Why In-Demand UX Professionals Treat Full-Time Roles Like Freelance Gigs

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: What is in demand right now? What are companies looking for right now? And then really actually reading those job descriptions to understand the details of what they’re looking for. So then ask yourself, could I apply to this job right now if I needed to? If not, what needs to change? 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. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it.

Sarah Doody [00:00:56]: Welcome to another episode of the career strategy podcast, and I’m just gonna dive right in today. We are going to talk about what in demand UX and product people do. What makes them always in demand? How are they always ready for unexpected opportunities or unfortunate circumstances where maybe they’re forced into looking for an opportunity? So, if you can relate to any of these situations or have someone in your life who is currently in one of these situations, you might wanna send this episode to them. So, here’s the idea. When you treat your full time job as though you were actually a freelancer or a contractor in that role, that is the mindset of how you can be in demand and ready for opportunities all of the time. So, if you only take one thing away from this episode, I want you to think about what if you approached your career and your current role and everything you do and every relationship you have with the mindset of someone who is a freelancer or a consultant, because there are a lot of things we can learn from people who are not in full time jobs and thus are likely always looking for new opportunities, relationships, etcetera. So in today’s episode, we’re gonna explore how this approach can benefit you even if you are employed full time, and the strategies that make successful freelancers always in demand, and how this mindset will help you succeed in your career. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:02:56]: So what is the big problem here? It really boils down to so many professionals become too comfortable in their full time job. So I wanna talk about this mindset of traditional full time jobs, and many people settle, and I totally get how this happens. They settle into a routine, right, and they stop doing things like documenting their achievements. They stop developing new relationships, nurturing old relationships, and it’s easy to also lose track of their skills and their market value. And I get it. If you’re in a full time job, you’re busy doing your full time job. Right? And there’s nothing wrong with being in a full time job and doing a great job in that full time role, but there is a risk. Right? Instead, if you’re not actively keeping yourself, you know, market ready, let’s say, then you will be left scrambling if unexpected things happen, whether it’s a layoff or restructuring, you need to move to a new city for some reason, and you can’t keep the job you have, whatever it is.

Sarah Doody [00:04:13]: In today’s job market, things can change really, really fast, and that’s not just for today’s job market. It’s really just any job. Right? A layoff can happen anytime. A restructuring can happen anytime. It’s not specific to today’s job market. It’s just the reality of the world we live in. Treating your full time role with this freelancer or consultant mindset is really like having an insurance policy for your career. You’re always ready to act, and you’re always prepared for what might come next.

Sarah Doody [00:04:50]: So, let’s dive into the solution then, right? How do you embrace this freelancer consultant mindset? Alright. So let’s break down what these people do. When freelancers land a project, they are constantly thinking about what’s next. And I know this because I freelanced for over a decade, and I was friends with people who ran agencies and consultancies, and they were in the same position. Just because you have a client today, it doesn’t mean you stop thinking about who your next client might be. You have to juggle this situation of delivering for your current client and being on the lookout for the next opportunity. And that’s what freelancers and agency owners and consultants, or at least the successful ones, that’s what they do really well. They’re constantly thinking about what’s next.

Sarah Doody [00:05:48]: They’re always building relationships. They’re always doing things to stay visible, and they’re always looking for new clients. They don’t just wait until they receive the invoice from the current project and then start looking for the next opportunity because that’s how you end up bankrupt. They’re always trying to line up the next opportunity while they’re working on the current one. So, imagine if you had this same mentality in your current role. What would you be doing differently? Would you be prioritizing more relationships? Things that you could be doing to stay visible? Would you be spending, you know, once a quarter just doing a quick job search and seeing what opportunities are out there? What is in demand right now? What are companies looking for right now? And then really actually reading those job descriptions to understand the details of what they’re looking for. So then ask yourself, could I apply to this job right now if I needed to? If not, what needs to change? Is it developing a new skill? Is it updating your resume or LinkedIn or portfolio or all of the above with projects you’ve worked on recently that you haven’t updated and added to your portfolio, resume, LinkedIn, etcetera. Right? So think about what you would do if you have this freelancer and consultant mindset in your career today.

Sarah Doody [00:07:19]: Because if you do this, you’ll always be prepared and really aware of how your skills and experience align with what the market is looking for. I wanna next talk about some really effective freelance habits that you can adopt in your full time role. And I wanna also just address maybe something that is going through your head right now, which is, okay, Sarah, I’ve got a full time job right now, and I have a life. I have a family. I have kids. I have hobbies. I have this, that, the other. How am I also supposed to do all of these things? Well, it’s called time management, and you could spend 10 hours, for example, perusing job boards and looking at jobs for companies, you know, who are hiring right now, etcetera, like I just described a few sentences ago, or you could timebox that and say, I’m gonna give myself 30 minutes or 60 minutes to do this.

Sarah Doody [00:08:24]: Because though I totally understand the scenario of we all have lives, we all have responsibilities, how are we supposed to do all these other things in addition to our job, it’s a yes and thing. Like, yes, those things are true, and we have to figure out how to work within the constraints that exist. And one of the things you can do is time boxing. So ending my rant on that, but let’s dive into some of these habits that you could adopt in your full time role. Alright. Number 1, document your wins and projects consistently. This is key because what you don’t wanna happen is you see an opportunity you want to apply to or you are forced into a job search 3 months from now, and you have to spend an entire week writing down what you did since the last time you updated your resume, LinkedIn, portfolio, etcetera. Right? Freelancers know they need to be selling their value all of the time.

Sarah Doody [00:09:30]: And to help them do that, they’re documenting the value they add to the projects and clients who hire them. Right? They track their wins, they document their results, and they record their impact. So, the big question here is do you do this for you? If not, you need to start doing that. So, you need to start keeping a document, figure out a system that works for you, whether you just have a running Google Doc or you create some Notion thing or whatever you want to do. The point is that you need to be documenting your wins and projects consistently so that you at least have this rough document to go back to. So when it comes time to update your resume, you’re not trying to remember back 6 months, 12 months, or longer to remember what you did because we all know you will forget a lot of the details about something you worked on 12 months ago. Right? This documentation is going to help you stand out because it’s going to help you write more specific case studies and resume bullet points with more details and hopefully be able to quantify not just the outcome and impact, because we all know you can’t always quantify the outcome and impact. What you can quantify is what you did, and we have a whole other podcast episode about that.

Sarah Doody [00:11:01]: We’ll link it in the show notes, but you need to document your wins because if you don’t, it’s gonna be hard to quantify what you did. Right? Okay. So number 2 is nurturing relationships inside and outside of your company. Let’s go back to freelancers. They rely on their network. Right? It is how they find work, get referrals, and stay visible, benefit from word-of-mouth, etcetera. They’re constantly building and maintaining relationships with clients and former colleagues, other people in the industry, etc. So for you this means being really proactive about connecting with people maybe from other departments as time allows, going to industry events whether that’s online, offline, etcetera, keeping in touch with former colleagues, being active on LinkedIn.

Sarah Doody [00:11:55]: And that doesn’t mean posting influencer style posts, etcetera. It just means showing up consistently and thoughtfully. So if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you know that I frown upon just going on LinkedIn and writing kinda one word comments on posts like cool, neat, awesome, good tip, etcetera, because that’s not memorable. Right? You’re going to be more visible when you take time to write a thoughtful comment. It doesn’t have to be paragraphs long. You can write a thoughtful comment in one sentence, but just cool, neat, blah blah blah, not gonna stand out. Alright. So nurturing relationships inside, outside your company and on social media or in the communities that make sense for your role.

Sarah Doody [00:12:47]: Maybe there are Slack communities, Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Discord groups, etcetera. You know what makes sense for your industry. Alright. Number 3. Keep up with market trends and industry trends. Should go without saying, but let’s turn to our freelancer example. Right? Freelancers stay in tune with the needs of their target clients. They’re up on industry trends because they have to do this to stay relevant and in demand.

Sarah Doody [00:13:15]: Right? And so, for you, I would ask you, are you actively learning about your industry? Are you investing in your professional development? And I’m not saying that trends and the trendy stuff. I’m saying, do you know what skills and experience are in demand for jobs that align with the jobs you want to apply to? And there’s a big difference there. Right? Because you might be thinking, oh oh my gosh. I don’t know enough about AI. Well, if you go and study a bunch of job descriptions, not all the job descriptions scream that you need to be an AI expert, contrary to what you might think based on just LinkedIn and Instagram posts. Right? So for you, I would say you need to spend more time going back to those job descriptions as we said before, studying those job descriptions to understand what the market is looking for and then looking for gaps. If you do not have things that the job descriptions listed, might be an opportunity to focus your professional development on those things. Number 4, we wanna treat every project like a portfolio piece.

Sarah Doody [00:14:30]: Now what do I mean by that? So freelancers are constantly thinking about how each project could reflect their skills and experience, and they’re documenting that. So if they draw something on a whiteboard, or do a sketch, or have, like, a version of a, you know, interface that they think might be awesome for their portfolio, they’re gonna save a copy of that. When I did a lot of freelance and consulting, I was constantly documenting my work with the idea that this is going to potentially get used in my portfolio or elsewhere. Right? So, something to think about for you is, are you putting systems and processes in place to help you be documenting projects as you go. And back to point number 1, there was part of it involves writing stuff down. Another part of it is documenting the visuals, and that’s kind of what we’re talking about here. So, I would ask yourself, do you need to set up a system to do this? It could be as simple as a Dropbox folder, Google Drive folder. You wanna make some fancy Notion thing, go for it.

Sarah Doody [00:15:47]: It doesn’t matter, but the point is you just need to start doing this. Number 5, and this is our last one, always be open to the next opportunity. So freelancers never assume their current project is their last. Right? They’re always open to new clients, new work, and they never stop exploring opportunities. Also, they’re open to industries that they have not worked in before, and this is a big one because many of you who might be listening to this might be thinking, I don’t know anything about finance. I can never work in finance. I don’t know anything about health care or education or transportation or government or something. Therefore, I can’t work in those industries.

Sarah Doody [00:16:29]: And though it can be beneficial to have experience in industries where you’re looking to get hired, it’s not always a prerequisite. So for you, I would be very mindful of being open to opportunities that might not be in industries you’ve worked in before because you might just find there may be less competition in industries that are not, like, quote, tech industries per se, the Meng companies or formerly FAANG companies, etcetera. And so I really want you to have a mindset that you’re awesome at your job, you have great skills and experience that is transferable to many different industries. When I did freelancing and agency work, I was put on projects that I knew nothing about, like investing years years ago. I remember when I’d never worked on an e commerce project before, and I was put on that. So, be open to industries that you’ve not worked in before and have that open mindset rather than a closed off mindset and a limiting mindset where you’re assigning yourself this label that I’ve never worked in x industry, therefore, I can never get hired in x industry. Right? Okay. So, I wanna go back to that concern that might be going through your head of how is this going to be all possible? Isn’t it gonna distract me from my current role? So, a couple of things.

Sarah Doody [00:18:10]: When you treat your job with this proactive mindset, it doesn’t mean you’re going to have all these extra activities feel like a second full time job. You are gonna manage your time and do what you can within the time you have. So, if you only have 10 minutes to research, you know, the job market for whatever you do right now, then you only have 10 minutes, and that’s what you’re going to do. But 10 minutes is better than 0 minutes. Same thing is just, like, documenting projects you’re working on right now. You may not have time to write out, like, draft, kind of, paragraph format versions of what you worked on this week or this month. That’s fine. If you can only just dictate something into your phone and have, like, Otter transcribe it, that’s great.

Sarah Doody [00:18:58]: If you just write out kind of a bullet list, that’s fine too. So get in the habit of figuring out workarounds to be able to do these things rather than just not doing them because you think, oh, I don’t have the time. Right? Because that’s what the best freelancers do. Freelancers are juggling a lot of things. They’ve got to do the work. They’ve got to handle the finances, get the contract signed, find the next client, deal with the disgruntled client or the client that didn’t pay them, do the marketing, do this, do that, do everything. But they still manage to do it because they learn to work efficiently, and they learn to do and prioritize the most important things in the time they have to do it. That’s all for this episode.

Sarah Doody [00:19:45]: So here’s the bottom line. We have to treat our full time jobs like their freelancer or consultant roles so that you are never left scrambling if an awesome opportunity comes your way or you’re thrown into an unexpected job search. Right? Because when you treat your full time job like a freelance or consultant role, it means in the background, you are documenting your work, investing in relationships, building new relationships, doing simple things to stay visible, everything we had talked about in this episode. And even if you’re happy where you are right now, and you’re there for another 10 years, all of these things are still valuable because it can set you up for success for your performance review. And maybe you’ll end up getting promoted or get that salary increase, etcetera. So that is all for today. I hope you go out and implement some of these things. The whole point of this podcast is that I don’t just want you to listen to these episodes.

Sarah Doody [00:20:51]: I really, really want you to take action. So I’ll see you in the next episode and talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the career strategy podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Dutti, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.