How Jonathan Stopped Redesigning His UX Portfolio and Started Getting Interviews

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

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

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 [00:01:00] 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: welcome.

I am Sarah Doty and you’re here today for our UX job search q and a

Sarah Q1

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Sarah Doody: And really the goal for today is to really paint the picture for all of you of where each of these people was in their career journey, whether it was a couple months ago, a couple years ago what they were struggling with, what was working, not working, what happened when they joined, uh, my program, career strategy lab and, and sought help with their job search.

And then how that kind of has impacted their [00:02:00] confidence in their portfolio, resume, et cetera, in their ability to, in some cases, get interviews in their ability in, in, in other cases to get job offers.

Jonathan has been doing UX strategy and leadership type roles for 20 years. And so Jonathan, I’ll let you take it from there.

Jonathan Coen: Uh, thanks Sarah. So, uh, this has been, uh, such an eye-opening experience for me and just uh, just, I, I think I told this to, to Becca in our first conversation how much I love process and how much I appreciate.

You know, after finding myself in a situation where I had been laid off and not quite sure what this next step in my career was going to be. And yes, I was the person that signed up for one of the newsletters in 2018 and never did anything about it. Just a a, an email came into my inbox and actually hit my eyeballs and I thought, oh, okay, this is actually, I’m, this is the right, you know, message at the right time.

So finding myself, uh, in this situation where I had not actively looked for a job in a, or been job hunting probably since [00:03:00] about 2018 or so in a kind of a spot in between a management role and kind of an independent, uh, or, or not, sorry uh, individual contributor. I wasn’t sure how to position myself.

I wasn’t quite sure how to talk about myself in, in a way that where, uh, I felt confident about what I was putting out there. Have I done some research? Yes. But I’m not really a researcher. Have I done actual design work? Yes. But I’m an actually designer in this, this space I’ve kind of moved into was different from all those things.

So, you know, I, I love that Laura mentioned mindset because I think going through those early sprints of you know, the compass statement and taking a step back to figure out how I got to here in order to really understand where do I want to go? Like, I don’t think I’ve, in my 20 years, I haven’t really ever asked myself.

What kind of company do I wanna work at? And it’s, wow, it’s, it’s such a foundational question that, that I think probably most people on this call would take for granted, but I, I think it always been like, oh, here’s an opportunity. Let me go see what that is. And then I stayed there for two or three years not really thinking about like, whether or not this was the right fit for me.

It was just a opportunity that felt better [00:04:00] than the place where I was. So there was, there was so many of the sprints where, where, you know, I think my, my instincts wanted me to just skip by. ’cause I’m like, no, no, no, no. I already know all these things. But every single time I would step back and say, oh, that’s the reason why we have to define this.

And that’s the reason why we need to work on the resume before we actually go and start working on LinkedIn. In the position I am in at the moment I’ve, after, uh, going. Officially going live with my portfolio that was green lit about a month ago. I have got about three companies that I’m talking with.

Uh, one is, it’s a fourth round, one’s a third round, one’s a second round. I’ve unofficially been told I’m gonna get a, uh, a contract uh, offer. But, uh, potentially that might be starting next month. But you know, don’t count your chickens for their hatch, kind of. Yep. Um, But it’s been just a night and day difference in the approach in that particular instance that was a recruiter reaching out to me.

And so that, that is something where I can attest to the process of, of getting everything on LinkedIn the way it, it should be to present yourself in the right way, not just for the [00:05:00] roles that you’ve had or the work you have been doing, but you know where you want to go for the next, you know, five years of your career and, and how that’s gonna support your, your life moving forward.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. And so. You, I’m just, I, I didn’t know you were in the interviews of three companies. I just knew of one, so maybe I missed some community posts. But this is amazing to hear that you’re in the, you know, running for potentially, whoops. Three different positions.

Jonathan Coen: Only, interviewing with, with a couple.

I’d only posted the one I, I believe last week. Okay. But I’m, I’m getting nervous about like posting too much about it because, oh, yeah. I think I’m gonna jinx it.

Sarah Doody: No, don’t, no, you, no, you’re not required to report if you’re interviewing, but yes, I totally, I totally get it. It’s like you, you wanna be excited, but you don’t wanna jinx it.

Right. All right. You said you launched your portfolio. How many projects are in your portfolio? Just outta curiosity, I forget.

Jonathan Coen: it’s just three. So it’s, uh, it, it’s, you know, that, that, I think in the past I’ve always had, [00:06:00] you know, at least half a dozen, maybe eight different uh, projects. Uh, but none of them were really that in depth.

None of them really had a lot of thought put into them. So in this case it’s three very well crafted uh, case studies. And I guess for anyone who is not in CSL yet there is, uh, you know, this kind of practice of, of tailoring that, that portfolio for every role that you are applying to. And that’s made a huge difference ’cause, uh, the, the, the hiring managers I’ve spoken to, and even, even a couple of people once we get deeper into it, there was a research and development guy who really, really appreciated that.

You know, I had this deck that was built specifically for his company and, and the things that they were talking about in the job description. And it just, it. That turned him into an advocate for me, and that’s exactly what I needed in order to kinda get my foot in the door and, and, and move deeper into the process.

Sarah Doody: I love that phrase of trying to get the interviewers to be advocates for you. I might have to borrow that. I’m curious, you know, for everyone [00:07:00] that is not a part of career strategy lab, like when people hear, tailor your portfolio, there’s this automatic jumping to conclusions of like. Oh my God, that’s gonna take me 40 hours.

Like, that seems insane. Why do I have to do that? Right. So can you like, in one or two sentences, like give us a few examples of, of how you applied the concept of tailoring your portfolio to these specific jobs?

Jonathan Coen: in this case, you know, I’ve only got the three case studies. Yeah. And really only two of them applied to this particular role, so I just pulled the third one out.

And there’s, I’m working on a fourth one right now, which uh, so I’ll have a little bit more variety in what I, I can send out there and tailor it a little bit more. But uh, you know, even within you know, kinda the narrative of each individual case study and some of the, of the introductory information about myself, The portfolio was probably 90% the same for every role I applied to, but it’s that, that 10% that makes it feel more personalized either to a specific person I’m gonna be speaking with or specific, [00:08:00] uh, work that, that they’re doing where I might highlight certain, like it’s the same project, but I might highlight different aspects of it depending on if it’s, it’s a management role or hey, this is more of a a straight up research role.

Sarah Doody: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I I love that one that you, you pointed out like your portfolio had three projects and based on the job description, one kind of didn’t, uh, align as well as the other two, and so you just pulled it out really so that you can kind of force the people looking at it to not get distracted by that third one that’s maybe less relevant, right?

You want them to spend time on the ones that are most relevant to the job, so. Tailoring your portfolio works and it doesn’t need to take you 40 hours is the tweet, uh, tweet takeaway for that. Let’s see. And you also said one of your one of the jobs you applied to is because a recruiter reached out to you.

Was that on LinkedIn also?

Jonathan Coen: That through LinkedIn, yes.

Sarah Doody: So though it might seem impossible, [00:09:00] I want everyone to know that the bar to stand out on LinkedIn is actually quite low because so many people do not do pretty simple things to make themselves and their profile more likely to be showing up when someone searches for someone like you.

Sarah Q2

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Sarah Doody: So, let’s continue on our discussion we talked a lot about kind of the, the transformation of some of your portfolio, some of the resumes, some of the results in in, in job searches, et cetera.

Jonathan A2

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Sarah Doody: I’m curious, you know, thinking about your experience and where you started and where you are today, is there anything that stands out to you in terms of either how you’ve changed personally or things you think you might take with you, you know, a year from now, two years from now?

Jonathan Coen: it’s a very interesting question and I, there is in one of the sprints there, there’s a message around like, this [00:10:00] is not just your portfolio for this current job hunt you’re doing right now. This, these are things that can stick with you for the rest of your career. Like you, you mentioned, I think there was a couple of, of, uh, case studies that were, you know, 10, 15 years old.

Like, so, like it’s, it’s the work and the thought that you put into it, that’s what you’re taking with you regardless of, you know, if a particular app changes or platform changes, the technology or the, or the world around us changes. I, I feel more, I don’t know if more confident is the right word. I feel less unsure talking about myself.

I, it’s, it’s like with any of my, the clients I’ve worked with I, I feel like I could talk about them and put them on a pedestal for, for an hour each. Like, and I, I, I, I love them all and you know, I love what they do and it’s, it’s so much harder to then place that microscope and look at yourself and then try to talk yourself up.

Because I, I think most of us feel uncomfortable doing that. It’s, it is kind of weird, even though, like on paper you know, you, you may have a very impressive track record and like all these great things that you have [00:11:00] accomplished through the course of your career, it’s still kind of strange to talk about that.

So one of the things that I really cherished was, you know, each time you go through a sprint, you’re, you are presenting those things first to the CSL community for the, for the peer review. And getting that initial feedback from other professionals who, who are, you know. Similar mindsets, but you know, everyone’s got their own experience and their, and their own wisdom.

They can, they can provide to you. And then getting feedback as well from the coaches once, once you’re ready for it. I think you know, there’s not a whole lot of difference between what I had at the start of working on a case study versus what was done. It was just, it was the confidence in which I’m presenting the work that I did, uh, and the confidence in which that I just, I feel about myself and what I could bring to you know, a different client or to a different organization that I’m working with.

That it wasn’t just something that was, you know, specific to working in healthcare, specific to working in higher education. The process that I understand and the, the UX advocacy that I do, I can, I can take [00:12:00] that with me anywhere and feel confident about like the return on investment I can provide to any business I’m working with.

Jonathan & Melp Reply

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Sarah Doody: I, I love that summary. You did, because I think. Confidence is probably something we could stay and talk about for three hours here. I’m sure everyone on this call probably has hesitations and worries around confidence, and I think one of the, one of the things that’s so important is, number one, not waiting until you feel confident to take action because mm-hmm confidence comes from taking action.

But also, you know, you can be writing words on your resume and, and words in your portfolio, et cetera, but if you don’t believe them, the words are probably not going to do justice to your actual skills. And when you get to an interview, you’re definitely not going to exude the confidence that you need to communicate how awesome you are.

Sarah Q3

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Sarah Doody: When you take the time to really think through what [00:13:00] you did beyond just pulling together a bunch of deliverables and throwing them into a portfolio and just giving really generic, vague explanations of it. Thinking through, you know, how this impacted the team, the company, the users, why you made certain decisions, how you handled that time when some stakeholder went off the rails or, you know, you ran into some problem with, uh, testing something that maybe you designed that turned, turned out.

Oh, no one could use it after usability testing. Like, how did you handle that? You know, thinking through all of those things help you realize how awesome you are and then that comes through in all of your resume, portfolio, et cetera. And in those interviews too,

Jonathan Coen: I started with the the PDF version since that is the thing that is you know, each time I’m applying for something or speaking with a recruiter, that’s what I send them.

‘Cause it’s, it’s tailor made to to that company and to that role. And then the, the website is just something I feel [00:14:00] like I needed to have just so I can have some sort of presence out there. one of my case studies might be like 15 slides in uh, from Keynote and it’s in a, in the PDF deck you know, it’s maybe condensed down to like four or five paragraphs on the actual page, on the website.

And that came from speaking with some other of the, peers in, in, in career strategy lab where, you know, we were all sitting there and looking at each other’s portfolios thinking, okay, if I saw this at first glance, would my eyes glaze over or would I get interested in it? Or would I think, oh, that’s okay.

All right. I, I want, I learned, wanna learn more. In presenting too much information, it was getting the eyes glaze over effect, which was not what I wanted. So, website got a much simpler version with a page for each case study. And then the actual portfolio deck has all of the details. And then there’s a comment in the chat about I, I have a note on each of those case studies that says, uh, each, those pages says a full case study is available upon request.

I don’t think there’s anything in any of my case studies that are that would violate an NDA, but I’ve tried to, my best to, to, to not include [00:15:00] any sort of uh, data that is proprietary for any of those clients. That being said, you know, it’s part of the secret sauce. And so just trying not to throw that out there into the world.

It’s only upon request. And then just walking through that with a recruiter or with a hiring team.

Jonathan A3 2

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Jonathan Coen: it was one of our mindset calls where someone said like, Hey, you guys are not visual designers.

Like UX is a separate field. Yes, it has to be professional, but like, the expectation of me is not that I, I am a developer or a web specific designer. You know, my area of expertise is within the realm of ux. And so focusing on that the case study deck first, uh, I think was really, really helpful.

In that it made me focus on the content and, and the narrative that I’m trying to tell companies as opposed to getting bogged down in like, okay, what platform am I gonna use? And then, you know, okay, how am I gonna game SEO and this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that, though, all those things are, they’re great, but they’re all distractions for what we’re trying to accomplish.

Sarah Doody: I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m so glad I don’t have to answer the question, but it’s, it’s so [00:16:00] true that you know, I called this whole thing career strategy lab, not just for fun, but because it’s about strategy. It’s about not just going through the motions and, you know, ticking boxes and doing checklists, but I literally.

Designed it like I thought about the journey of getting hired and how busy and sometimes burnt out people are and the amount of time they have to do all this. And You know, a big part of it is helping you focus on the things that you need to do in the order that you need to do it.

So they give you the most ROI for the time and effort that you put into it, essentially. So that’s why it’s called Career Strategy Lab.

Sarah Q4

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Sarah Doody: But the final question is really for what advice would you have for anyone who’s kind of on the fence about jumping into something like career strategy lab and, or like, what would you tell them when they join?

[00:17:00] If, if you had a tip for them, you can answer one or both of those questions.

Jonathan Coen: I will try to add into it. There are. If I remember, if I remember correctly, there were kind of two separate tracks. One was like the detailed track of literally everything and every sprint uh, and it’s effectively, it’s tailored to, oh, I just lost my job and I need something yesterday.

Versus, Hey, I’ve got steady income and I’ve got, a job right now, but I’m not happy with it and I’m looking for something better. Where you’ve got a little bit more time to work through things and where you might be able to spend a week or two per sprint as opposed to you know, just a handful of days per sprint.

Uh, I trust in, in the people in the group. The feedback that you get from, from the other, other uh, your peers was just invaluable. The feedback getting from people who, they have a vested interest in your success. It’s, you don’t have to worry about, you know, what someone’s motivation is because everyone is here to, to support each other and help each other find that next thing in their, in their lives, into their careers.

It makes ’em happy. And then getting things [00:18:00] out there and just being willing to put something out into the world to get feedback on it is, is so valuable. And then, you know, I, I’ve kind of got this little saying on my own where like, my first five ideas are gonna be terrible and no matter what I do, and then once I get those outta my system, something usually much better comes, comes out out of it.

And that’s, that’s the kind of thing I had to work through with this. Uh, don’t put too much pressure on yourself as you work through the sprints. I think we all had this, at least for myself. I thought I was gonna work through like a sprint per week. And then, I think you were, you spent maybe, uh, like multiple weeks, like a month on, on just the first sprint alone.

There’s a lot of soul searching that comes along with, with those very early sprints. It’s not so much on execution, it’s about. What do I actually want to do? And that’s a hard question to answer, but there’s a framework there to help you find the right answer for you in it. And then as you move forward, it gets a little bit more execution based where you’re, you’re taking this framework and this strategy built for yourself and you’re you are then applying it to, Hey, here’s what needs to go into my resume.

[00:19:00] Here’s what gets cut. Here’s what needs to go on LinkedIn. Here’s what’s no value whatsoever. Here’s what needs to go into, uh, a case study. Here’s what I can cut. And, you know, it was great while it happened, but it does not help me be this thing that I want to be next.

Sarah Conclusion

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Sarah Doody: Awesome. Thank you too. Jonathan for sharing like just so transparently and openly about your. Very personal experiences and your struggles and you know, how you really leveraged the process, so to speak to get to where you are today. let’s wrap it up then.

Hopefully it just gave you some hope in the job market, et cetera, because I think. You know, in general, negative stories get more likes, et cetera. Right. And I think it, it like pushes down all the positive stories that are happening in the UX and product world. And so that’s part of the reason why we do these sessions to help you connect in a [00:20:00] small environment like this with other people who are having success so you can hear what they’re doing to have that success.

So, that is all. See you later.

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 [00:21:00] or interviews yet. First of all, I want you to know it’s not your fault. It is challenging out there and learning how to navigate the job, search, interviews, negotiation, et cetera.

It is not something that we are taught. Your boss is too busy to help you. Your friends just give you vague advice. Your family doesn’t really know how hiring in UX works. This is why I created my career strategy lab, UX job search accelerator. If you are tired of your DIY approach. Not leading to the results you want, 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. [00:22:00] Hope to talk to you soon.