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

Adding personality to your UX portfolio is one of the most repeated pieces of advice in the industry, and Sarah closes out her five part portfolio myth series by explaining why it's actually working against you. Personality and passion don't get you the interview. Proof does. That's the whole myth this episode takes apart.

Sarah argues that trying to inject personality into a portfolio usually competes with the actual content instead of supporting it. A font chosen to feel "personal" can make a case study harder to read. Extra design elements, background flourishes, or animation pull attention away from the work itself, and animation in particular can even make some viewers physically ill. A personal logo shrunk down to fit a slide often becomes illegible. None of it proves you can do the job you're applying for, which is the one thing recruiters and hiring managers are actually scanning for.

She backs this up with a line from Steph McDonald, lead recruiter at HubSpot focused on UX design roles, who compares a well edited portfolio to a fashion designer who puts on all her jewelry, then takes a few pieces off before walking out the door. The move isn't to avoid adding things you care about, it's going back afterward and cutting what isn't earning its place. Sarah's takeaway is direct, less personality, more evidence that you've done what the job description is asking for.

This episode also wraps the full five part series. Sarah runs through a fast recap of all five myths, from project count to portfolio websites to showing failed work, and asks listeners who followed along to share whether it changed how they think about their own portfolio.

Topics Discussed
✅ Why personality and passion don't get you an interview, and what actually does
✅ How trying to show personality through fonts, animation, or design flourishes can work against your portfolio instead of for it
✅ Why a personal logo in your portfolio often backfires once it's shrunk down to a smaller size
✅ What Steph McDonald, lead recruiter at HubSpot focused on UX design roles, said about editing a portfolio before you hit send
✅ Why Sarah says the goal is proof over personality, and what that actually looks like in practice
✅ A full recap of all five UX portfolio myths covered across the series
✅ Where to learn more about Career Strategy Lab if your portfolio has been stuck in redesign mode for months

Links & Resources
🔗 Episode 168 of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah's full interview with Steph McDonald
🔗 Episode 187, Myth 1 of 5, on why you don't need three to five projects in your portfolio
🔗 Episode 188, Myth 2 of 5, on why your portfolio doesn't need to be a website
🔗 Episode 189, Myth 3 of 5, on why your case studies don't need to show the full UX process
🔗 Episode 190, Myth 4 of 5, on why you can show projects that didn't launch

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📋 Get my UX case study template
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UX portfolio projects that didn't launch or didn't go as planned are exactly the kind of work recruiters and hiring managers want to see, not the kind you should hide.

This is week four of a five part series on UX portfolio myths, and this episode tackles the belief that a canceled, pivoted, or unsuccessful project doesn't belong in your portfolio.

Sarah pushes back on this directly. Smart hiring managers understand that things go wrong in real UX work all the time, and a project that didn't launch says nothing about whether you're a good researcher or designer.

In fact, she argues that a messy or canceled project is one of the best opportunities to show how you adapt, collaborate, and think under real constraints, exactly the soft skills recruiters are trying to evaluate.

She walks through common scenarios people worry about, like research getting cut entirely or not being able to run usability testing, and gives specific ways to handle each one in a portfolio.

Rather than hiding the gap, she suggests explaining what happened, what you did instead, and what you would do differently with a do-over, which turns a limitation into a chance to show your thinking.

She backs this up with a clip from her interview with Jeni Bible, a UX Manager at Home Depot and a Career Strategy Lab alum who is now hiring herself. Jeni's take is simple, projects get canceled constantly, and what she actually wants to hear is what you did, what you learned, and how you collaborated along the way.

If you've been sitting on a portfolio project you assumed was too messy or unfinished to include, this episode makes the case for why it might be exactly what you need.

Topics Discussed
✅ Why a project that didn't launch doesn't signal that you're a bad researcher or designer
✅ How to handle a portfolio project where research got cut or skipped entirely
✅ What to include if you never got to run usability testing on something you worked on
✅ The "do-over" framing Sarah recommends for showing what research or testing you would have done in hindsight
✅ What Jeni Bible, a UX Manager at Home Depot and Career Strategy Lab alum, said she actually wants to hear about canceled projects
✅ Why a canceled or pivoted project can be one of the strongest ways to show adaptability and collaboration
✅ A preview of the fifth and final myth in the series, coming next week

Links & Resources
🔗 Episode 173 of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah's full interview with Jeni Bible on hiring and portfolios
🔗 Episode 187, Myth 1 of 5, on why you don't need three to five projects in your portfolio
🔗 Episode 188, Myth 2 of 5, on why your portfolio doesn't need to be a website
🔗 Episode 189, Myth 3 of 5, on why your case studies don't need to show the full UX process

🎯 How I can help with your UX job search
📋 Get my UX case study template
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube

UX portfolio case studies don't need to walk through every single step of your process, and trying to do that is actually working against you. This is week three of a five part series on UX portfolio myths, and this episode tackles a big one, the belief that every case study needs to show the whole end to end process for a project.

Sarah argues the opposite works better. Going deep into just one or two parts of a project beats trying to cram in everything you did, especially for projects that spanned six months, a year, or longer. Trying to show it all just skims the surface of everything and overwhelms the person reviewing it, which is the opposite of what you want.

She backs this up with a clip from her interview with Alexander Zeh, former Head of Product Design at ManyChat, who said he's specifically listening for problem solving language, phrases like "I facilitated," "I unblocked," "I synthesized," because those signal maturity in how a candidate thinks, not just what they produced.

The bulk of the episode is a screen share walkthrough where Sarah rebuilds a weak case study slide by slide, showing exactly what it looks like to go from a shallow "next, I made some wireframes" slide into one that explains the problem, the decision, the reasoning, and the impact. If your case studies currently read like a list of what you did, this episode shows you exactly what to change and why.

Topics Discussed
✅ Why cramming your entire UX process into one case study actually works against you
✅ What Alexander Zeh, former Head of Product Design at ManyChat, said he's actually listening for in a portfolio walkthrough
✅ A live screen share breakdown showing the difference between a shallow case study slide and one that goes deep
✅ Why "next, I made some wireframes" is what Sarah calls a five alarm fire in a portfolio
✅ How to handle a case study for a project that spanned six months, a year, or longer without trying to cram in everything
✅ What questions your case study should actually be answering, beyond just what you did
✅ Why you might choose to highlight different parts of the same long project depending on the specific role you're applying for

Links & Resources
🔗 Episode 172 of the Career Strategy Podcast, the full interview with Alexander Zeh, former Head of Product Design at ManyChat
🔗 Episode 187, Myth 1 of 5, on why you don't need three to five projects in your portfolio
🔗 Episode 188, Myth 2 of 5, on why your portfolio doesn't need to be a website

🎯 How I can help with your UX job search
📋 Get my UX case study template
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube

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

🎯 How I can help with your UX job search
📋 Get my UX case study template
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube

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

🎯 How I can help with your UX job search
📋 Get my UX case study template
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube