How a Sr UX Researcher got hired at Amazon after a layoff and a 2-year job search

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: The creation of your portfolio and the time that you invest to create that portfolio, it is not just about having a portfolio. It’s really about getting more clarity and confidence on your skills and experience and, like, the value that you bring. 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. 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.

Sarah Doody [00:00:51]: Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it.

Erin [00:00:56]: Hey. This is Erin. I am one of the coaches inside of career strategy lab, and I wanna let you know that this episode you’re about to listen to, number one is awesome, and number two is actually from our open house. So in this conversation, you should know that there were other people on this call and there was a live audience. So if some of the editing seems a little bit weird or abrupt, that’s why it should still make sense for you. There’s so many gems of wisdom to grab from this episode. So we hope you enjoy. And if you do like this format where you really can get to know someone and learn more about their career journey, please let us know.

Erin [00:01:28]: You can send Sarah a LinkedIn message or you can email hello@sarahdoody.com. We love the feedback, and we wanna create more of what you enjoy and find helpful. Alright. Let’s get into the episode.

Sarah Doody [00:01:40]: Alright. So, yes, we have Fritz who is joining us. Fritz just got hired at Amazon not too long ago. How this is gonna work, we really are gonna hear a little bit about what they’re doing now and their kind of before story, so to speak, really hearing about what were they doing earlier in their job search, what was not working, what caused them to make a pivot, what did they do to pivot, and how did that really help them get more visibility, get more traction, get more confidence, which is huge. So first of all, I’d love just to do, like, two, three minute intro of who you are, what you’re kinda doing right now, and then we’ll get a little bit more into, like, your backstory and stuff like that. Sure.

Fritz Boyle [00:02:35]: You you guys can hear me? Yeah? The microphone’s on?

Sarah Doody [00:02:37]: Awesome. Yep.

Fritz Boyle [00:02:38]: I have about twenty years of experience. I I spent most of my time as a UX researcher, and I actually spent about fifteen years within two big corporations, and then I got laid off two years ago, it’s been. And the market has changed dramatically. Before I had my pick of roles that that I wanted, I could easily find jobs, and it wasn’t happening. And I got very, very frustrated. I don’t know. Other people are in that that boat of just, like, feeling, like, not getting responses, sending out a bunch of applications, going through interviews, etcetera, and not working out. And I would say that I I am really excited to talk about some of the key things that CSL provided for me that I absolutely believe got me to where I am today.

Fritz Boyle [00:03:26]: For instance, I I’m actually working at Amazon. And the thing I’ll tell you is that I was able to, through the program, focus, decide what is it that I actually wanted to do and stop just, like, sending out applications to every possible UX job. I started focusing in on particular companies, particular roles. And so now I’m a program manager for AI solutions for shopping of of a a team of researchers here. Really exciting role. Really excited about it. And, again, I’d I’d love to talk about some of the key things that CSL provided that really gave me that direction, and I absolutely thank them for where I am now.

Sarah Doody [00:04:09]: Just so everyone knows, Fritz got hired probably is it within the last two months, would you say?

Fritz Boyle [00:04:14]: It’s a month ago.

Sarah Doody [00:04:15]: Okay. Yes. A month. So this is very recent, and I think it’s really important because, you know, we we hear and we see so much doom and gloom about the job market, etcetera, and we’re not gonna sugarcoat it and say it’s easy. However, companies are still hiring. You still can stand out. And as Fritz said, we’re gonna hear all about what specifically he did. But I’m curious.

Sarah Doody [00:04:39]: You know, you said you were kind of on this journey for for two years and maybe just, you know, in hindsight, right, what are just one or two things that you think kinda weren’t working when you first embarked on your job search, you know, before you ever maybe heard about or at least joined Career Strategy Lab?

Fritz Boyle [00:05:02]: One of them I mentioned, which is applying to every single UX job that was out there and just sending in, like, the LinkedIn or job boards and things like that, and, frankly, not focusing on who I know and networking and those pieces. Talking to those people, following up, continuing to develop my online presence related to that. I kept doing and redoing my portfolio badly. Didn’t like, I was I was constantly doing all kinds of things. And what I have now, while it’s not perfect, it’s definitely way better. And I actually get people reaching out because of what I have online. And it it tells the story. You mentioned telling a story in that portfolio.

Fritz Boyle [00:05:47]: That’s as a researcher, I’m not a designer, but the coaches definitely helped me to tell those stories much better. And that led to better interview skills where I could tell that story. Even without the portfolio, I could tell the story about different research projects that I did and, frankly, do do better understanding who I am and what I offer. So you’re asking what wasn’t going well? I mean, I was spinning my wheels doing all those things. Yeah. I was spinning my wheels trying to create, like, designs that I thought people wanted. I was spending hours and hours re redoing my resume even though the base resume wasn’t even that good, so it didn’t even really make any difference. Yeah.

Fritz Boyle [00:06:33]: Those were some key things that was not working. In hindsight, I wish I would have talked to you sooner, Sarah.

Sarah Doody [00:06:42]: Well, it can help anyone listening to this to maybe nudge them and not wait a year from now or something like that. But, yes, I think, you know, to to highlight one thing that that Fritz just said, you know, the the creation of your portfolio and the time that you invest to create that portfolio, it is not just about having a portfolio. It’s really about getting more clarity and confidence on your skills and experience and, like, the value that you bring, not just in, like, the features of you, meaning the skills and things, but also, like, the benefits, the outcomes, and and things that you helped add to the company that you were at, but also how that translates to interviews. Right? Because I think you kind of alluded to even if you didn’t show your portfolio in an interview, the act of creating it helped you speak more confidently and clearly on, let’s say, the screener call or the call with the next person, etcetera.

Fritz Boyle [00:07:45]: Absolutely true. Yeah.

Sarah Doody [00:07:46]: And as you’ve kind of heard, Fritz became more confident with that portfolio. And so I want to hone in on how you feel your confidence changed, you know, compared to when you were first starting out with CSL, and if there were any other parts of it that you really think contributed to that confidence. And then kind of point b to that question is how did that translate to your interviews and or, like, even the position you’re in now?

Fritz Boyle [00:08:20]: Hopefully, this doesn’t go too far off of what you’re asking, but I would note that it isn’t just the portfolio. It’s also the resume. There’s a a couple of different resumes, right, that we worked on as well. And I think they’re interconnected in terms of the confidence level because, essentially, diving into who am I professionally and what kinds of work have I done. So it’s told in several different ways. Right? We’ll just talk about the human friendly versus the the electronic friendly robot. ATS. Friendly.

Fritz Boyle [00:08:53]: The ATS. Yeah.

Sarah Doody [00:08:54]: Yeah. But

Fritz Boyle [00:08:54]: the but the human friendly one tells more of that story. And with two years of getting essentially turned down for everything except for, like, little contracts and things like that, my ego and my confidence were just shot up, just destroyed, frankly. Feeling like, you know, obviously, I didn’t even deserve a job and coming up with all kinds of reasons why I suck and, like, why all these other people are getting hired and not me. And so going through the process of of looking at what are the contributions that I’ve made throughout my experience and then being able to share that with the coaches as well as the other clients who were in a career strategy lab and getting their feedback because you don’t get that anywhere else that I’ve ever had. The the only other people who I was ever showing these resumes and portfolios to were either, like, you know, my wife or, like, a friend who’s not necessarily gonna give me professional feedback. They don’t have a background in UX. Or they’re people who I’m hoping are gonna hire me. And, again, not necessarily a critical type of looking at how to improve those things and letting me know what does make me an individual and what does make this story interesting, and why did this impact actually matter to the companies that I worked with? And so getting that feedback and then improving upon these resumes and portfolios and and projects and the storytelling maybe kind of like, after you start saying it enough times, like, doing the practice presentations, it’s a self fulfilling prophecy of, you know what? I am a good whatever.

Fritz Boyle [00:10:37]: Stewart Little or whatever from SNL. Right? Like, I I matter, and I am a good person. I am a great researcher.

Erin [00:10:43]: Yeah.

Fritz Boyle [00:10:43]: So, you know, you do that enough times, and it it really does boost the confidence. And everyone will tell you, like, having that confidence when you go in to talk to people in an interview, it speaks volumes. Right? How are they gonna believe in me if I don’t believe in myself?

Sarah Doody [00:10:58]: Yeah. I think that is such an important point, and there’s so many analogies we could use here. But I think, you know, the the fake it till you make it is one that comes up quite often also. And it’s it’s not fake it because it’s partially just hitting pause, to be honest, I think, on your job search and thinking back to what you have worked on and actually thinking about the impact that that it had. You know? Maybe it didn’t make the company a million dollars or save the company a million dollars, but it streamlined the research process so you could do, you know, x more research projects a year, right, or things like that. And I think if you stop searching for these, like, glorified outcomes and metrics and just get down to earth and think about, like, no. How did this impact the business? As you said, it makes you realize, no. That was, like, really damn good work, the work I did.

Sarah Doody [00:11:56]: And you start to believe it, not because it’s fake, but because you start to recognize, no. That was amazing. You know? Part of it is is very much like that reflective part of what we do in career strategy lab and having you go back and, you know, think a little bit more deeply with a little bit more fine tooth of a comb to extract that stuff because you’re often in such a rush, and you kinda gloss over a lot of the stuff that that you’ve done. And you you made me think of something, Fritz. You know? This idea of of getting feedback from our team, but I think one thing that is very valuable and unique in our situation is many job seekers, and maybe this happened to you, but many job seekers get stuck because they get resume feedback from Joe, and then they get portfolio feedback from Julia, and then they get cover letter feedback from whoever. Right? And maybe you get resume feedback from two people. And because many people have different opinions about all this stuff, you start to have, like, this conflicting opinion starts happening and advice and you get lost, but also they don’t know the whole you. Right? Part of what we do in career strategy lab, it’s as you can tell, it’s very holistic approach, and we’re looking at you as the person, you as the human.

Sarah Doody [00:13:13]: How does that translate to your resume, your portfolio, etcetera? And when you kinda, like, take this hodgepodge approach, that can sometimes be where you get stuck because you don’t know who to listen to because you’re getting different advice from different people. So I don’t know if that happened to you, but did it, by the way?

Fritz Boyle [00:13:31]: Yeah. Absolutely.

Sarah Doody [00:13:32]: Okay.

Fritz Boyle [00:13:32]: Like, asking people even if you don’t ask, people love to share their opinions. Right? They’re like, oh, yeah. You know, you should really you know, this many bullet points is how you do it. No. You should use this font and this many pages, and you should talk about these kinds of metrics. But you you called it out perfectly, I think, Sarah, which is, like, they’re just looking at the resume and and their idea of what a resume should be. They may have zero clue about who I am, what I do, what UX is, what’s the difference between UX research and marketing research, which a lot of people don’t know, even the recruiters. All of I am assuming, like, most of the people here, we’re all in the UX space.

Fritz Boyle [00:14:11]: And as much as people think they know UX, there’s many people who do not, and yet they still have opinions about your UX resume and portfolio. So I had to I will say this. Like, I kept hearing things even while I’ve been because I’m still actually in career strategy lab. I have a couple more months left. And even while I’m here, I’m still getting outside feedback. And there’s definitely been times where I’ve asked coaches or even you, Sarah, like, hey. I heard this feedback, and you guys are very gentle, and say, remember, we’re looking at this holistically. And then remember what you did in your Compass statement.

Fritz Boyle [00:14:47]: And then do you remember like, I’ve seen you have all these conversations, and look at all the things you’ve submitted. When you look at it that way, don’t you think that, you know, what we have here or or this direction is the right way to go? And, again, those gentle nudges of, oh, yeah. That’s right. Right. Stay stay the course. Stay stay on the path. And sorry. That was kind of a long answer to, yes.

Fritz Boyle [00:15:07]: Absolutely. I continue to get all kinds of other feedback from elsewhere, but it’s hodgepodge and all over the place and not a, you know, a specific program that, like, really shows you the the bigger picture of who you are and then how that should be told to all of these documents in online spaces.

Sarah Doody [00:15:25]: Yeah. You you summarized it very, very well because it it is very noisy out there, and it’s it’s tempting to, like, get a piece of feedback and think, no. This will be the thing that I do that’s gonna change the game. But then as you said, no. When we gently and sometimes bluntly, maybe on my part, remind you, like, no. You said in your compass, you want this. Why are you applying to jobs in this industry? Or, like, why are you, you know, x y z? But you also hit on something that I wonder if people have questions about. You know, you said you’re still in career strategy lab, and you’re already hired.

Sarah Doody [00:16:03]: So how are you kinda leveraging the time that you have left, and and how have you leveraged your time in the program, you know, even after getting hired, I think? Because it’s probably a question people have, like, what happens if I get hired, you know, early?

Fritz Boyle [00:16:19]: Well, I mean, my stuff isn’t perfect. It it it never will be, so I wanna leverage the coaches and their knowledge as well as my multiple cohorts that I’ve had the privilege of being associated with and getting that feedback. And I would note that one job is not who I am or my career. Right? And so as I’m getting this new experience, I’d like to be able to incorporate it into my resume, how who I am talking to on LinkedIn. That’s another thing we haven’t even really I feel like, Marcus commented on it about knowing people and leveraging your contacts is a huge piece, again, that I felt like I thought I was doing it. But I I definitely have, you know, up leveled that that as well. And so I think that’s a big piece of what I like to do personally is communicating, contributing, asking questions, putting out articles, things like that. Because it’s not just about my job, it’s about my impact across the industry that I’m in.

Fritz Boyle [00:17:26]: And so Mhmm. I I’m very interested in continuing to do that. It’s one of the later sprints in the program that talks about networking. And then and, again, every single day here, I am, like, meeting new people. And how do I talk to them? How do I introduce myself? Kinda like, what is that elevator pitch? And how is it changing Mhmm. As I’m moving into a new role? So, absolutely, I’m continuing to leverage those pieces.

Sarah Doody [00:17:52]: That was great because I think, as you said, like, you’re not just your job title right now. You’re really thinking about this as a long game. Right? It wasn’t just, like, get hired, although that’s great. But you’re thinking

Fritz Boyle [00:18:06]: long very lucky that I did get hired, so I do appreciate that.

Sarah Doody [00:18:09]: Yeah.

Fritz Boyle [00:18:10]: But yeah.

Sarah Doody [00:18:10]: Yeah. But thinking about, like, you know, the the long term impact of of actions, and it it just reminds me of compound interest. You know? Like, you invest a dollar when you’re 20 or a hundred dollars when you’re 20 or something, and it turns into I’m not good with math, but you know? And it’s same thing with relationships or same thing with so much of the things you’re doing, whether it’s articles. You know? I wrote articles in, like, 2011 that still bring people emailing me about these articles. And I’m like, if that’s not compound interest in my career, I don’t know what is. You know? So, yes, I love that you’re thinking about this with that kind of very long term strategy and, you know, not just your job title, but your whole future as a professional, really. Yeah. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:18:59]: The next topic, it’s a little self reflective, but I’m curious. In a couple of words or in a sentence, like, how do you think you are different now than before you said yes to career strategy lab? It could be one word. It could be a sentence. However you wanna kinda, like, respond to that. But what is your kinda just gut reaction to thinking about, you know, the before and after version of of you after you said yes to career strategy lab?

Fritz Boyle [00:19:30]: What I would add for me is I feel like I am next level in my career in in my mindset because of that. In other words, you know, I am now in a I’m not managing people. I’m managing a whole program. And similar to kind of what Josh said about not necessarily opening up Figma every day and doing that, I’m not running research, but I’m I’m empowering others to do research. And it really excites me. So I’m excited about my my job again, not because I used to be really excited to go to work, and then I kinda lost it. And, yeah, that reflection that Marcus was talking about helped me realize, wait. These are the pieces I like.

Fritz Boyle [00:20:15]: So focusing in on what does make me happy and then found a job that I can do that. So, yeah, happier, I would say. Happier professionally.

Sarah Doody [00:20:25]: I love it. I don’t think happier professionally is on my list of desired outcomes for people in the program, but we might need to add it because it’s so huge, and it’s just it’s so simple. But I think, you know, especially with uncertainty or at least so much chatter about uncertainty in this industry and things like that, I think it’s such a refreshing thing what you just said. You know? Like, you can find a place for yourself in this industry if you get clear on what what you’re looking for. Yeah. Alright. Last question, I promise. What is one piece of advice you would give someone who was thinking about or who, like, joined career strategy lab today? What would you say to them? It could be as simple or as not simple as you wish.

Fritz Boyle [00:21:13]: Do all of the pieces, and do them in the order. There’s a bunch of different processes that CSL provides, and you can do them however you want. It’s you can fully customize it. But looking back, I absolutely think that the the way that it’s set up, number one, two, three, four, five, it’s a good order to go in because it really helps you recenter first and understand how to to move forward. So I my recommendation would be, you know, stop trying to make your resume so great right out of the gate or or make your portfolio. Start with the beginning of, you know, your compass statement of who you are and asking other people you’ve worked with who they think you are and what makes you great. That would be my advice. Follow the program.

Fritz Boyle [00:21:57]: Sounds like AA or something, but, like, follow the program is would be my advice.

Sarah Doody [00:22:01]: Yeah. Well, we love it, and we say it all the time. I definitely feel like a broken record quite often, but it’s true. Like, follow the process. I spent a long, long time designing this whole process and this sprints, but it’s very intentional. It’s like similar to a design sprint, you know, the five day design sprint. Like, there is a purpose that you do things on every day in a certain order, etcetera. And the same is true of our sprints.

Sarah Doody [00:22:31]: Okay. I will stop talking. Alright. I just wanna take a moment to thank Fritz for giving us their time to share about your experience. I think it’s just so much encouragement and hopefulness can come from hearing from people who were recently in the shoes that that many people are in here today. So we just wanna thank you for your time, and I know people really, really appreciate it. I think it just is a good reminder that regardless of how many years of experience you have or what you do in your specific umbrella of user experience, the challenge of articulating your story, creating the resume, the portfolio, networking, everything, it’s kind of just something that doesn’t get easier just because you have more years of experience. Right? It kinda gets more complicated because you have more experience to communicate, etcetera.

Sarah Doody [00:23:26]: And so I think it’s just an important reminder that career strategy lab is not just for people with a certain number of years of experience, because as you saw, all these people have very, very different experience. All right. Thank you, everyone. I hope you were encouraged by the stories of people and thanks for coming. Bye, everyone. See you. Thanks for listening to the career strategy podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

Sarah Doody [00:23:57]: 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. Catch you later.