Leo Vogel

Career Advice

1. Use this free tool to explore skill focus areas: Vy Alechnavicius UX Designer Roadmap - Essential Skills to Be Successful

Education

1. Consider taking the Udacity UX Design Nanodegree ($$$)
2. Consider taking the Google UX Design Certification and list it as your first education on LinkedIn, this will give you at least one portfolio project ($$)
3. For a free option you can use Springboard (Free)

Networking

1. Join the free Design Buddies community on Discord
2. Lunchclub

Job Search

1. Read Never Search Alone Buy a copy or borrow it from your local library and consider signing up for the free Job Search Council program to get matched with a small group of people also looking for a job.
2. Track your job applications Either use a Notion database or a tool like Simplify
3. Write cover letters Especially for roles you’re very interested in to help you stand out & improve ATS scoring
4. Build relationships with recruiters Connect with recruiters and keep a record of when you last spoke with them, their contact details, and send connection requests on LinkedIn after having an intro call.
5. Stop applying to jobs through LinkedIn Easy Apply Find the company’s career page and apply directly. If they don’t have a careers page then apply through Easy Apply but you will get much better results going through their site.
6. UX Maturity Evaluation - Framework to measure and compare UX maturity of companies.

LinkedIn

Profile Photo and Header What’s the story you are trying to tell? How do you want people to perceive you?

1. Add #OpenToWork to your About section
2. Use the #OpenToWork profile frame on your photo if you are looking for a new role.
3. Remove your resume from LinkedIn so you can engage with recruiters more directly
4. Add your portfolio as a featured link
5. Improve your headline by updating it to include all of the following: “I Help” Pitch, Job Title, Hard & Soft Skills, Measurable Metrics. Test using this tool until you get a 100 score.
6. Do not include descriptions for Featured links so they open directly
7. Add a header image (Figma Template)
1. Keep it simple
2. Include a call to action
3. Stay on brand
8. Use a clear, professional profile photo with a plain background
9. Generate a professional profile photo with AI
10. Provide a description for your experiences, use either of these:
1. Tell a story of your top accomplishments
2. Use bulleted items like a resume
11. Ensure you have at least 500 connections; keep networking with other designers until you’ve reached this minimum
12. Join LinkedIn groups that are relevant to your career goals
13. Connect with me (My Profile)
14. Ensure your skills are updated and in order from most important at the top to least important at the bottom
15. Link your skills to your positions and education. Limit it so there is no more than 5-6 skills for each job position or educational program/certificate.
16. Skills: your skill section can be improved by reordering so that the most important skills to your target job are first and linking each of your work experience roles with 3-5 top skills. I would try showcase specific skills like Usability Testing, Wireframing, or a tool like Figma. Also, consider cleaning out old skills that are no longer relevant to your career goals (like “Arts & Crafts”). If you save the exact skill text you can put the skills back in the future if you want and the endorsements will also be restored, the text needs to be the same though so save it in a note.
17. Read this post and this post
18. Profile Photo: Consider using remove.bg to remove the background and replace it with a solid color that fits your brand. You can use AI tools to generate a traditional professional photo.
19. Profile Photo: consider testing your photo using the free tool PhotoFeeler
20. Banner Image: communicate better your brand and professional story, tell viewers something about yourself, and showcase a CTA. You can look at mine as an example of how I tell the viewer what my current primary career goal is, direct them to my portfolio, and showcase my personal brand (tagline, personal logo, brand color). It should be highly tailored to you such that nobody else could use it like I’ve done with mine. When you achieve that you’ve on the way to good personal branding.

Portfolio

1. Attend one of the Design Buddies community’s free Feedback Friday sessions designers give each other feedback on resumes & portfolios. You don’t need to present, I just want you to listen in to hear the advice given—think about if that advice applies to your own portfolio and how you might integrate it.
2. Case studies on homepages need hover states and a consistent look.
3. Your site nav bar must have your name on the left; with a personal logo to the left of that if you have one.
4. Do not use an invisible nav bar. Read this article to know best practices.
5. Your homepage top section needs to be unique to you, not generic. I’ve struggled with this myself and have gone through many iterations for my own portfolio. This is a very challenging thing to do in just 1-2 sentences but you want to try to tell hiring managers what makes you unique and what your strengths are.
6. Change “Contact” to “Email” or “Email Me” in your main navigation and make it a mailto link. Remove any contact form. Make it as easy as possible for a hiring manager or recruiter to contact you about a job.
7. Consider adding your LinkedIn to your main navigation.
8. Put your resume content directly into the webpage. Don’t use a screenshot, it own’t be easily readable on mobile and is bad for SEO.
9. Buy and use a personal domain (YourName.com or YourName.design)
10. Don’t include your phone number and personal email to reduce spam; a jobs-focused email is better ([email protected])
11. Free guide on how to create your portfolio in a weekend
12. Check out this great resource by Sarah Hogan
13. Make your resume a page on your site and have a link to download a PDF version at the top of the web page version. This will help with SEO.

Exceptional/Standout Portfolios

NoseDiveLink

Mosope AdebowaleLink

Rachel ChenLink

Daniel PolevoyLink

Kocha W.Link

Marvin HassanLink

Resume

1. Use a DOCX file (or PDF exported from Word); PDF from other programs generally performs much worse for ATS systems
2. Ensure your resume is ATS optimized
To create an ATS optimized resume using AI writing assistance: Sign up for a Rezi account, then get a free upgrade here OR use a template here
Use a single-column Word or PDF-from-Word when applying to jobs online
Do not apply online with a resume created in Figma, you will be rejected by the ATS
On your website you can show a more “designed” resume with a more complex layout, you can also send this to humans via email or LinkedIn—do not use in job applications
3. Use this bullet format: Action Verb + Results, Impact, or Outcome + Skills or Method / Approach + What Happened / Side Benefits
4. Consider how many unicorn tears are being used when printing your resume. You might not know this but printer ink is expensive because it is made with unicorn tears. Strive for a clean, modern design without large blocks of color—help save some unicorns. Hiring managers and recruiters still print resumes.
5. Try not to over design your resume.
6. Consider the experience of the user of your resume. What are the task flows? If a user prints your resume, how can they get to your portfolio or LinkedIn? Currently, they can’t find you digitally without searching your name. Consider writing out your Portfolio link and your LinkedIn link. If they’re too long then consider shortening them, buying a domain, or using a URL shortener like Bitly.
7. Make sure you have a single column version of your resume to use when applying to positions online. Here are some free templates to get started: https://www.jobscan.co/resume-templates. Send a 2-column version only if you’re sending it directly to a human such as via email or LinkedIn.

Job Boards

Early Stage Design Jobs Link Entry-level designer jobs.

UXR Hunt Link Junior UX jobs.

Welcome to the Jungle Link Top recommendations at exciting startups.

Entry Level Jobs Link Job board for new grads.

Job Search Books

The 2-Hour Job Search, Second Edition: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster

The 2-Hour Job Search, Second Edition: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster - Kindle edition by Dalton, Steve. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The 2-Hour Job Search, Second Edition: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster.

amzn.to

Never Search Alone: The Job Seeker’s Playbook

Never Search Alone: The Job Seeker’s Playbook - Kindle edition by Terry, Phyl, Cagan, Marty. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Never Search Alone: The Job Seeker’s Playbook.

amzn.to