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

NDAs stop a lot of UX professionals from including their best work in their portfolio, but they might not be the obstacle you think they are.

Sarah has spent nearly a decade coaching UX professionals, and one of the questions she gets most often is how to handle NDA-protected work in a portfolio. In this episode, she walks through what NDAs typically do and don't restrict, how to write about protected work without violating your agreement, and why UX recruiters and hiring managers aren't looking for pixel-perfect deliverables (and what they are looking for instead.)

Sarah also shares a concrete example of how to frame a confidential project in a way that's compelling, specific, and respectful of any agreements you've signed. If you've been leaving projects out of your portfolio because you weren't sure what you could share, this episode is worth a listen.

Topics Discussed
✅ What NDAs actually restrict vs. what most people assume they restrict (they're not the same thing)
✅ A concrete example of how to write about a confidential project without naming the company, showing screens, or violating any agreements
✅ Why UX recruiters and hiring managers care far more about how you think than what the final product looked like
✅ Practical ways to include visuals from protected projects without revealing anything proprietary
✅ How NDA concerns often uncover the real problem: not knowing how to structure a UX case study
✅ How to go back to a former employer and ask the right questions to clarify what your NDA actually allows
✅ Why your UX portfolio doesn't have to be a website and how a presentation format can sidestep a lot of NDA concerns entirely

Links From This Episode:
🔗 Free UX Case Study Template
🔗 UX Hiring Insights: Alexander Zeh of ManyChat on Diverse UX Teams and Standout Portfolios
🔗 UX Hiring Insights: Ben Peck on UX Generalists, Soft Skills, & Standout Portfolios

💸 See how I help UX & Product people get 5-figure salary increases in my UX job search coaching program
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube.

Have you been applying to UX jobs you know you're qualified for and still not hearing back? Chances are, your experience isn't the problem, it's how you're presenting it.

After nearly a decade of coaching UX and product professionals and reviewing thousands of resumes, portfolios, and LinkedIn profiles, Sarah has seen the same red flag mistakes show up again and again. The candidates making them are talented, experienced designers who simply were never taught how to market themselves.

In this episode, Sarah breaks down one major red flag mistake for resumes, portfolios, and LinkedIn. Spoiler alert: fixing it doesn't require months of work.

Sarah also shares the story of Jonathan, a UX director with 20 years of experience who was getting ghosted on 75% of his applications. He was qualified, but his materials weren't telling his story effectively. Once he addressed the right things, he landed an executive-level role at the University of Houston.

Your materials don't have to be perfect... they need to be 10% better than everyone else making the same, avoidable, mistakes.

Topics Discussed
✅ What hiring managers and applicant tracking systems are silently penalizing you for
✅ Why showing deliverables without context, process, or decision-making is leaving hiring managers cold
✅ What to put in your LinkedIn headline instead of just your job title and company name (and why)
✅ How to optimize your LinkedIn profile for the algorithm
✅ How to rewrite vague resume bullet points so they communicate scope and outcomes
✅ Why talented UX professionals with years of experience still struggle to get interviews
✅ How to break out of the perfection trap that's keeping you in research mode

Links From This Episode:
🔗 Free UX Portfolio Case Study Template
🔗 Optimizing Your LinkedIn Headline
🔗 How to optimize your resume for the ATS so you can get more UX job interviews
🔗 EP 170: Jonathan's Journey From UX Layoff to UX Executive

💸 See how I help UX & Product people get 5-figure salary increases in my UX job search coaching program
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube.

Do you ever wonder what happens on the other side of a UX job application, like who's reading your portfolio, what makes them keep going, and what makes them close the tab? Sarah sits down with Jeni Bible, a UX Manager at Home Depot who has a uniquely full-circle perspective.

Jeni went through Career Strategy Lab, landed her role at Home Depot just four months later, and is now the hiring manager evaluating candidates for that same type of position. Jeni brings 27 years in the design industry, starting as a graphic designer, running her own agency for two decades, and making her way into UX through e-commerce. She now leads the online UX team at homedepot.com, focused on critical touchpoints like checkout, payments, and promotions.

In this conversation, Jeni gets candid about what she looks for in a portfolio, why most candidates miss the mark in interviews, and what she told recruiters to help them filter the right people for her team. If you're in the thick of a UX job search or considering a career pivot, this interview with Jeni will be insightful.

Topics discussed in this episode:
✅ How to get your application through a UX recruiters initial filter
✅ What portfolio format impresses UX recruiters more than a polished personal website
✅ The questions to ask a UX recruiter that the job description won't answer
✅ Why UX recruiters want to see failed tests and pivots, not just polished outcomes
✅ The panel interview move that almost always advances candidates to the next round
✅ How to include a canceled project in your UX portfolio without it hurting your chances
✅ Home Depot's UX career ladder explained and how contractor roles can open the door
✅ How Jeni uses peer feedback as a hiring manager

Links From This Episode:
Home Depot Careers
Contractor Depot

Timestamps:
00:00 Introducing Jeni Bible, UX Manager
01:13 Online vs. enterprise UX at Home Depot
02:32 Jeni's 27-year path into UX
05:35 Translating agency experience to in-house roles
07:47 What to ask recruiters on the first call
11:32 How CSL helped Jeni find direction
15:04 Tailoring a portfolio for a manager role
22:36 From 1,500 applicants to 10
24:07 Password-protected portfolios
29:08 What Jeni looks for in case studies
33:32 Candidates who don't ask about the team
36:27 Let the hiring manager choose your case study
39:22 Video case studies and prototype demos that stood out
41:48 The art of the pause during portfolio presentations
49:40 How to handle a canceled project in your portfolio
51:27 Reaching out on LinkedIn: what works, what doesn't

💸 See how I help UX & Product people get 5-figure salary increases in my UX job search coaching program
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube.

What does it take to build a UX portfolio that makes a hiring manager stop scrolling? Alexander Zeh, Head of Product Design at ManyChat, is here to share how he approaches hiring and what many candidates get wrong.

In this episode of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah Doody sits down with Alexander Zeh, a design leader with over 20 years of experience who has scaled UX teams from 5 to 43 people. Alexander is refreshingly direct about what he's looking for and what sends candidates straight to the 'no' pile.

He breaks down how he structures his hiring process to reduce bias, why a failed project can be a stronger case study than a polished one, how to handle NDA-protected work, and why the "hero designer" narrative is working against you. Whether you're actively applying to UX roles or just trying to understand what hiring managers are really thinking, this conversation will change how you approach your next portfolio presentation.

Topics discussed in this episode:
✅ Why Alexander treats team diversity as a design decision
✅ The grading criteria that lets hiring managers make a confident call
✅ Why clear writing and articulation matter more than Figma fluency
✅ How constraints and failed projects can make a stronger case study than a polished outcome
✅ How claiming to do it all might be a red flag to hiring managers
✅ Whether UX job seekers in different countries need different portfolios
✅ How to handle NDA-protected work
✅ Why showing your thinking at every fork in the road matters more than the final product

Links From This Episode:
ManyChat Careers Page
Metaview
CSL Podcast Episode Archive

Timestamps:
00:57 Intro: Alexander and ManyChat
03:10 Alexander's career journey
07:26 From consulting to in-house leadership
12:36 Building diverse teams intentionally
15:26 Why grading criteria beats "I'll know it when I see it"
16:22 Blind submissions to avoid groupthink
18:16 What hiring managers actually look for
22:19 What standout candidates do differently
28:09 Does location affect your UX job search?
35:25 Showing impact without a happy ending
44:34 Resilience, vision, and holding the tension
47:55 Handling NDA work in your portfolio

💸 See how I help UX & Product people get 5-figure salary increases in my UX job search coaching program
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube.

Are you spending hours on your UX job search but not actually making progress? The problem usually isn't effort. It's focus. Most job seekers stay busy tweaking portfolios, scrolling job boards, and hanging out in Slack groups, but at the end of the day, they can't point to anything that moved them closer to getting hired.
In this episode of the Career Strategy Podcast, Sarah Doody shares a simple Post-It note hack that transformed how she runs her business, and how you can use the same concept to cut through the noise and focus on what actually matters in your job search.

Topics discussed in this episode:
✅ The 6-word question a business coach told Sarah to write on a Post-It note
✅ Why "being busy" in your job search is not the same as making progress
✅ How to identify what your job search actually needs right now
✅ Why tweaking your portfolio for the fifth time probably isn't the answer
✅ How to create your own Post-It note filter for your UX job search
✅ The difference between false productivity and real momentum

Timestamps:
00:00 The best productivity tool might be a Post-It note
00:24 The 6-word question that changed how Sarah runs her business
02:24 Why "is this a revenue generating activity" was a game changer
04:49 Your job search is like a business
05:45 How to write your own Post-It note question
06:30 The trap of tweaking your portfolio all Saturday
07:06 False sense of productivity and why it's the enemy of getting hired
08:45 You don't need more time, you need the right focus
09:33 Send Sarah your Post-It note on LinkedIn

💸 See how I help UX & Product people get 5-figure salary increases in my UX job search coaching program
👋 Follow me, on LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube.