategy Lab, because I didn’t know how to do that on my own. And going through all of your stuff, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is really making me think and understand.

what I can bring to the table because I didn’t realize half of the things that I’m actually really good at. And one piece that you had in there is where you have your colleagues or you have someone else fill out this form fill. my gosh. That was so awesome. I was like, I almost made me cry because some of the things I’m just like, my gosh, I had no idea that that was kind of my brand.

Sarah Doody (12:43)

Mm-hmm. Say more, say more. ⁓

Jeni Bible (12:58)

Right. Because what that does is it tells you what your brand is and then it gives you more of a story to that you can tell about your brand and what you can bring to your table. And so that part really resonated with me. The the compass statement. I literally put that at the very beginning of of the portfolio. My portfolio, my pitch deck, because I did not want to invest time to put into a website. I still have time. I still have time for that. So.

Sarah Doody (13:18)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (13:26)

Also, as a hiring manager, I have adopted that. So not everybody can have a website or want to build that or need to do the big flashy stuff. know, put what you’re telling them to put in there is really great because you have a case study. It has a little bit about you. Where have you been? What you’ve got going on. It’s like your resume. And then you have a case study or two. But those case studies should probably be

that skill set should be highlighted into the role that you’re hiring for. And yes, that’s a lot more work, with a few diff, but if you know, if you have your compass statement and you know where you’re going, you know where you’re going. So you know how to build those, those case studies and how to build them. So I really loved your program. I thought it was great.

Sarah Doody (14:15)

It’s amazing to hear because I think oftentimes there’s some resistance to the career roadmap and the compass statement and people want to just jump ahead to resume and jump ahead to portfolio. But as you said, it provided this kind of like compass. mean, that’s why I call it a compass statement, right?

Jeni Bible (14:27)

Yeah. ⁓

Yes, yes, it just really gives you the direction and how to tell your story because that’s a really big part of interviewing is telling your story. Why do you want this job? Why?

Sarah Doody (14:49)

Yeah. well, and so

just digging in a little bit to your portfolio pitch deck, you had a lot of experience that you could have included when you applied to Home Depot. I’m curious, how much did you tailor that portfolio? And do you remember how many case studies you had in there when you applied for that Home Depot role?

Jeni Bible (15:04)

Yeah.

I do actually it was what I did was that very that very first interview. I didn’t have to submit a portfolio at the time. I knew I was hiring for a manager role and when the first the first initial before I even talked to the TA on the phone. I asked is there a portfolio needed? She was like not necessarily but you

Sarah Doody (15:26)

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (15:41)

we’ll need to potentially talk through some scenarios, right? So I was like, okay, ask a few more questions. And the content that I put in here, I knew I was hiring for a manager role. I knew I was going to be leading designers, which is what I wanted to do. I wanted to lead designers. I wanted to kind of give back to the community, right? Like I’ve had all this experience, ready to like mentor some designers and make some really great stuff for Home Depot. And…

Sarah Doody (15:56)

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (16:08)

So what I did was I tailored that to the role. So what’s my management style? How do I lead? What do I lead with? ⁓ How did I lead at certain companies? Testimonials ⁓ that I did have a case study or two that I could slide in there should that be needed. But my manager, I had a leadership portfolio per se for that. And then I had a link out to a MyBHance site.

Sarah Doody (16:27)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (16:37)

that is severely outdated by now, I’m sure. I haven’t touched for a long time. That’s all of our problems, right? We can’t keep up with it. But I had to link out to some more design work. So if they really didn’t want to see that, okay, does she have a design background? Yes, I do. But I tailored my portfolio pitch deck towards that. And then after every interview, I made sure to send that deck to every single person I interviewed with so that they had it.

Sarah Doody (16:39)

Me too.

Okay.

Jeni Bible (17:07)

because while I didn’t know who to send it to, right? I didn’t know if I needed to send it to the TA and then the TA would forward to it. But once you get those interviews, you have the email addresses. say thank you, thank you for your time, thank you for your opportunity. Here’s a little bit more about what we talked about. You go in depth about one point that you may have wanted to go a little deeper in and then attach your portfolio to it.

always make that an attachment.

Sarah Doody (17:39)

And I’m curious, because I know people may ask, but do you remember if anyone like replied when you did that? Because I know there’s two kind of camps, right? Never send a follow-up, it’s pointless, or yeah, you should always send a follow-up. So do you remember if anyone actually replied to those follow-ups or what the vibe was if they replied? If not, don’t worry.

Jeni Bible (17:50)

Mm-hmm.

Oh, that’s really, I think I

don’t remember. I’m sorry. It was a while ago. I don’t remember, I also used it in the interviews. I had it up because instead of taking notes, had my slide. That was my story. That’s my talk track. So I have it up now. So.

Sarah Doody (18:04)

No, it’s okay. Well…

That’s a really good point that I hadn’t thought of is like the portfolio kind of serves as talking points. you know, a reminder of like what is on the screen of what you can talk about. So if you struggle in interviews, that’s another, you know, reason in the pro list of having a portfolio to make one and use it in your interviews, whether you’re asked to or not.

Jeni Bible (18:43)

Mm-hmm.

Yes, and it really does come in handy because you have it all there. if you’re not. I have had and since then I have had designers where I’ve interviewed where they’ve had like a Figma slide deck and they’ve had or they’ve had ⁓ a pitch deck from some other canvas or some canvas or something. They’ve had it in a different format that is traditional. And I tell my

Sarah Doody (18:54)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (19:16)

my recruiters, I’m like, I don’t need a website link. If they don’t have one, just have them send me some kind of PDF. It can be an eight and half by 11. I don’t care what’s formatted, but just tell me about yourself. Tell me what you’ve been doing. And, and that to me is a little bit more telling than just a resume dot. You know, these are, these are the experiences because let’s face it, they’re kind of made for, they’re tailored for those bots.

Nowadays, right? You tailor your resume to get through this AI screening.

Sarah Doody (19:45)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I think as you said, the the resume is kind of like very tactical and the pitch deck is more of your your story, you know.

Jeni Bible (19:58)

Yes.

Yeah, it is very much your story and it’s where you’re coming, what you’re bringing. More importantly, it’s what you’re bringing to my team. Like I’m looking for a very specific skillset or I’m looking for, know, maybe I may want someone with a growth design background for a very different reason. Like you may not be, you’re not gonna be a growth designer on my team, but I need that past skillset for a particular project that we’re working on, right?

Sarah Doody (20:08)

Yeah.

Mm.

Yo.

Jeni Bible (20:33)

list all of those things that you may have in your past. If you don’t want to be a growth designer anymore, that’s okay. But the point is you’ve already think like one. Yeah.

Sarah Doody (20:41)

Right.

Right. Yeah, and those transferable skills mean, I know it’s such a buzzword, but it is so important because as you said, if you don’t tell people that, how are they going to know, right? And so it’s so, so important to, as you said, like go through some process, whether it’s career strategy lab where we help people with that roadmap and that compass or some other exercise to identify like,

sometimes for people and maybe this happened to you, but like skills and experience that either you downplayed or frankly forgot about till you thought about it or till someone that you asked as you said earlier, like a boss, a colleague, whatever, mentioned when you reached out to them and kind of asked if they could kind of provide insight on your strengths, you know, from their perspective.

Jeni Bible (21:34)

Yeah.

Yeah, it was, it was, that was, that one really blew my mind, honestly, and really helped me understand.

how to tell my story in those slides and those decks.

Sarah Doody (21:46)

Yeah. So I’m curious, I’ve loved hearing about your perspective as the candidate, but we’ve started to talk a little bit more about your experience as the person now hiring, which is so full circle. But I’m curious, everyone has a different approach to hiring and maybe yours changes from week to week or month to month or year to year. But as someone who has just applied and now you are vetting

Jeni Bible (21:59)

Yep.

Sarah Doody (22:15)

However many applicants, and I guess maybe we’re also curious about how many applicants is the TA and for anyone wondering what TA is, it’s talent acquisition person. ⁓ How many of those people of the let’s say 200 applicants like ever make it to you as a first pass?

Jeni Bible (22:36)

I’d say maybe 10.

Sarah Doody (22:38)

Wow.

Jeni Bible (22:40)

It’s not, I mean, I a roll open, I think a year or two ago and we got a 1500 applicants, I think it was, and 10 would come my way. I would have to look at 10 figure it. So there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of people in that pool and I don’t know how they’re sifting through that. I’m not sure what their process is, right? But, but, but that, that immediate.

Sarah Doody (22:40)

And so…

Right.

Jeni Bible (23:06)

that initial meeting with the talent acquisition or the recruiter, for me telling them what I’m looking for, they are going to filter through what I’m telling them. So if I’m saying, like we use growth designer as an example. So if I’m looking for someone with that type of mindset or skill, not necessarily a growth designer, but that type of experience, that’s what I’m telling them. They may put a search in whatever system they use

Sarah Doody (23:17)

Right.

Jeni Bible (23:35)

to filter out for that specific things and those 10 people will come my way. So do you know what I’m actually looking for? No, not really. But that’s why you ask the recruiter on the phone. What is that hiring manager looking for? Because they will tell you. They want to know if you’re a good fit too.

Sarah Doody (23:47)

Hmm.

Yeah.

And so after you get those 10, what is your process for assessing those 10 and who moves on to whatever the next step is?

Jeni Bible (24:07)

Okay, so really important information is if you have a I know this is all over everywhere, social media websites and everything. But if you put a link to something that needs a password, include the password because it will I will not even I’m not going to dig and look. That’s a pass. You may be the perfect candidate, but I don’t have time to go find and dig and ask questions. Right. So I got to get someone in my seat. So number one, that is

Sarah Doody (24:26)

Yeah.

Exactly.

Jeni Bible (24:37)

always very important. And then I look at the years of experience because in our roles, we have a good career ladder at Home Depot, We interns, have ⁓ UX designer one, two, senior of just on your ladder, one, two, senior ⁓ staff or lead, and then principal and then senior principal. So the career ladder is really deep.

And then, you know, once you hit that staff level, then you can apply for manager roles if you want that route too. So you can go the craft route or you can go ⁓ the manager route. And that’s pretty standard across like the corporate board, right? But ⁓ the reason I’m saying that is because we kind of put a career, like how many years of experience in there, and that is a qualifier. So.

If you don’t have those years of experience, you will be filtered out, right? ⁓ But still apply, still apply. Yes, 1500 candidates, 10 may get through, who knows how many times that cycle happens, right? So still put your name in the hat. Don’t ever not put your name in the hat at all. And no matter where you’re at, if you’re in a company and you wanna move up, always put your name in that hat.

Sarah Doody (25:48)

Right.

And is that advice to put your name in the hat? Is that because, let’s say you were looking for someone and your criteria was 10 years of experience, they have seven. Is there a world where you’re potentially flagging them so that, let’s say six months from now, you’re hiring for a role that does have seven, you have like this internal candidate pool that maybe you’re referring back to? Okay.

Jeni Bible (26:11)

Mm-hmm.

Yes,

absolutely. if it or the other thing is, so if there is another manager within within my UX org or another UX org that is hiring for that, like a UXD to let’s just say, and they look like they would be a great candidate or I’ve I’ve interviewed them and I’m like, I don’t know that they have this quite this much experience and reevaluating like

where I feel like they would fit in. And I know Joey has a role open for something that would be really good for what they have that they can bring to the table. I will say, hey, go talk to, I’m gonna tell this TA, we have another role open, go apply to that. I’ll tell them you’re applying and we’ll see what happens, right? You can’t guarantee anything, but I could, you know, at least like, I think you would really be a good fit. It’s just not on my team, right? So yes, that happens.

Sarah Doody (27:14)

Right.

I think that’s probably a…

Jeni Bible (27:23)

So don’t, don’t

sell yourself short.

Sarah Doody (27:26)

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a relief for people to hear. And I think if we were to dig deeper, you know, looking at a company like Home Depot, it’s in your best interest to have this kind of standby pool of candidates or for you to be on the lookout for candidates for someone on a different team. Because at the end of the day,

Time is money, right? And you want to fill that role as fast as possible. And so anything you can do to kind of like move candidates around or have them on standby, you’re gonna do it.

Jeni Bible (28:01)

Yes, absolutely. even if there’s and if there is someone that I feel like, you know, they’re not a good fit for where I need them right now. I may say, hey, let’s stay in touch. Let’s have coffee chats like once or twice a month. I want to stay. want to keep you in my in my circle, because if something does come up, I want to be able to be like, hey, I’ve got this person in mind. They they already applied. I may reach out and be like, hey,

Sarah Doody (28:16)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (28:30)

the positions open, know, again, can’t guarantee anything, but I can put you in the pool and say, this was already, she’s already in my pipeline, she’s already in my pipeline. I’d like to consider them for a first round interview. And then that usually happens.

Sarah Doody (28:35)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And beyond just kind of, do they match that criteria of years of experience that you’re looking for for that role? What are a few things that come to mind as you’re vetting their portfolio, which correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s, I’m assuming part of that first vetting process. Like what is making you kind of lean in and want to spend more time with a portfolio versus just think like, swipe left. Like it’s clear, this is not the fit.

Jeni Bible (29:08)

Yes, sorry.

Well, I see a lot of ⁓ here’s the process, here’s what I did, and it’s very textbook, right? So those are very different based on the roles. So like the more experienced ones are putting in a little more detail that are more relevant to a day-to-day workflow that’s in my team. like if I’m hiring for a senior, I would expect to see like

Here’s the case study that I worked on. Here was my part in that because let’s be honest, we’re very a small part of it in a bigger product. We have to cross collaborate. We have to influence without authority, right? So how are you actually working through this project? How are you working through this case study? It doesn’t have to be finished. It can be, look, I gave them two different ideas. We A, tested this one. It fell flat. Well, then what? What do you do with that?

How do you take that data and iterate, make those changes so that we can either test it again or, know, it depends on, you know, the outcome of the test, right? So let’s just say you have to iterate again and then retest. You gotta be able to like, I wanna know that you can do that. Not just like, oh, I can do AB testing. Well, how do you do AB testing? How do you know you need another test? You know, some of those things and those things come out in your case study as you’re telling the story.

And another thing is we all have business outcomes too that we’re trying to accomplish. ⁓ We work for businesses, but we have to marry that business use case with the user need and we have to find that balance that helps both. you know, make sure that those are in there too, you know, and it doesn’t have to be super specific. It can be like we wanted to raise it by 5%. I don’t need to know what it was before and what it was after. Like what

Sarah Doody (30:47)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (31:10)

And did you accomplish that? And if you ran a test and it fell flat, what did you do to fix it? And then it may not be out the door yet, you know, but tell me that story.

Sarah Doody (31:21)

I think people are going to appreciate what you just said, Jenny, because I think so many people are terrified to talk about case studies where things didn’t go as planned, where a usability test failed because they think they personally will be perceived as a failure. ⁓ And it’s like, people just want to hear what happened because people you want to work for understand that…

Not everything goes as planned. so it’s like, show the messy middle because that is what recruiters and hiring managers want.

Jeni Bible (31:54)

Yeah, it’s a daily occurrence in your role, no matter where you are. So how do you get around that? It’s a challenge we all deal with, right? So how do you deal with that? Like what next steps did you take? Maybe you didn’t know when your product manager said, hey, I think we should do this and you either agreed or you didn’t or you designed this iteration or that one. And then you said, okay, I’m pushing that. Because that’s the daily, that’s what you’re doing at work every day.

Sarah Doody (31:57)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (32:22)

And how did you communicate that up to your manager? Or how did you communicate that across the aisle to your engineering partners? ⁓ You know, everyone plays a part in the products that we build. And UX is very… ⁓ We live in the unknown, right? We are to bring solutions to what we’re building. We don’t know the answer either. But sometimes we just get a test and kind of go with our gut. And other times, you know…

Sarah Doody (32:41)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (32:52)

We have that user data. Sometimes you don’t have it and that’s okay too. How are you going to get it though? We got to get those. We got to get that point of view across from that customer.

Sarah Doody (32:57)

Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly, exactly. Okay, I’m curious, maybe let’s say what are one or two mistakes that you see candidates make who do not move on? Like from those 10, let’s say, what are one or two mistakes ⁓ that maybe those people made? Or if you wanna zoom out, what are mistakes that they’re making that like caused that TA to not send them your way? So however you feel like you wanna answer that.

Jeni Bible (33:32)

That’s a really good question. I think if they’re okay, so if they make it past the TA, they’re coming to me, right? I want to, you’re gonna be on my team. You’re working with me every day. I am your number one, right? I’m your BFF for the rest of your career here unless you get promoted, moved out on the team, right? So like we have to work really well together. So I want to know how you’re gonna, how are you going to integrate into my team?

Sarah Doody (33:50)

Yep.

Jeni Bible (34:01)

Ask me about my team. Who am I working with? What is my day to day look like? How many meetings am I in? How many meetings does your team run? What’s your type of leaders? Like at that point, I’m assessing you. You should be interviewing me. Do you want to work with me? You know, you may not like me and be like, I’m, I don’t know about this girl, right? Like I, you’re interviewing me just as much as I’m interviewing you. Do you, you know, is this a team that you feel like you want to join? ⁓

Sarah Doody (34:16)

Hmm.

Jeni Bible (34:31)

So it’s important for me to have people ask about the team and how do I integrate into my team culture, Home Depot’s OUX culture, and then also how do you work across the aisle? I wanna know how you work with a product team. When you’re showing me your case studies, I wanna see how you collaborate. ⁓ Especially, that is something just generic across the board.

Sarah Doody (34:54)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (34:59)

But like if you’re here’s another thing that I did when I wanted to work at Home Depot. I really, really wanted to work here. So what I did was I researched their corporate values. They have this value wheel, right? And it has all of these things on there. They take them very seriously. So collaborates is one of them. Building relationships is another. So those questions that I’m saying that please ask me, they should contribute to that value wheel because

Yes, there are principles that the company has, but they are also ones that I have as well. So I want to know how you’re going to collaborate with the team. How are you going to work with my team members? Are you going to give feedback? Are you into design crits? The day-to-day team, we’re a very close-knit team. We support each other quite a bit. So I want to make sure that you’re a good fit into my team too. So talking about the team, what projects

that we’re working on and making sure because some people, what I really appreciate is said, what are you working on? I think this is for payments, right? Like what specifically does it unpack that for me? So I’ll unpack it for them. And then they will choose which case study to go on or they’ll ask me, what do you think? They’ll give me a little highlight of this one, a little highlight of this one and say, which one do you feel matches what you’re looking for? And then they let me pick.

Sarah Doody (36:08)

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (36:27)

And I’m like, that’s pretty smart. So I’ll pick the one. And then if that one’s kind of not giving me what I want, I’ll be like, well, tell me a little bit about this one. So ⁓ just come ready with a couple things. And you can’t get it ⁓ right off the bat. But if you have something that you’ve done your research and you know, you’re going to nail it because you already know the questions to ask.

Sarah Doody (36:28)

Hmm.

Yeah.

What you just described is just like throwing alarm bells off in my mind because I’m thinking this scenario of you being in an interview, let’s say I’m in the interview and you might be my boss and I’m kind of, it’s almost like it’s a user research interview. I’m trying to uncover more about your problems, the team’s problems, opportunities, et cetera. And then giving you the opportunity to choose which case study I tell you about. Like back to what you said about collaboration and communication. mean,

That is just exhibit A of doing that in real time in your interview.

Jeni Bible (37:24)

Yeah.

Yeah. And those people usually go to the next round, which would be like a panel interview. So ⁓ it’s very, it’s very good. know, and I do want to say this too, like if you’re ever in a panel interview, those are usually behavior questions, right? No matter where you’re at, no matter where you’re interviewing, don’t be afraid to say, can I share screen and walk through a scenario in my portfolio that matches this exact

scenario that you’re asking me about so I can tell the story a little bit better or answer your questions better. ⁓

that will go a long way. As long as you stay within the time box, you could say, can I have three minutes to this? know, asking questions, right? Can I have three minutes to tell like, because we are all on a time slot, right? So you’ve got this slide, time slide, I’ve got five minutes. And I will usually say, you’ve got five minutes, go.

Sarah Doody (38:22)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (38:29)

Like I will give you that. Some people don’t, but if you feel like you can do that in that short amount of time, but that also comes into storytelling. If you can tell that story really quickly, get the answer in there. That’s great.

Sarah Doody (38:32)

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m curious, ⁓ thinking back to roles you’ve hired for recently, ⁓ or not so recently, is there anything that people have done in their interviews that really stood out to you as effective? I I know this idea of just giving someone the option of which case study you might present is definitely one that I’m gonna add to my list, but is there anything else that comes to mind that you thought was super effective for?

either storytelling or showcasing collaboration or just like ⁓ made them stand out in general in the either interview or panel interview.

Jeni Bible (39:22)

Yes, ⁓ I have interviewed a couple of folks where they had their case studies as a video, like almost like a commercial, like, and they would go through because they would have an alive interaction like they would click through their prototypes. If you have a prototype link you can share in what better story is that telling without it’s just like a picture tells a thousand words, right? It’s worth a thousand words. So it’s the same type of thing. So if I could interact with something,

Sarah Doody (39:46)

Yep.

Jeni Bible (39:51)

or you can send me something on your YouTube channel or something else that I can, or even within the slide deck, if there’s a link out to something else, great. But as this person was telling me their case study, they could go back and forth, like, you know, can control the video and they would be like, wait, can you go back and show me that? And like, we’ll dig into that. And that was really, it was more entertaining, you know what I mean? But it was very interesting and they were, ⁓

Sarah Doody (40:17)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (40:19)

coming right out of art school. know some we’re not going to all have the time to do something like that. Or if you have that skill set, use it. Another thing was that in their portfolio, they would have a voiceover of someone of them telling the story. So I think in PowerPoint, I can’t remember. I think it’s called cameo. There’s a feature in there where you can record yourself going through the PowerPoint. That’s been interesting, too, because I can kind of get a

Sarah Doody (40:35)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (40:49)

a sense of what their story is going to be without my or with their interpretation of the story before I just make an assumption.

Sarah Doody (40:52)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so much of this comes back to storytelling, right? And as you alluded to, storytelling is not just going to be important for your job interviews. It is like, I was gonna say a daily part of your job, but I think it’s more like hourly, if we’re honest. Yeah.

Jeni Bible (41:17)

Right. Yeah, it is. It depends how many meetings you’re in, right? Each one may have a story

to tell.

Sarah Doody (41:25)

Yeah, even in emails though, mean like trying to get a point across, weaving everything back into a story I think just helps humanize a lot of things, helps it feel not textbook or I don’t know, like science project or something and just also keeps people’s attention, which is so important whether you’re in a job interview or just like emailing your boss or a colleague or something.

Jeni Bible (41:48)

Yeah, And I will say this too, what I do see when people are going through their case studies, they don’t pause to say, do you have any questions about this slide? Or do you have any questions about what I’ve presented so far? It’s just like, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk,

Sarah Doody (41:58)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (42:18)

Here now I’m going through the prototype. Does anyone have any questions or concerns? You know what I mean? So you do that in meetings all day. When you’re presenting your case study, you should probably pause and say, do you have any questions or would you like me to dig deeper into something? There’s usually gonna be a yes or oh no, keep going.

Sarah Doody (42:30)

Hmm.

Yeah, yeah. And it also just gives you a slight break. ⁓ And it allows you to kind of ⁓ recapture their attention, you know? I mean, it’s easy to kind of just people tune out if you keep talking and if you give them a chance to kind of interact, it kind of like break up that… ⁓

Jeni Bible (42:58)

Mm.

Sarah Doody (43:01)

that I don’t even know the right word. I’m not good at speaking, I guess, but break up that just like speech feel, you know?

Jeni Bible (43:08)

Yeah, sometimes it’s just a wall of words and sometimes it’s nerve, you know, I mean, I’m, know, who’s who’s not nervous in interviews, but also just, you know, you do it when you’re when and I think when you do your portfolio reviews at Career Strategy Lab, you encourage that. I believe when they when you do the mock interviews, when you give your portfolio, you encourage that. Yeah. Remember what it’s called? Yes.

Sarah Doody (43:10)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, demo day. Yeah.

Jeni Bible (43:35)

So when you do demo day, you encourage that. The art of the pause and asking the question is also part of it too.

Sarah Doody (43:44)

I’m writing down art of the paws. I think it’s a very important thing for people to remember. All right, we’re almost at the point where we’re gonna dive into some questions from people who are here. I’m curious, before we get to our lightning round, I’m just curious, if people are in the middle of a job search right now, what’s one really actionable thing they could maybe do this week to get more interviews?

Jeni Bible (43:49)

Yeah.

⁓

Sarah Doody (44:11)

or maybe an offer, but I think a lot of people are stuck at the getting interviews part.

Jeni Bible (44:16)

Yeah, that’s I honestly don’t know I mean that I wish I had like a crystal ball there because the there are so many I Mean, I’ve been kind of following along the the LinkedIn

Sarah Doody (44:20)

Okay.

Jeni Bible (44:33)

you know, like when a job opens, I’ll click on it out of curiosity. And there’s already over 100 people clicking. So and then you see these job posts be taken off and then reposted the same exact thing. And I think I don’t know what to do because that unless you apply early or you know, like trying like again, like trying to network, it’s almost like we got to go back to the networking phase where you’re like,

Sarah Doody (44:40)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (45:02)

OK, I feel like I know this one know this person or you have someone refer you is another good way if you know someone at the company, but you have to have that relationship with someone first. But you know, it’s a small world. You might know someone who you worked with five years ago that you’re like, hey, like I would really like really curious about this place. Do your research, figure it out, maybe say, hey, I see this open role. Do you know who the hiring manager do know what it’s about? The more you know.

Sarah Doody (45:12)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (45:29)

the more armed

you are to go into the situation. So that’s what I would do. ⁓

Sarah Doody (45:35)

Yeah.

I, I echo that. think relationships are so key and I don’t have research on this, but if I had to put money on it, my guess is sometimes when these companies post a role and there’s like 300 people in the first couple of hours and they take it down or repost it, my guess is they received so many bot applications and or just people applying because it had the word UX in it, but they’re not a fit that they’re just trying to like start over because

the quality of those initial candidates wasn’t very good. And I think I just cannot emphasize enough the relationship part, but I think another thing I’ve heard from recruiters and hiring managers is like, even though you see hundreds of people apply, the bar to stand out is often a lot lower than you think because so many people are just applying with a half filled out LinkedIn or a resume that like has spelling mistakes or like

Jeni Bible (46:09)

Yeah.

⁓

Sarah Doody (46:35)

bullet points that just, was responsible for this, I was responsible for that. And so relationships, relationships, that relationships I think are where it’s at.

Jeni Bible (46:43)

Yeah, and, you know, another thing that ⁓ I have seen a lot is like, if I’m hiring for staff, which we just went through that ladder, right? It’s very high, higher role.

Sarah Doody (46:55)

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (46:57)

If you don’t have at least the minimum years of experience, you’re probably not going to be fine to apply. But also, when some of them that do come through, I’m reading through the experience and they may say they have seven years experience because that’s the thing about tailoring. I have 27 years. I’m probably going to pass most of that bullet point.

If you use the LinkedIn AI tool where it says, you know, it goes through your thing and like, oh, you have this missing or that missing, or you reach this amount. Like if you put that number in there, it will scan it and see it and you may pass that one time. But then as I’m reading some of these, I’m like, I just don’t know that they would fit into like my seven to nine year role.

Sarah Doody (47:46)

Mm.

Jeni Bible (47:47)

because

they’re still in like a master’s degree program and they’re not working full time. Like I need field experience for those larger roles. And it’s unfortunate because I would probably put them over in more of like a UXD2 bucket. It’s like they’ve had some experience, another one back to school to get a master’s. know, are you in full time? Are you not? Like what’s, what is your real work experience in some of those higher roles? ⁓ So I’ve been seeing that with like, ⁓

Sarah Doody (47:53)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (48:16)

the higher roles. There’s just, I just don’t know how to, and then I look at their portfolio and it’s all student work. I can’t hire you for a staff position if it’s all student work. You know what I mean? like a lot of those have come through and I feel bad about it, but also like I need someone to hit the ground running. I need someone in that role.

Sarah Doody (48:26)

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, well,

and in a big company like Hoden Depot, ultimately, you don’t make the rules about those hiring levels and the associated years of experience, right? So it’s like your hands are a little bit tied, you know? They are tied. ⁓

Jeni Bible (48:47)

No, I don’t. Yes. And you know, some

folks, I may look at their portfolio and be like, okay, I would like to talk to them about this once because I may be looking for something so niche that I need that experience right now. You know, yeah, but you know, that’s more pretty lucky.

Sarah Doody (49:02)

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. I want to get to two questions that I think are relevant. So this first one from Emily goes back to ⁓ something we were talking about earlier, like including projects that maybe we’re not confident about. So Emily said, I just worked on a zero to one project and it was on the second approval before handoff and then it got canceled. The project got canceled. Emily wants to show that work.

but because it was canceled, she’s feeling insecure to include it in the portfolio. So what would you say to Emily?

Jeni Bible (49:40)

Number one is experience. You’ve learned something along the way. What did you learn and what would you do different next time? How did you collaborate? did you, it’s more, UX is more about all of those things. Like our roles are more about that, yes. Did you do the research? Did you, why was it canceled? I mean, it’s usually out of your control, right? Or a test failed and now you have to pivot and go a different direction. So why was it canceled?

Sarah Doody (50:00)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (50:10)

It’s okay that it was canceled. Things cancel all the time. My flights do all the time. So things get canceled. It’s stuff happens. Just how did you deal with that? And what did you do next? Yeah.

Sarah Doody (50:13)

Yeah. Yeah, I just think…

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it’s just getting over that initial reaction of like, but it’s a reflection of me, like they’re gonna judge me, like I was the reason that I got canceled. And it’s like, ⁓ probably a 0.5 % chance you were the reason it got canceled, you know? Exactly.

Jeni Bible (50:28)

It’s.

No.

You’re being too hard on yourself, Emily. No, things happen.

Things happen like that all the time. It’s just why did it cancel? Was it a piece of data that came through? it a user’s users couldn’t use it? You needed to you ran out of time. I don’t know what happened. You know what happened. Tell that story. OK.

Sarah Doody (50:44)

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. All right, and Tanya ⁓ wants to know ⁓ how to get an invitation to an interview. So we’ve covered some of this already, but I’m curious, maybe one thing we haven’t touched on is ⁓ how do you feel about people emailing or LinkedIn messaging you either before or after they’ve applied for a role?

Jeni Bible (51:27)

I don’t mind reach out, you know, but like I mentioned before, you know, why are you reaching out? Yes, you’ve applied. ⁓ Do you know? Do you want? What do you want to know? Like I get a lot of email or a lot of, you know, like messages and on LinkedIn about a role that I may have to open. But usually what I’m seeing is here’s my experience. I applied.

Sarah Doody (51:41)

Yeah.

Jeni Bible (51:53)

No portfolio link. Can we connect? Maybe a coffee chat or I’m available next to you. Be specific. I’m available in two or three weeks for a coffee chat or next week or whatever. Are you open to it? If I have time, I will learn more and help me with you to talk about the role or I’ll message you back.

Sarah Doody (51:55)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I think those reach outs, it’s about providing context and making it actionable. Like you said, like, hey, I applied for this role. You connect some dots from your previous experience. I’d love to chat here three times I’m available, right? And what that does is it removes the friction of like six emails back and forth of you guys trying to find a time. It makes it easy for you to say yes. And I think with anything, not just getting a job, but like,

Jeni Bible (52:43)

Yeah, it does.

Sarah Doody (52:47)

emailing your boss, asking someone on a date, like make it an easy yes, you know, like eliminate this back and forth. So yeah.

Jeni Bible (52:58)

a calendly link, like a link here somewhere where like these are my open thing. Like click here to schedule. Like, okay, you know, I may do that. Yeah.

Sarah Doody (53:00)

Yeah

Yep. Yeah.

All right. Do you have time for a couple of our lightning questions? I just want to ask before we go into it. Okay. We like the lightning questions. ⁓ Okay. So tell us what your first kind of real job was and one thing that you learned from that that has really stuck with you.

Jeni Bible (53:12)

my god. Yes. Yes.

Okay, so the first job I had right out of high school. So I live in a very small town. that’s one. Number one, remote work for me is a huge opportunity because there’s not a lot of opportunity in small towns. It’s a big, we have a big city job, right? So I went and worked for this ⁓ sign company and I, boy, was it a different medium that I was working with.

Sarah Doody (53:45)

Yeah.

Yeah

Jeni Bible (53:52)

So I was working

with a lot of creating vector files and understanding, like I went to art school, I knew how to work, mean, I was like a Photoshop and core quiz and then it became InDesign and then it, you know, all that stuff. But ⁓ the one thing that really honed my design skillset is like design documentation, creating that super clean file because what has that translated in? I can now ⁓ translate my files, like giving them to printers.

Sarah Doody (54:00)

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (54:22)

or building a website, clean code, clean design files, clean files to hand off to your designer. So like that skillset that I learned there, I didn’t realize it at the time, but that type of work really, because you have to, like if you’re gonna cut vinyl, it’s not, it’s like.

this color, this color and this color, right? It’s very, it’s very separated and they must fit together. So that, was just a different way of thinking, just like any other job that you take gives you a different skillset that you don’t really realize you have maybe in that moment, but you cherish later. ⁓ And then, so, you know, working there, I wanted to do something different and there was no opportunity. So I started my own business and I went into business for myself and I,

ran that business for 20 years. So that also helped me realize what I wanted to do.

Sarah Doody (55:21)

Yeah, yeah. Well, Anne, just running your own business for 20 years. mean, you learned so many other skills that are transferable. I mean, we don’t have time to list them all, but project management, client communication, so, so budgeting, right? So many things.

Jeni Bible (55:32)

now.

budgeting,

paying people hiring, ⁓ what do I need at the moment? Legal, yeah, there’s a lot there that you don’t realize when you are hired at a corporate or another company and you just go to work. It’s really great. But also when you’re working for yourself, it’s a different grind.

Sarah Doody (55:41)

Yeah, legal. Yeah, my God.

Yeah.

Yep, I can relate. All right, if you could do any other job and money and time didn’t matter, what would you be doing? What would be your LinkedIn profile?

Jeni Bible (56:08)

Oh,

I would be an art restoration specialist for like museums. I don’t know, long time ago I went to Italy and I was just awestruck by all of the art and all of the mosaics that are there. And mosaics are one of my favorite things in the world. And like one thing I didn’t know was the St. Peter’s Basilica right outside of the Sistine Chapel.

Sarah Doody (56:35)

Mm-hmm.

Jeni Bible (56:36)

Every

single piece of art in there is marble or mosaic. And they had like a little thing over to the side that said, hey, would you like to be an apprentice to restore the mosaics that are in this beautiful cathedral? Yeah, please sign me up. ⁓ yeah, I’m realistic. But it would be amazing. Yeah.

Sarah Doody (56:40)

Wow.

Well,

I may go to Italy. I’ve been before, but I’ve never been to Florence. So I don’t know if you’ve been to Florence, but I might hit you up for some tips. Okay. And then if you were making a playlist to play before an interview, what are a couple of songs you would put on that playlist just out of curiosity?

Jeni Bible (57:04)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s.

Yeah, I am a huge 90s grunge fan, but my latest kind of pump up songs that I absolutely love because it just really puts me in a good mood is the song from Capitol City’s The Safe and Sound. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that before. My grunge favorite would be 7 Marry 3, Punch In, Punch Out. And then, you know, maybe I would throw in some Kanye West, some Stronger in there.

Sarah Doody (57:37)

Okay?

Okay?

Jeni Bible (57:49)

Like those three

Sarah Doody (57:50)

Okay.

Jeni Bible (57:50)

songs, they’re very different, but I think they all like pump you up in a different way.

Sarah Doody (57:56)

I am not good with music, but my thought is if I put them into Spotify, I’m gonna know what they are, but I’m just not good with names. So I gotta find out when I go on my walk later today. ⁓ All right, okay. And I think that is all for us. So if people wanna learn more about rules at Home Depot, we’re gonna include a link, but just go to careers.homedepot.com, right?

Jeni Bible (58:13)

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes, yes and they I would go there. I would take a look at ⁓ what they may have open. ⁓ They one thing that we have just launched to at Home Depot is they have a contractor Depot. I think it’s called contractor Depot so you can be a contractor directly with Home Depot. I don’t know how it works 100 % but I know that they just launched that within that space. So take a look at that. ⁓ So if any contract roles open they may.

Sarah Doody (58:39)

Ooh.

Okay.

Jeni Bible (58:52)

you know, utilize that database of folks. So put your name in that hat. ⁓ You know, we do convert contractors at times. So that’s always a good first foot in the door too. Don’t ever, you know, don’t discredit that part of how we work. Cause it can get you in a place that it, and then you can kind of test it out and be like, yeah, I really want to work here. yeah, I think I’ll redo my compass statement, figure that out.

Sarah Doody (59:00)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and the other thing I would say is, you know, if people are listening to this episode and maybe they see a role at Home Depot and they find you on LinkedIn and reach out to you, I cannot reiterate enough just because you’ve said it. So I’m going to underscore it, like provide context, include a note in your connection request or something in your email where you’re like, Hey, Jenny, I heard you on Sarah’s podcast and include one thing that stood out to you. And that is going to help you.

Jeni Bible (59:37)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Doody (59:45)

show up and like get Jenny’s attention. Because

my LinkedIn inbox, it’s a disaster, but the messages that stand out ⁓ have context.

Jeni Bible (59:57)

They have context and they’re short, sweet, very quick. A little bit of bullets. Don’t, bullets are not, you know, they’re a little underrated. Use a bullet point.

Sarah Doody (59:59)

Exactly.

my God, use a bullet point, exactly. All right,

Jenny, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it. Yeah.

Jeni Bible (1:00:15)

This was so much fun. Thank you so much for having me.