I see the same thing in almost every coaching session I have.A talented, experienced designer with real work and plenty of experience behind them who's convinced they're not good enough.They're not falling apart. They're showing up, applying, doing the work.But underneath it all there's this steady hum of doubt. A sense that everyone else has something figured out that they haven't. That the designers getting hired, getting promoted, getting recognized are somehow more ready than they are.I...
6 days ago • 3 min read
I've coached a lot of designers who came to design from somewhere else.Teachers. Therapists. Accountants. Flight attendants. Hospitality professionals. Project managers.And, they all worried about the same thing:"Is my past going to hold me back?"My answer has always been:No. Your past may be one of the things that makes you valuable.That's even more true in today's design market. Your past experience is not a detour Design is about understanding people, solving problems, making decisions,...
13 days ago • 2 min read
I've been paying close attention to what's happening in the design job market this summer.Not just in the headlines, but with the designers I'm coaching, the hiring conversations I'm hearing about and the patterns I'm seeing in who's getting traction and who isn't.Here's the honest picture:The market is competitive.Design teams are leaner. Companies are asking more from individual designers. And there are still more designers looking for work than there are open roles.If you've been feeling...
20 days ago • 2 min read
I’ve reviewed a lot of designer resumes. As a hiring manager, coach, and designer who has been on both sides of the process.And the most common mistake is simple:Designers describe what they did.Not what happened because of it. “Designed the onboarding flow.”“Created wireframes for the mobile app.”“Worked on the design system.” Those lines tell me you were involved but they don’t tell me whether your work made a difference.A resume does not need to tell the full story of every project. It...
27 days ago • 2 min read
This summer, I’ve been working with designers at every stage of the job search.Some have been looking for months. Some are just starting out.A few are starting to break through.And it's not because the market suddenly got easier.It's because they stopped doing more of what wasn’t working and started doing something different.Here’s what I’m seeing work right now. They’re treating their portfolio like a product One of the most useful shifts I’ve seen is designers applying product thinking to...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
A designer I worked with recently almost left one of her strongest projects out of her portfolio.Why?She didn’t think it was impressive enough.The project was a filtering feature for a dashboard she was working on. In her mind, it was small: one feature, nothing compared to the end-to-end projects in the rest of her portfolio.So I asked her to walk me through it.She had conducted user research to understand why people were struggling to find information. She synthesized the findings and...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
I was reviewing a designer’s portfolio recently and the work was really strong.The case studies were structured well. The visuals were polished. But something was off about how she described her role.She kept saying she “worked on the visuals.” So I asked a few questions: Who defined the UX direction on this project?She did. Who was the main point of contact with the client?She was. Who presented the work to executives and incorporated their feedback into the design decisions?Also her.She was...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Good to be back!I took four weeks away from this newsletter to recharge, and I came back with something I can’t stop thinking about.Over the past few months, I’ve worked with several designers who were counting themselves out of senior roles before they even applied.Their work was strong.Their experience was stronger than they realized.But they weren’t counting the right things. The graphic designer who didn't think her past counted One designer I worked with had spent several years as a...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Early in my career I assumed confidence was something you eventually earned.You showed up, worked hard and it would just happen.I even thought that once I became a senior designer, led larger projects, managed teams, and accumulated enough experience, the uncertainty would disappear.After 25 years in this industry designing, leading teams, hiring designers, and coaching hundreds of careers I can tell you with certainty: it never does. What arrived instead was a different set of questions As a...
3 months ago • 2 min read
I know LinkedIn gets a lot of criticism right now.Designers are frustrated with it. The algorithm feels unpredictable. The engagement can feel performative. I get it.But most hiring managers and recruiters are still using it every single day.When I work with designers on their job search, I usually point this out:Recruiters aren’t just browsing casually. They’re actively searching for designers daily. By title, by skill, by keyword.And hiring managers do something similar when they’re trying...
3 months ago • 2 min read