Why This UX Designer Walked Away After 5 Interview Rounds (And Doesn’t Regret It)

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.

Open House 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@sarahdoody.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: today we are going to hear from some. UX people who have, uh, navigated their job search or are in the middle of navigating their job search. And they’ve also been through my UX career coaching program called Career Strategy Lab.

So, I just wanna give our, uh, panelists, I guess we could say a chance to introduce themselves first.

Sarah Q1

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Sarah Doody: So we have Faith. And really we just want to have you introduce yourselves share a little bit about what you’re doing right now, where you are in either your current job or your job [00:02:00] search.

And then we can get more into like. What were you doing before you joined Career Strategy Lab? What your experience was in the program and any other questions that we might get to see

Faith A1

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Faith: All right, so some of my history so you have some context into where I was when I came to CSL. I’m Faith . I live in San Antonio, Texas. I’m a product designer with five years experience. And UIUX and over 18 in visual and graphic design. I was actually a graphic designer at a magazine before moving up into an art director position.

Uh, I became a creative director for a local family owned race organizer. So I designed swag, like metals and stuff like that, uh, and did some service design as well for racing logistics. During COVID, we had to shut all that down. So in my spare time I joined a UX bootcamp. So that was back in 2020. I completed that.

I worked as a product designer at O’Reilly Media, which is an enterprise ed tech. SaaS company and I worked on both platform and native apps. Definitely wanted to exercise my roots as [00:03:00] visual design. Uh, so I moved over to grouper, who’s a series a health tech startup. I was there for a year and a half before the company laid off half the company.

Back in March. So within a few weeks I began working on my resume and my portfolio, but I realized like I was spinning my wheels and I was just going in circles and there was so much conflicting information out there and I was going absolutely nowhere and wasn’t getting interviews. So on top of that, I knew networking was also extremely important.

I was not sure how to get that started or where to go. I was doing research one day and actually, uh, found Sarah Doody’s name. I did a bit of digging into the program. Everything I knew about the program made complete sense. It was exactly where I was at in my career. So I knew I needed to sign up. I wasn’t employed, and I knew I had to jump in sooner rather than later.

Which is exactly what I did. So I started back in June and I completed the program in October. As for current job prospects, I completed the Compass statement, which is the first module you go [00:04:00] through in CSL. And so I have been super, super picky about where I apply. I’ve only applied to a handful of places because I know what I want and I’m waiting for exactly what I want.

I actually went through five rounds, uh, of interviews at one company. They found me on LinkedIn. Before I realized I was not a good fit in this company, we were not a good fit, so I just pieced out and bowed out. However, right now I’m actually interviewing for a position as a native act product designer.

I have my third interview on Friday where I’ll walk through two case studies, which I actually submitted through my portfolio module here at CSL. It fits my compass statement 100%. It fits exactly what I want and I’m throwing everything I can at this for this interview on Friday. ’cause it fits me.

Exactly. It was that job description was written for me. So yeah, that’s where I’m at.

Erica Jiminez: Hmm.

Sarah Doody: Well, I think judging from your confidence about your fit from the role, I’m going to visualize that interview going amazing on [00:05:00] Friday, and then you sending me a message on the weekend about how it went.

Faith: Thank you. I hope appreciate it.

Sarah Doody: I love that you brought up like the intentionality about your, uh, job search and not just applying to hundreds of jobs, but staying true to what you discovered about yourself in career strategy lab.

And I wanna, I wanna come back to that, but

Sarah Q1-A

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Sarah Doody: Faith, I’m curious you know, you are being very intentional in your job search right now, and I just, I absolutely love that because, you know, ’cause you’ve been through career Strategy Lab, like we really encourage people not to spend the time and energy.

Applying to hundreds and hundreds of jobs and instead be very intentional about it. And I’m curious if you can take us back to before you joined Career Strategy Lab, were you doing that? Just apply, apply, apply mentality? And if so, like what? Flip it for you.

Faith A1-A

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Faith: Yeah, so, uh, when I was applying to jobs before. CSL. There was no rhyme or [00:06:00] reason. I mean, I can tell you I applied at places like Dropbox. I would never in a million years wanna work at Dropbox because that is not in my wheelhouse. I just kind of cringe at where I was applying because I needed a job, I needed money and I was able to actually just get like this little job and still make money so I can still buy time.

To do what I want to do and it’s 100% worth it. I think what kind of scared me is when I was in round five of the last place I was interviewing at, I was scared in that fifth round because I was asking a lot of questions and did not really like the answers, but I was like, I’m five rounds in. I really need this job and it pays really well, but what if they asked me to join them?

It did not align with what I really knew that I wanted. So I actually had to say, sorry, this is not gonna be a good fit for me. Uh, which is really hard to do, but at the same time, I’m super relieved that I had the ability to do that. So I think it’s just, it’s made me a lot pickier just because I’m thinking [00:07:00] of my future self and kind of where I want to retire and where I’m gonna be happiest.

And a lot of that. Hadn’t even considered until I did, uh, that the compass statement and the roadmap. And for me it was a lot in the portfolio module as well. That one had almost a bigger impact for me because I could see my work holistically and I had that document, the compass statement I can weigh it against.

And so I knew how I should angle, and what story I should tell and what context I should give for my work instead of. Throw it up against the wall and see what happens. I had to have a lot of intent behind every single decision I made because I wanted it to align with my compass statement and attract those type of companies.

Sarah Q2

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Sarah Doody: I’m curious, you know, thinking back to your journey in career strategy lab, like one of the things that I notice in job seekers today is. you imagine our Venn diagram about like the product of you and how we need to design [00:08:00] ourselves and market ourselves and sell ourselves. A lot of people just jump to the marketing part, which is like portfolio resume, LinkedIn, all this, and they skip over thinking about the design of them, which is all that work that we do regarding the roadmap and the compass and things.

So. But in hindsight, were you jumping to that resume portfolio work and had you even thought about things that we do in that career roadmap, part of Career Strategy Lab?

Faith A2-A

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Faith: I think to add to that by doing your Compass statement and doing a lot of internal work, you can filter through, uh, job descriptions very easily because immediately you can kind of sniff it out and see if this really does align with what you want.

So instead of reading for hours and hours through numerous job descriptions, you’re able to scan it and be like, Nope. And then do the next one and Nope. And just go ahead and do the next one. And so [00:09:00] you’re actually able to move through the entire process, at least from my experience, a lot faster than if you don’t have a plan in mind.

Sarah Q3

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Sarah Doody: I wanna shift gears a little bit. I feel like we could talk about this first sprint and career strategy lab for two hours, but unfortunately we don’t have that kind of time.

But I wanna move a little bit more into how you found. The job that, uh, you applied to and faith, maybe we can come to you because you mentioned that you were found by tell us who and how that happened. ’cause I don’t wanna mess it up.

Faith A3

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Faith: Uh, for LinkedIn or for the, the one I’m doing right

Sarah Doody: Well, whichever one you want. But I think you mentioned like someone found you on LinkedIn, is that correct? Yeah. Tell us about that.

Faith: That actually has a good CSL story too, because. They did contact me on LinkedIn and that was the first recruiter to reach out and specifically say, I found you on LinkedIn. All the other ones said, I found you. I, I don’t know what that means, but this one said, I [00:10:00] found you on LinkedIn. And what they wanted me to do was submit a quick three minute case study on Loom or something and submit it as part of the application.

And they said, you don’t need slides. You can just tell a story. I was like, well, I have slides because I already did my case study on CSL and I presented it on demo day, so I can condense it from 10 minutes down to three minutes, no problem. And the recruiter had contacted me at, I’ll say, around 9:00 AM said, Hey, I found you on LinkedIn?

Can you submit? I was able to condense my long case study that had submitted to CSL, had gone through the entire process, gotten feedback from peers and from the, from your team, all that stuff. And I condensed it down to three minutes and it was my audiobook case study. And when I had presented it, Sarah, you were there and you were like, you know, you’re hired, you have this, this, this, and this.

Right? You, you labeled all the things. And I kept that in mind when I was presenting it in the three minutes because I knew exactly. [00:11:00] What to showcase. I knew exactly what to say. I knew exactly what they wanted to hear ’cause I had already heard it from an outsider and that that cold, oh, I’ve never heard this story before.

I’m sick of this story, but it was really good to hear it from an outsider’s perspective. I submitted it, wrapped it up in three minutes flat. Super proud of that, submitted it, and I had an interview within like three hours. I contacted the internal recruiter and said, all right. I submitted it and I saw on Loom that they watched it.

And literally a few hours later I was talking to their COO, which was weird to have the COO for the behavioral stuff. But I talked with the COO for like half an hour, and so I loved having that case study in the back of my pocket and I was able to just pull it out. Then we were able to talk about that case study as well.

But I had my branding done, I had everything done and packaged up in this pretty bow, so that really helped me.

Sarah Doody: And you condensed a case study [00:12:00] a long one, and you made it a short one, it sounds like in. Like an hour or something. How long did that take you? It couldn’t have taken very long.

Faith: Yeah, it didn’t take very long. The script was the hardest one to condense and understand. I, I’m never married to my work. Being a graphic designer taught me, never ever be married to it and get rid of it. if it’s low hanging fruit, just get rid of it. I’m pretty good at that. So, I was able to condense it down to where people had commented.

When I presented it on demo day,

I condensed it down to those bullet points and had maybe 10, uh, slides that I showed and talked through it. And so it was easy. I mean, it was nice to be called out by the recruiter specifically, but I knew my story. I knew what I had wanted. Later interviews after I asked some really pressing questions, I found out other stuff, but the first three or four interviews was really well, I would say till after the whiteboard challenge.

And it was a little weird, but I had everything in place and I knew how to structure myself and [00:13:00] how to, set myself up, I guess, for success.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. I, I love hearing these deep dives into, you know, things that I have not heard before. But I think for anyone listening faith mentioned Demo Day, and we do these things called Portfolio Demo Day. It’s kinda like American Idol or like a startup showcase in that. You get 10 minutes to present one project from your portfolio and then receive feedback from other people in career strategy lab.

Sometimes myself , and the coaches, but we often can’t even get a word in. And to Faith’s point, like it’s valuable because you have been looking at that case study for so long. You might be sick of it, you just don’t see how great it is. But when you present it to people. Who are hearing about it for the first time, you’re able to get such amazing feedback that helps you tighten it up even more.

And it’s not just about the feedback. Faith, I think you said this, but it’s also the confidence that you get from [00:14:00] hearing what people hearing about the project for the first time, you know, are taking away in terms of the clarity of this story and things like that.

Faith: Yeah, absolutely. I literally heard your voice saying you’re hired because you covered the business. Tactics and the strategy, like all the things that you had said and I was like, I know it’s good enough. Like if you said that, then it’s good enough to present and like present it to other people. And to be confident in my work, uh, imposter syndrome is real.

And so it’s easy to start talking about something and be like, I don’t know if I’m really a great fit, but here’s this anyways. That level of confidence changes everything.

Sarah Doody: So much I couldn’t agree more.

Sarah Q4

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Sarah Doody: All right here.

So, I, I’m curious, thinking about like, now that you’re out of career Strategy Lab, thinking back, is there anything that stands out to you in terms of how. It impacted you as a professional or a human that we have not covered yet.

Faith A4

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Faith: It definitely, uh, improved my confidence, [00:15:00] uh, through that weekly mindset call as well as with demo day. So the weekly mindset calls were a really great way to share what was on your mind with anything that was related to your career. So it was so good hearing other people say they struggle with imposter syndrome and, uh, they how to focus.

Those are just a lot of common topics that I heard. It was really great to hear people, how they were going through exactly what I was going through, and it helped to ease my own anxiety with what was going on. Then with Demo Day, it was great to see what everyone was working on, how they approached their work, how they interpreted the materials for themselves, how they presented.

So I got some really great ideas for my own portfolio and some of the discussions for the presenter’s work also helped me with my own. And it definitely helped me, of course, make some really good career decisions, which is like, , just the rest of your life, you know? That’s all. It was this living document that I probably changed it weekly just based on how I felt in that moment.

I kept the [00:16:00] greenlit one separate, so I’m like, okay, this is probably where I’m really staying at this, but this week I feel like this, uh, and it would change it completely. But it definitely helped me keep focus on what I wanted in my career. It also helped me realize that I wanted to be picky, so I needed to take steps that allowed me to be picky.

I did not wanna end up, uh, at, you know, some boring. Type of job that was not in any type of way, something that I wanted. So I knew in order to hit those goals, I needed to look into alternative means of, you know, finance, uh, compensation to allow that to happen. so I held off on that as long as I could.

I’m a piano teacher, so I have taken on

like a ton students and, you know, I do lots of other things as well. I did start some charity work as well. I now work for a nonprofit. I volunteer my time, but I volunteer my ui UX services and graphic design services. So that’s actually increased my network, my local network, in-person network pretty drastically in the last few [00:17:00] weeks.

so I think just CSL really helped me, you know, take that step back and look at other opportunities. In the meantime, while I focus on where I really wanna end up.

Sarah Doody: Thank you for sharing.

Sarah Q5

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Sarah Doody: So, all right, my last question, is, if anyone listening to this is thinking about joining Career Strategy Lab and they’re on the fence what would you tell them?

Faith A5

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Faith: So for me there was no big hesitation because I was familiar with who you were. I have gotten your newsletters since, you know, forever long ago. So it was a name I could definitely trust to give me valuable information. It wasn’t just some random person on social saying, Hey, I know UIUX, trust me.

Your name was out there, so even just researching you, I, knew, okay, this is gonna be valuable, this is gonna be good information. The problem for me was financing because I didn’t have a job. So I knew though that it would be worth it because I did a bootcamp. Granted, CSL is not a bootcamp, but I did a bootcamp and I [00:18:00] knew.

What I had to put into it, I, I put in time and effort and I had to be extremely disciplined in order to get through that year long bootcamp, and I knew I could apply that same discipline to

CSL. So for me, it was a no brainer because I’m like, okay, you know what you’re talking about? Like, you’re not gonna steer us wrong.

And plus the idea of having a network. So your name on top of this network. I absolutely joined CSL because of networking. I wanted to use the materials for my career strategy. However, my personal goal was to meet one or two CSLs a week. Just throughout my time there, when I started, uh, my network was weak at best.

By the time I finished CSL, I literally now have dozens of people I could call on for advice or feedback and in my head. All of us will eventually have jobs, right? And so we’re each other’s insurance plan. If something goes south again in the future, it’s terrible to treat people like that. But that’s kind of how I think about it as well.

I have really enjoyed [00:19:00] talking to these people like every single day now for years. Uh, I, I just wanna look forward to talking to them for years and I, I just really enjoyed getting to know them on a more. Personal level. And so to me it was just a matter those things being wrapped up at the perfect time and running across this information.

I knew it was something that I would absolutely have to do and make the room for, and I did, and I’m so happy that I did.

Sarah Doody: Thank you for that. And thank you too because it reminded me of something so important, which is the network, the community of career strategy lab, and you know, when I,, saw. I started this so many years ago. I was just so focused on like, I have to make the best training, the best tutorials, the best templates, like gotta help people get hired.

I wasn’t thinking years down the road and then having hundreds of alumni and the impact of that, but. I noticed like, because we now have 750 alumni, alumni are hiring each other now. We’ve had four people get hired at Liberty Mutual, multiple get hired [00:20:00] at other companies. And some alumni who are doing freelance work are hiring other alumni to work for them at their UX consulting, uh, projects.

So it’s, it’s really mind blowing and I love. How you said like the network is an insurance plan. I wrote that down because I think it’s, it’s so true and just this obvious, but not on my initial plan for career strategy lab.

Faith: Yeah, for sure. That’s, that’s definitely the highlight as well. Yeah, I enjoy that meeting people is. Great. One thing that I have, which I can’t even believe that when you asked me to speak that I actually agreed one thing is with demo day and just talking to people and talking with my network it gave me a lot of the practice that I wanted to speak about my skills.

Previously, even at my last job back in March, I was that silent person who just produced and everyone told me, you need to speak up. You need to speak up. And I didn’t. I have absolutely learned through, [00:21:00] specifically through A CSL and talking and networking to talk about my skillset and talk about my strengths, and talk about my case studies and my work.

Sarah Doody: And I see you speaking up on LinkedIn with your regular posts over there, so good job on that.

Chat Q1

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Sarah Doody: Thank you. Yeah. I see we have a few questions in the chat, so let’s, I said we’ll answer two. We will answer two and it looks like Faith has answered them, but um, had said. Would Faith be able to explain how she afforded the program while she wasn’t working? Did she use savings or what? but I’ll just read it. You said I picked up an additional piano students and picked up some graphic design work as well. Not gonna lie. Donating. Plasma is pretty lucrative as well. I’ve also done day labor, so yeah, like you had other skills you could leverage to make it possible.

It sounds like.

Faith: Yes, for sure. And I reached out to my network as well to my neighborhood on our Facebook page for the neighborhood. I asked if there [00:22:00] was anything that I could do, like I’m not ashamed to reach out and do all the things. I have done lots of. Things. And I grew up with nothing.

I’m one of nine kids, and my parents had nothing growing up. And I had nothing growing up. So I’m not ashamed to like, do hard work when I need to do it. Especially if I know I’m gonna have a reward at the end of it. I’m working hard enough to get a good job. I’m aware that the situation I’m in now is not permanent.

So all these little things that I do, day labor, especially like cleaning wood or something like that, it’s, it’s just a means to an end is all it is, and it, the money that I save is worth it because I put it, I’m very, uh, I, I’m very direct and intentional with how I, how I save and how I spend.

Sarah Doody: Well, and you know that like you made it five rounds in, in an interview, you know, like you could have said yes to that job, but you. Knew it was not going to be a fit for you. And so I think, you know, you’re gonna get hired. You’re just waiting [00:23:00] for the right match, essentially. O

Chat Q2

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Sarah Doody: kay. Michael’s question of Michael is on the fence because though I hear great things about career strategy lab, I’m worried that not having tons of experience after bootcamps will hinder me.

Faith, you did a bootcamp. You had got hired after the bootcamp, right?.

Faith: Yes, I did. That was 2021 and it was very different market than it is now. I do think that talking to people and letting everyone know what you’re looking for. It’s very valuable. I did not do that at first, and then once I announced it to my CrossFit community, so in person, like, Hey guys, I need a job and this is what I’m looking for.

Like the floodgates opened up. It was like everyone’s now looking out for me and I get messages all the time. Oh, this person’s either hiring or they need a graphic designer. Can you do some short contract work? I’m amazed at. People who have reached out. But as for the experience, I did have graphic design [00:24:00] experience and they hired me on as visual design to help with their design system at O’Reilly, and ended up branching into other things. But there are a lot of people in CSL who come straight out of a bootcamp as well. I know that I’ve met quite a few of them.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. And I think this notion of like, I don’t have enough experience because I just came from a bootcamp. I don’t have the right experience. And other kind of fears around that level of experience you have. What we find is that. The problem is not with the experience you have, it’s how you are communicating that experience.

And what we find is a lot of people are selling themselves short in their resume, in their portfolio, et cetera. And so you assign blame to the fact that, well, I’m not gonna get hired ’cause I don’t have any experience ’cause I’m from the bootcamp. That’s not true. It’s how you frame the experience you do [00:25:00] have and.

How you create a portfolio to get hired is frankly different than how they teach you. If they teach you to make a portfolio in a bootcamp, and I know this because I’ve been doing this since 2017, and I’ve seen a lot of the portfolios that come outta bootcamps and they don’t. Have that user, the recruiter hiring manager in mind.

So, it’s really a positioning problem, not with your experience.

Conclusion

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Sarah Doody: All right. With that said, thank you Faith, thank you so much.

I know hearing from people who, you know, have been in the shoes of someone in their job search, someone. Laid off, et cetera is so valuable. So thank you for being vulnerable and sharing about your experience so, so honestly and being so encouraging too. I think it’s just really valuable

Alright, bye everyone. Thanks. Bye bye.

Outro: [00:26:00] 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 at careerstrategylab.com/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 at careerstrategylab.com/hired And please feel free to send me a DM on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you.

Post Roll: Hey there. Before I go, I wanna speak to you specifically if you’ve applied to 50, 100, 200 or more jobs and you haven’t secured an offer or interviews yet. First of all, I want you to know it’s not your fault. It is challenging out there and learning how [00:27:00] 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 careerstrategylab.com/apply to learn more or have a call with someone on my team or myself so we can answer all of your questions. Hope to talk to you soon.