Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research

Welcome to the Career Strategy Podcast, with Sarah Doody, a UX Researcher & Product Designer with 22 years of experience who is helping UX and Product people design their careers. You’ll learn how to advance your UX or Product career including how get hired in UX, stay hired, get promoted, and build a personal brand and visibility. You’ll also hear no BS tips to optimize your UX resume and portfolio, navigate your UX job search, and prepare for UX job interviews so you can stop being invisible and be seen as an in-demand UX professional. Get ready to UX your career, ironic, right?!

Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research is a arts podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 0 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research, a arts show with 0 episodes published.

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  Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research

  Time Sensitive: UX Job Search Workshop (available until Fri, Aug 21)

  Aug 18, 20261h 43m

  Time Sensitive: Listen before Fri, Aug 21at 6pm PT → In this live workshop, Sarah Doody shares UX job search tips informed by the research I've been conducting with UX recruiters and hiring managers from companies including Hubspot, Spotify, Workday, Narmi, Home Depot, and more. You'll learn: The 3 reasons qualified UX people are invisible How recruiters vet candidates from initial screener through who gets an offer What hiring managers from Shopify, HubSpot, Workday, Home Depot, and more actually look for in resumes, portfolios, and outreach You can watch this workshop here if you want to see the slides. And you'll also see how my UX job search coaching program works or if you wish you can learn more, watch success stories, or enroll here (and save $500 until this Friday, Aug 21 at 6pm PT). If you have questions about the UX job search accelerator program use the chat widget on the websites linked above to send us a message. See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube

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  Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research

  188: UX Portfolio Myth: Your UX portfolio does not need to be a website (Myth 2 / 5)

  Aug 17, 202619 min

  UX portfolio websites eat up months, sometimes years, of time that could be spent applying, and Sarah argues you don't need one at all. This is week two of a five part series on UX portfolio myths, and this episode takes on one of the most repeated pieces of advice in the industry, that your portfolio has to be a website. Sarah's counter is a portfolio presentation instead. It's free, doesn't require learning new software, takes weeks instead of months, and can be duplicated and tailored for each specific role in under an hour. She walks through a full comparison of time, cost, customization, and what she calls interview readiness, the idea that a presentation portfolio doubles as the exact thing you'll need to present in interviews anyway, so you're never scrambling to build something new once you land one. She backs this up with two hiring manager perspectives. Patrick Neeman, Director of UX and AI Experiences at Workday, told her he prefers presentations because that's the format his own team works in day to day. Steph McDonald, a lead recruiter at HubSpot focused on hiring UX designers, said presentations are completely fine as long as the craft level is polished. Sarah also shares Marcus's story, who got hired as a Lead Product Designer at NAVA after building his portfolio as a presentation instead of a website. If you've been stuck for months trying to wrangle a website builder instead of actually working on your portfolio content, this episode is a direct permission slip to stop, and a breakdown of exactly what to do instead. Topics Discussed ✅ Why a portfolio website can actually hurt your first impression with recruiters and hiring managers instead of helping it ✅ The alternative Sarah recommends instead of a website, and why it takes weeks instead of months to finish ✅ A full breakdown of time, cost, customization, and interview readiness for a website versus a presentation ✅ What Patrick Neeman, Director of UX and AI Experiences at Workday, said he actually prefers to see in a portfolio ✅ What Steph McDonald, a lead recruiter at HubSpot, said about presentation portfolios and craft level ✅ How Marcus got hired as a Lead Product Designer at NAVA using a portfolio presentation instead of a website ✅ Why "link to portfolio" on a job application doesn't actually mean your portfolio has to be a website ✅ The exact question to ask anyone who insists you need a portfolio website, and why most people can't answer it Links & Resources Episode 155 of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah's full interview with Patrick Neeman on portfolio presentations versus websites Episode 168 of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah's interview with Steph McDonald on what recruiters want to see in a portfolio Marcus's episode, sharing how he built his portfolio presentation and got hired at NAVA Last week's episode, Myth 1 of 5, on why you don't need three to five projects in your portfolio See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube

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  Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research

  187: UX Portfolio Myth: You don't need 3 - 5 projects in your UX portfolio (Myth 1 / 5)

  Aug 10, 202613 min

  UX portfolio advice is full of numbers that sound official but aren't backed by anything. This episode kicks off a five part series on UX portfolio myths, starting with the most common one: that you need three to five projects before you can apply. Sarah says the opposite is true. One strong, detailed project beats five surface level ones every time. She backs this up from an interview she did with Alexander Zeh, former Head of Product Design at ManyChat, who said he'd rather see one or two case studies that map directly to the job description than five that walk through every step of the design process without any real depth. The episode shares two specific examples. Laura got hired as a Principal Product Designer in cybersecurity with a single, unfinished feeling project still sitting in Figma slides, and was actually found and reached out to on LinkedIn before she even applied. Leon, laid off after 11 years at the same company and an author of a book on wire-framing, got hired after focusing on just one project instead of trying to rebuild an entire portfolio from scratch. If you've been stalling on applying because you don't have "enough" projects yet, this episode is a direct challenge to that belief, and a reason to ask where that number actually came from in the first place. Topics Discussed ✅ Why the three to five project rule is a myth with no real backing, and where it likely came from ✅ Why one detailed project beats five surface level ones, and what "confuse and lose" means for a UX portfolio ✅ What a former Head of Product Design at ManyChat said he actually wants to see in a portfolio ✅ How Laura got hired as a Principal Product Designer with one unfinished project, and was found on LinkedIn without ever applying ✅ How Leon got hired after being laid off from an 11 year role, focusing on just one project instead of rebuilding his whole portfolio ✅ Why working on your portfolio alone can make you more critical of it than recruiters and hiring managers actually are ✅ The question to ask yourself if you believe you need three to five projects, and where to trace that belief back to ✅ What Sarah says to look for in UX job descriptions instead of following a generic project count Links & Resources Episode 172 of the Career Strategy Podcast, the full interview with Alexander Zeh, former Head of Product Design at ManyChat Laura's episode, sharing in her own words how she got hired with one project in her portfolio Leon's book on wireframing for UX See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube

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  Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research

  186: Why Positioning Is The Most Underrated Skill in the AI Era of UX

  Aug 3, 202627 min

  Positioning is quietly becoming the skill that separates people who stand out in UX and product from people who get left behind, especially now that AI can build almost anything in seconds.  In this episode, Sarah makes the case for why the ability to build fast is no longer the advantage it used to be, and why knowing what's worth building, and framing it well, matters more than ever. Sarah traces this back to a belief she used to hold herself, that good work speaks for itself. It doesn't. She shares how she avoided a required public speaking class in college, only to realize later that the real skill was never about sounding polished or the delivery.  It was about the thinking that happens before you say a single word, or type a single sentence, or design a single sales page. She also shares a recent story from her own business, where a team she hired to build an AI tool ignored the detailed context she gave them and rushed straight into building, producing a prototype that missed the mark entirely. She ended up building it herself, faster, because she had the clarity they skipped in the process.  That story becomes the jumping off point for two ideas Sarah argues will define who stands out in UX and product going forward, knowing what's worth building, and framing the work so people actually say yes to it. If you've ever felt invisible in a meeting, passed over for a promotion, or like your UX job search ideas keep getting ignored, this episode reframes that feeling as a positioning problem rather than a skills problem, and gives a concrete way to start fixing it this week. Topics Discussed ✅ Why "good work speaks for itself" is a myth that's quietly keeping talented people invisible ✅ The real reason some ideas get funded, approved, or hired for in UX, and it's rarely because they were the best idea ✅ A story about hiring a team to build an AI tool, and what happened when they skipped the thinking and rushed straight to building ✅ Why knowing what's worth building is about to matter more than how fast you can build it ✅ A real example of a stakeholder update that got buried, and the exact rewrite that would have gotten a faster yes ✅ Why leading with the "so what" instead of the "what" changes how quickly people respond to your ideas ✅ How the same positioning skill applies just as much to your UX job search, your portfolio, and a promotion conversation as it does to a pitch ✅ A simple challenge to try this week on your next email, Slack message, or update Links & Resources Future Product Days in Copenhagen, September 22 to 24, where Sarah is giving a talk and workshop on positioning See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube

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  Career Strategy Podcast with Sarah Doody | UX, Product Design, UX Research

  185: The one thing you can't DIY in your UX job search

  Jul 27, 2026—

  DIYing your UX job search feels productive right up until you realize you've been doing it for six months, twelve months, or longer with nothing to show for it. If you've been telling yourself you're one tip away from finally landing interviews, this episode is worth sitting with. The core question Sarah asks is simple and a little uncomfortable: if you gave yourself three more months on your ux job search, your portfolio, or your resume, what would actually be different? Because more time doesn't automatically mean better results. More applications don't automatically mean more interviews. If you can't answer what you'd change, you're just planning to spend more hours doing the same thing that hasn't worked yet. Sarah backs this up with research from her own program, Career Strategy Lab. After analyzing over 1,700 responses from people who didn't join, the two most common reasons were not feeling ready, or wanting to keep trying the DIY approach first. But when she surveyed people after they did join, a pattern showed up just as clearly: regret over not joining sooner, and months lost to portfolios or ux job searches that stayed stuck. The episode also gets specific about the one thing Sarah says is genuinely hard to DIY, which isn't your resume or your portfolio. It's relationships and proximity to people who are actually hiring. She shares two real examples, Marcus and Heather, both laid off, both stuck after months of solo applying, and both hired only after they stopped going it alone. Topics Discussed ✅ Why simply giving your job search "three more months" rarely changes your outcome unless your strategy actually changes ✅ The specific question to ask yourself before committing to another few months of DIYing your portfolio or resume ✅ What over 1,700 survey responses revealed about why job seekers hesitate to get outside help, and what those same people said after they finally did ✅ The popular portfolio myth about needing three to five projects before you can apply, and why it can quietly cost you months ✅ How one person got hired with only one project in her portfolio, and was found on LinkedIn without even applying ✅ Why relationships and proximity to people hiring are the hardest thing to build alone, no matter how much networking you do on LinkedIn ✅ How a referral from someone he knew got Marcus hired as a user researcher after six months of rejections and ghosting ✅ How one person's post about her manager hiring a contractor turned into a job for someone else, which then led to five more people getting hired at that same company ✅ Why being part of a smaller, closer network can make you more visible than posting into the endless scroll of LinkedIn Links & Resources Episode 122 of the Career Strategy Podcast, Marcus's full story in his own words See how you can get hired in UX with the help of my UX job search coaching program Take a peek inside my UX job search coaching program Follow me, on LinkedIn , Instagram , & YouTube

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