Why Sarah Doody’s UX portfolio framework still helps people get hired after 20 years

[00:00:00] we need to get back to the timeless design principles. Timeless writing principles, timeless product design principles, timeless research and UX principles. Timeless over trends is going to win every single time.

Intro: Hey, I’m Sarah Doty, 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, your in the right place.

if you’re stuck in a UX [00:01:00] job, you’ve outgrown and you feel like your portfolio is a never ending project. Especially if you’re applying to jobs and not getting interviews or maybe getting interviews and not getting offers. I have totally been there. I know what it’s like. I know what being on that portfolio redesign hamster wheel feels like, and I also know what worked for me to turn the interviews into offers.

So I’m gonna tell you a little bit more about my journey to transforming my portfolio. Alright. So today is gonna be a little bit of a journey back in time. I thought it would be interesting to share more about my own career. A lot of people ask me, how did I get started in user experience? How did I ever end up in New York City? Can I see your portfolio? How did you get. Job offers at Google, et cetera.

And so we’re not gonna be able to cover all of that today. . Back in 2006, I had [00:02:00] been in a job for a couple of years already.

I was doing kind of marketing and website design for a software company, and I was really fortunate. It was a large company, it had a great salary, great benefits, all of this stuff that a lot of people on the outside would think, wow, that’s really awesome. But to me, I was not happy. I thought to myself, I cannot continue doing web design and marketing for this software company.

And the reason that I was so adamant and focused on getting out of that job was because I had discovered the world of user experience and really information architecture at the time. That’s kind of what I was focusing on way back in 2006. And maybe similar to you, I knew I wanted to get a full-time job in UX and information architecture, but I was not doing that in my full-time job.[00:03:00]

So what I did was I sought out freelance projects. I was lucky enough to have some friends in Silicon Valley and I did some work for them and their startup. And word started spreading. They told their friends. Also, I created a website back in 2006. I knew that if I had a website, it would be a great time for people to find me.

Now I wanna just pause there for a moment and say it was 2006. UX was not this wildly popular industry back then. So when people typed in. UX designer in Portland, Oregon, or even just UX designer, it was not that difficult to show up in Google search results. So that’s how I solve that problem of how do I get experience in user experience if I don’t work in user experience?

Right? So. I relied on freelance work from my friends, [00:04:00] and they came to me through my website, and this allowed me to have real life projects that I could put in my portfolio. So let’s talk about the portfolio because let me tell you, it was bad. It was not leading to job offers for sure. It was really only getting me interviews and.

There were kind of two parts to my portfolio strategy back then, and this is not necessarily what I recommend today, but I’m gonna tell you what I did in 2006. So I had this strategy, like I said, of having a website to attract people to me because I knew through search UX wasn’t a saturated search term like it is today.

And that is what I used when I was applying to jobs. I had this website and then when I started to get interviews, I [00:05:00] realized, oh, well I’m gonna go to an interview. They’re going to ask to see my work. I can’t just pull up my website in a browser. That’s kind of like a weird experience. So I made a portfolio book and I actually have it with me.

So this literally, it’s gigantic. It covers my face. This was my portfolio. Big metal binder, and check it out. First like. Some stuff for my aunt’s architect website.

And then let’s see,

screenshots and logos and business cards, and it goes on and on. Boxes and arrows, redesign boxes and arrows. Great UX publication. They ran a Redesign competition. And what else? Do we have? More website stuff? Whatever. We’ll toss that because that is what you should not do in your UX portfolio.

[00:06:00] It was a bunch of screenshots, right? And so my website, it was not just screenshots, my website, had little case studies, told a story, et cetera. But then when I got to those interviews, I just had those screenshots, and I think in hindsight I was really struggling to talk through those screenshots in my portfolio presentation, the physical binder of printouts.

And at the time though, that’s what people did. We printed everything out. Do not do that today. The strategy you should have today is to focus on a presentation first, because it’s a better use of your time. Sure, you could spend time and energy and money making a website, but I have seen so many people get hired with just a portfolio presentation, essentially a [00:07:00] presentation deck of case studies, showcasing.

Their work, what they did, why they did it, their thinking, et cetera, but not just a bunch of screenshots. So that’s my little caveat there because I don’t want you to hear this episode and think to yourself, oh well, I’ll just have a website like Sarah and make a presentation like Sarah. I think there’s value in having a website when you have time to make it.

However, I think the UX market is so saturated. The likelihood of someone finding you for a full-time job because of your website is likely pretty low because there’s just so many websites about UX and portfolios and consultants and everything. It’s hard to get to the top of Google search results.

For UX design, product design, et cetera. So that’s the one little caveat I want to make. But let’s go back to the 2006. [00:08:00] So I had this website, I had this presentation binder essentially, and it was getting me interviews, but it wasn’t getting me offers. And we know it wasn’t getting me offers because I wasn’t doing a good job at communicating.

My skills experience, what I did when it got to the interview, and in hindsight, I’m guessing my website probably skimmed to the surface also of what I did. I haven’t gone back to try and find it. It just probably is not a good use of my time, but. That is my hunch. So what did I do though? Well, after being totally frustrated and annoyed that I was getting the interviews and not getting job offers, I honestly just took a break.

I was burnt out, I was frustrated, and I probably took six months off of my job search and I just did my job, you know, didn’t think [00:09:00] about it. And then. I was kind of like reignited with this passion to get out of this marketing job, I would’ve probably created one too many banner ads, like those annoying banner ads that you see on the internet.

Except back in 2007, they were a lot, well, 2006, they were a lot more obnoxious and I literally created banner ads and so I’m guessing, I probably thought to myself, I’m done. I’m not making any more banner ads. So I jumped back into my portfolio and looking at it with fresh eyes. I really thought to myself, this is a product.

Why the heck am I not treating it like a real UX project? And so I literally went through the process of redoing my portfolio through the lens of how do I actually UX this thing right? So thinking about the users, the reader, the recruiter, the hiring manager, the people [00:10:00] in the interviews, thinking about what they want to hear and see.

And when I started to do that, I quickly realized my portfolio was not meeting their needs, et cetera. So I redid it with a lot of storytelling focus. I wrote out my case studies before I designed those presentation slides. Guess what? It got me interviews and it got me offers, and within about two or three months of redesigning that portfolio, I was hired by a startup in New York City and moved there, and my life was totally changed.

I ended up living in New York City for 13 years, working at startups, working at UX consultancies, then opening up my own consultancy and just having the awesome experience of living in New York for 13 years. Something I never would’ve dreamed about as someone who grew up in a tiny little town in Canada.

And so the story doesn’t stop there though. [00:11:00] That same portfolio that I created in 2006, that also helped me get a new job in 2010. And that same portfolio structure really, I added additional projects to it, but that same portfolio structure. Got me UX consulting clients got me kind of like a semi-permanent job as a consultant at this UX consultancy.

And so that portfolio also led me to making it all the way through the Google interview process and them offering me two jobs and I turned them down. That’s probably an episode for another day, but the short version is I turned Google down. Because I knew I wanted to work for myself and do my own thing, and I thought if I take this job at Google, it will probably become this all consuming thing that will result in me either not having the [00:12:00] time or energy to do my own thing, or I will kind of get too comfortable and that drive to create my own company.

Would probably fizzle out. So maybe we can talk about that more in in another episode. But that same portfolio got me those Google interviews. I think that was around 2013. And then guess what? When people started to ask me how to make a portfolio, I thought to myself, well, I’ll just teach them what I did.

And in 2017, I ran a little UX portfolio workshop and lo and behold, people started to get hired. That was really my aha moment when I realized, wait a second, no one else is talking about UX portfolios. And it was 2017. Okay. So it’s not like it’s the hot topic like it is today, but in 2017, no one was doing it.

And so I [00:13:00] thought, wait a second. No one’s talking about this. I’m gonna talk about it. And that was really the genesis of how I kind of pivoted my own career. Into helping other people, UX their careers, ux, their portfolios, ux, their resume, their job search, et cetera. And that same portfolio structure that worked in 2006 continues to work today, which is almost 20 years ago.

And I did the math a few days ago and I thought to myself, wow, that was 20 years ago. The really important takeaway is that the portfolio structure that I created in 2006 and and still works today, almost 20 years later, it works because it’s timeless, because it relies on proven design strategies, UX strategies, product strategies, [00:14:00] writing strategies that are timeless.

That are not trendy, which is why I’m not out there teaching you guys how to use AI to transform your portfolio, how to have some new hot AI tool, you know, make your portfolio slides for you, et cetera. Because I’ve been doing this long enough to know that creating your portfolio relies on what is between your two ears, your brain, your knowledge.

All of the information and context that you have about what you’ve done, and I also know that a lot of the portfolios you see on portfolio template websites or on these AI tools that say they’re gonna design your portfolio for you.

When I look at their homepages and I look at their templates and things, those portfolios are making a lot of mistakes that I know [00:15:00] result in a portfolio that probably, let’s say 99% chance will not work. So that is a little bit about my story of really how I, first of all, got out of my boring marketing and web design job.

Making banner ads and weird marketing websites that it was just not exciting to me because I knew this world of user experience existed. And after being on the portfolio hamster wheel, like so many of you, I finally got off of it because I, I ux my actual portfolio. And it wasn’t tips and tricks, it wasn’t trends, it was just timeless, proven.

Tactics and strategies related to design, storytelling, even marketing and UX that worked in 2006 and that still work today. [00:16:00] And if you’re gonna take anything away from this episode, I really want you to take away a few things. Number one, I want you to treat your portfolio like a product, right? And every product needs a strategy.

Every product needs design, every product needs UX writing. Every product needs research. Every product also needs marketing, and it needs sales, right? And chances are you have just jumped to the design of your portfolio and you haven’t been thinking about the content. About the marketing, about the user, about what it’s doing to sell your skills, right?

So that’s gonna take away, number one, you have to treat your portfolio as a product, and in doing so, you have to consider your users, their needs, et cetera, and how your design decisions [00:17:00] are going to be impacted by them, the users, right? Another. Takeaway I want you to have here is the importance of stepping away.

Like I said, I probably took six months off of working on my portfolio now. Yes, I realize that’s a luxury ’cause I was also employed full-time. I totally understand if you’re listening to this and you think I don’t have six months. Fine take just two days off, right? Sometimes you get so involved in something that you can’t see the mistakes you’re making.

It’s like when you’ve been staring at an email over and over and over and then you hit send and then there’s a spelling mistake. It’s because you were too close to it. You didn’t take time to step away and look at it with fresh eyes.

Alright. The third takeaway I want you to have is to not fall into the trap of chasing trends. I get it. Your LinkedIn feed is inundated [00:18:00] with portfolio tips and steal my case study strategy and use this AI tool to do your portfolio in eight minutes or something crazy.

Chances are you might have a portfolio, but is it really gonna lead you to interviews? I beg to differ and the reason that I am not a fan of trends and tools that promise that your portfolio will get you hired with a six figure salary at Google in seven days is that I’ve been doing this for so long and I’ve seen so many portfolios that do not work, and I know what does work, right, and I know that trends.

Often just a trap. And so we need to get back to the timeless design principles. Timeless writing principles, timeless product design principles, timeless research and UX principles. Timeless over trends is going to win every single time. And like I said. I know the [00:19:00] timeless things that work because I’ve seen for almost 20 years, this same structure that I started out creating in 2006 still works today.

I’ve had people from my UX job search accelerator, career strategy lab use this portfolio framework. Get hired at companies like Apple and Blue Origin and Reformation, America’s Test Kitchen, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, IBM, home Depot.

So many more as recently as two weeks ago, and that is why I know this works and it works because hiring managers in 2006, in 2016 and today, they still want the same things. They want clarity, they want context about what you did. They want to hear and see your process and your thinking, and they wanna know why.

They should care about what you did and how [00:20:00] your skills can benefit them, their team and their company. I wanna leave you with five mistakes that a lot of people make. We’re gonna go through these really quickly. So number one, a lot of people in their portfolio are just saying what they did.

They’re not showing how they did it, they’re not showing their work. Maybe in elementary school, you remember being in math class and your teacher would say, show your work, show your work. Same thing. When you are applying for jobs, recruiters and hiring managers want you to show your work. Number two, you’re putting way too much focus on the design of your portfolio and not enough focus on the process or the results.

So many times I see people say, how can I add more personality to my portfolio? Your portfolio is not a time to show off your personality. Your portfolio is a time to prove to people that you have the skills and experience that they are looking [00:21:00] for in the job description period. Number three, you are forgetting that your portfolio is not just a tool for when you apply for the job.

It’s also something you can use in interviews. And I say this. A lot of you think you need two versions of your portfolio, one that you use when you apply to a job, and another that you use for interviews. In a perfect world, sure you could do that, but again, it comes down to time. I want you to think of me like the product manager of your job search, and I’m gonna be pretty ruthless and say we have to think the ROI of your time, right?

You could spend time. Creating multiple versions of your portfolio for when you apply and when you interview. But I will tell you people that have worked with me and got hired, they have one version. One version can servee both of those use [00:22:00] cases. And the beauty of this, that it also saves you a ton of time, time that you can use to be doing other things in your job search, like building relationships.

Optimizing your LinkedIn, sending warm emails or even cold emails. Cold emails that people actually reply to. Following up with recruiters and hiring managers and so much more. So number four, you need a portfolio presentation. Let’s not focus on the website. I know you’re going to say to me into the dms and comments.

Yeah, but when I apply to a job, it says link to a portfolio. That is not literally, meaning your portfolio must be a website. That means that whoever made that form on that application page or that website, used the words link to portfolio. And guess what? It was probably a developer who just wrote those words, didn’t consult with [00:23:00] anyone, and.

That’s what we got, right? So don’t take the job application. So literally, and think that because it says link to portfolio, you need a website. ’cause guess what? A presentation can be a link. Just put it in the cloud and get the Google Drive share link and put it there. That is totally acceptable.

Recruiters and hiring managers don’t care about the format of your portfolio. They care about the content of it. And you will be able to make a presentation far, far more quickly than if you start to go down the black hole of making a website. I promise you so many people have messaged me and said, thank you for giving me permission to essentially ditch the website and make a presentation, because I’ve been working on my website for two months, four months, six months, 12 months, or longer.

All right. Mistake number five. [00:24:00] Is that you are believing the lie that you have to have three to five projects in your portfolio. That is false. I have seen plenty of people get hired with one and two projects in their portfolio. ’cause someone could have five projects in their portfolio, but if they don’t tell a story and it’s just a bunch of deliverables, guess what?

They’re probably gonna get passed over. But then if a recruiter or hiring manager looks at your portfolio and it has one project, but you have done a great job at communicating not just what you did, but why you did it, how it happened, your thinking, et cetera, that is going to stand out. Over the person who had five projects with just a bunch of deliverables.

So those are the five mistakes you may be making. Alright, that’s all for today. I wanna invite you, if you have been listening to this episode, [00:25:00] nodding to yourself and thinking, wow, Sarah’s story sounds very similar to my story in that I’ve been applying to jobs. Getting interviews, but not getting offers, or maybe you’re applying to jobs and you’re not even getting interviews.

If you can relate to that and you want to get out of that cycle, then I would love to help you. There’s many ways that I can help you, and where I spend most of my time these days is helping people inside my UX job search accelerator.

Career strategy lab. An inside career strategy lab is where I teach this exact framework that I use for my portfolio way back in the day, and that people who’ve worked with me have applied to their portfolio and then gone on to get hired. And it doesn’t just stop at your portfolio. In the same way that I uxd my portfolio, I have also uxd creating a resume, optimizing your [00:26:00] LinkedIn, preparing for interviews, cold, emailing people, negotiating offers, and honestly, everything that has to do with getting hired in UX or being ready for an unexpected opportunity that might come your way or.

An unfortunate layoff. So if you’re curious about that, I invite you to learn more about Career Strategy Labs, ux job search accelerator, where you can get my support. With your portfolio and everything else, you can just go to career strategy and you will find all the details there. That’s all for today. I would love your feedback if you liked this glimpse into my career story. Can you do me a favor and just send me an email or send me a message on LinkedIn and just say you listen to this episode and you want more of these styles of episodes.

I have a lot more stories from my career that’s over 20 [00:27:00] years and going, so tell me what topics you wanna hear about if you’re curious. To hear more stories from my career. All right. Have a great rest of your day. I will talk to you soon.

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.

Join CSL: Hey there. Before I go, I wanna speak to you specifically if you’ve applied to 50, 100, 200 or more jobs and you [00:28:00] 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 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 [00:29:00] answer all of your questions. Hope to talk to you soon.