In this AMA, Amy and Laura (or maybe her doppleganger) answer some listener-submitted questions. - Hiring managers want UX rock stars, so how do you get hired if you've had the misfortune of working in places where you weren’t supported or were underutilized, and didn't get to have much impact as a designer or work on cool stuff? - How do you quant…

In this three-part series replay from Halloween 2023, we share some fantastically horrific stories of tech hiring gone wrong, sent in by listeners. So grab your Halloween candy, holy water, and a flashlight while you listen into some spine tingling tales of candidates getting ghosted, tricked, and treated ghoulishly by ghastly hiring managers. Plus…

A lack of standardized definitions for UX research roles and levels across companies presents a challenge for job searches, hiring, promotions, and career planning. Amy chats with Lawton Pybus and Thomas Stokes of Drill Bit Labs about their research on the state of UXR job leveling, qualifications, responsibilities, and compensation for IC and mana…

Why is the tech job market still so bad? Why are the mass layoffs still happening? Why is hiring so broken, and whose fault is it? Job seekers, hiring managers, and recruiters alike will want to tune in to my conversation with recruiter and founder of Hire Breakthrough, Kimone Napier, for some commiseration and perspective during this defeating and…

Amy chats with writer, podcaster, speaker, Pokémon enthusiast, research champion, and founder of User Research Academy, Nikki Anderson. Nikki provides sage advice for taking your job interviews, resume, and portfolio up a few notches, and shares the most common mistakes she's made as a candidate and what she's seen as a hiring manager. She also imp…

Amy chats with coach Roberta Dombrowski about the experience of interviewing for tech jobs as “an only”. If you’ve ever been an “only” (woman, person of color, neurodivergent, queer, etc.) or first of your kind on a team, this one’s for you. Hiring managers, recruiters, and anyone else who cares about other people, can also learn a thing or two abo…

Senior Product Design Manager and respected UX community contributor Mitch Clements shares how he created an attentive, fair, and effective hiring process to scale his 26-person (and counting!) design team at Encino. UX hiring managers and job seekers will appreciate Mitch's reflections on: Lessons learned on screening and interviewing candidates i…

Leadership coach, design executive, and founder of Happy Path Sally Carson. Sally shares her hiring insights and job search advice based on 20+ years in tech, including her time as a hiring manager and leader of design teams at LinkedIn and Cisco. We talk about: Using a "jobs to be done" framework to craft your resume, portfolio, and other material…

Amy chats with Dave Miller, an 18-year talent management veteran and founder of Design Citizen, a human-centered recruiting and career advisory firm for product and creative professionals in tech. Tune in for lots of gems as Dave shares his insights on past, present, and future tech industry and job market trends (good news: things are looking a bi…

In this special episode swap, Amy joins Jeremy Miller, host of Beyond UX Design, for an in-depth conversation about the state of the UX job market. We touch on some familiar topics around the mass tech layoffs, but the primary focus of our discussion looks at how job seekers can manage their response to layoffs and navigate the job search during a …

Today we answer some great questions from our fabulous listeners! Hope it helps! Is it worth applying to jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed? We're supposed to network to find a job, but what do you do when no one you know has an open role? When hundreds or thousands of people apply to a job in just a few days, should you even bother? Why does it seem like…

What can job seekers, hiring managers, and companies do to mitigate bias in hiring? In this conversation with writer, speaker, consultant, and all around awesome guy David Dylan Thomas, we discuss the individual and collective actions we can take to alleviate the burden on candidates who just want to get a damn job. Buckle your seatbelts for an adv…

Amy chats with coach, trainer, speaker, and founder of The Early Manager, Joe Cardillo (they/them), about how we can use research and emotional intelligence to "read the room" when interviewing—i.e., figuring out the context of the organization, team, and manager to ascertain fit and effectively position ourselves to land the role. We cover: Asking…

Feeling slightly depressed, Amy talks about the state of the UX and tech job market in the US, which is complete shit show right now. She tries her darnedest to make sense of what's going on and what we might expect in the near-term, based on existing data sources and job seeker sentiment. Original post Episode transcript Support our work: Spread t…

Laura and Amy discuss the really unpleasant topic of "professional branding" (ew!), and try to make a bit more palatable and relevant. As awful as it sounds, putting a bit of effort into how you show up in the world and tell your story can be beneficial for a job search, career development, networking, and professional opportunities. And don't worr…

Amy chats with Hang Xu, a former UX designer and the founder of Collective Supply, an independent design talent firm, about assessing organizational design/UX maturity during job interviews, and whether or not it matters. We cover: Hang's backstory, how he got into talent management, and his excellent satirical LinkedIn content The state of design …

For this episode, we answer some listener-submitted questions, including How do I answer those annoying questions like "tell me about a time when you had a difficult stakeholder" or "a challenge with a teammate", especially when I don't have a good example? How do we deal with the farce of companies expecting everyone to have a cogently designed pr…

We're wrapping up our Hiring Horror Stories series with more spine chilling anecdotes from hiring managers who, like their job seeker counterparts, must also regularly deal with unacceptable levels of hiring clusterfuckery. In Part 3, we share some terrible tales from our listeners featuring major organizational incompetence, pompous candidates, fr…

Today for Part 2 of our Hiring Horror Stories series, we continue with more terrible tales from job candidates. Episode transcript Got a hiring topic request? Reach out to Amy on LinkedIn and we can cover it in a future episode. If you're so inclined, we'd love your help in spreading the word about our show with a rating and review on your favorite…

In honor of Spooky Season, Amy and Laura share some hiring horror stories sent in by listeners (thank you!). This episode features spine tingling tales of candidates getting ghosted (see what we did there?), tricked (like trick or treat, get it?!), and treated ghoulishly by ghastly beings and businesses (ok, look, they can't all be winners). Also, …

For this episode, we "randomly" select five questions from Listeners Like You (thanks!) and attempt to give quick (well, as quick as Laura ever gets) answers to each of them. What's up with unpaid take-home assignments as part of the interview process? How many rounds of interviews and assignments is actually reasonable? Should I apply to a job if …

In this episode, Amy and Laura discuss the awful state of job postings—even the best ones are a bit confusing, and the worst are pretty much just bad fiction. If you are baffled by the different titles, levels, code words, and meaningless jargon, tune in for some tips for how to figure out what you're even applying for, and how to identify the red,…

In this episode, Laura and Amy talk about who you should listen to when looking for career advice. Besides Laura and Amy, obvs. The answer is pretty straightforward, except it sort of isn't. Also, sorry about the audio on this one. Technology is hard. Episode Transcript Got a hiring topic request? Reach out to Amy on LinkedIn and we can cover it in…

In this episode, Amy and Laura talk about their experiences as freelancers, consultants, coaches, trainers, and everything else in tech. They explain which business models to use when and how to not get screwed by red flag clients. Episode Transcript Some useful links for more information after you listen to the show: Avoiding worker misclassificat…

In this episode, Laura and Amy chat about the pros and cons of becoming a freelancer, consultant, contractor or some other form of self employed person. After all, it's tough to get hired these days! Maybe you should hire you! Episode Transcript Got a hiring topic request? Reach out to Amy on LinkedIn and we can cover it in a future episode. If you…

In this episode, Amy and Laura talk about a few key ways to help other folks get jobs, even in a bad market. Based on Amy's blog post, which you can check out here. Got a hiring topic request? Reach out to Amy on LinkedIn and we can cover it in a future episode. If you're so inclined, we'd love your help in spreading the word about our show with a …

Amy Santee and Laura Klein kick off a whole new season of ranting about hiring! In this episode, Amy and Laura talk about what's been going on in tech over the last 9 months or so (spoiler: it's not great!) and what this means for folks looking for jobs. They also tease some future podcast episodes that they'll probably get around to recording in t…

In this episode, Laura talks to Mary Lukanuski about how to tell whether a candidate is right for the job. They discuss the pros and cons (mostly cons) of design exercises of various sorts and the things that actually do help you hire better. Drink Pairing: Mezcal NegroniPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks to Cindy Alvarez, Director of UX for Powerpoint, about how to figure out what sort of hire you really need and write a job description targeted to the right folks. Drink pairing: Sparkling RosePor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks to Bryan Cantrill, CTO of Oxide, about a wildly different approach to recruiting and hiring. Drink Pairing: Diet Dr. PepperPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks with Lisa Dusseault, CTO and Co-founder of Compaas about how to make sure you're making the right offer and paying people fairly for their work. Drink Pairing: California Chardonnay (properly chilled!)Por What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks with James Mayes, Founder at Mind the Product and currently an Evangelist at Pendo about why recruiting in tech is so hard and why recruiting technology can make it even harder. Pendo is hiring! Drink Pairing: Pinot NoirPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks to Emmy Southworth, Principal Product Manager at Lendio about how she created an apprenticeship program to create new designers. Interested in working with Emmy? Lendio is hiring! Drink Pairing: Draft Diet Dr. PepperPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura interviews Lawrence Humphry and Fallon Blossom, the co-founders of Pearl. They talk about finding tech folks from non-traditional backgrounds and creating a better hiring pipeline. Pearl is a brand new platform for peer based leadership consulting where you can get wisdom and guidance from people you trust. Drink Pairings: Be…

In this episode, Laura interviews Sarah Milstein, VP of Engineering at Daily. They talk about how to position smaller companies to compete with the big corporations and be appealing even in a hot market. Drink Pairing: LambruscoPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks with Tracy Kroop, the Director of User Experience at Boomi, about how hiring managers can forge a great relationship with recruiters and how the process is largely broken. Interested in working with Tracy? Boomi is hiring! Drink Pairing: Old FashionedPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura interviews Jess Dale, a Senior Product Design Manager at an ecommerce company, about how to onboard new hires in a way that makes them feel like they weren't lied to during the recruiting process! Drink Pairing: Anything from the Athletic Brewing CompanyPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks with Sara Howes, SVP of Product at Diesel Laptops about building a new product team from scratch in a very subject matter heavy industry. Sara is hiring! Drink pairing: Black coffeePor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura interviews Julia DeBari, a UX designer and educator turned recruiter. Julia shares her perspective on what hiring managers are asking for from designers and how she goes about finding the right fit for candidates. Drink pairing: Aperol SpritzPor What is Wrong with Hiring

In this episode, Laura talks with Dani Nordin, a Product Design Architect at Athena Health, about what happens when you decide you need to structure your own role. They want you to know that deciding you don't want to be a manager isn't a personal failing! Drink pairing: Athletic Brewing Company Run Wild IPA (Non-alcoholic)…

In this episode, Laura interviews Sarah Merlin, Associate Director of Product Design at Curology. Sarah shares tips about working with internal recruiters who might not be familiar with hiring in your domain and how to hire a lot of designers in a short period of time (it's possible!). Interested in working with Sarah? She is hiring! Drink pairing:…

In this episode, Laura talks with Amy Santee about what candidates really want to know, what it's like hiring designers and other tech people right now, and what hiring managers can do to make it easier for everybody. Amy Santee is a Career Strategist and Coach for UX professionals who want to design their careers with intention and bring their goo…

In this episode, Laura interviews Kim Bieler, UX Director at Expel. They talk about hiring generalist designers vs specialists and how if you learn to design for cyber security, you will end up with job security. As of May 2022, Kim's team is hiring! Check out these two open roles: Senior UX Designer, growth Senior UX Designer, analyst experience D…