Why Do We Expect People to Sell Their Own Careers?

I recently sold my home, and it made me realize how much we expect people to figure out on their own during a job search.

Our real estate agent helped us understand the state of the market, decide how to price and position the home, get great photography, put the listing together, and communicate with potential buyers. He also shared advice all along the way.

Sure, we could have done most of that ourselves. But it would have been a ton of work, stress, and uncertainty. We didn’t know the market as well as he did, what buyers would care about, or which problems to anticipate. Even if we arrived at the same result, we probably would have spent a lot more time wondering whether we were making the right decisions.

The sale fortunately went as expected. It was a smooth process without any major hiccups or surprises, and having someone who knew what he was doing made the whole thing so much easier.

Then I started thinking about how different it is when you’re trying to sell a home versus trying to sell your work experience.

When you’re employed as a designer, you’re expected to think and act like a designer. Understand users, work through complicated problems, collaborate with your team, and create products that are useful to people and the business.

Then you get laid off or decide to look for something new, and overnight you’re expected to become a marketer and salesperson.

Just like a real estate agent, you have to understand the market, identify who you’re trying to reach, position yourself against the competition, and write and tell a clear and compelling story. You have to package years of work into a resume, LinkedIn profile, and portfolio. Then find leads, make connections, follow up, present your work, and eventually negotiate an offer.

I really think it’s crazy. We just expect any person to just “figure it out,” and so much of this doesn’t even relate to you being a strong designer.

Being able to design a complex enterprise product doesn’t automatically mean you know which parts of that experience an employer will find most valuable. Being comfortable presenting work to your product team doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to explain that work to a hiring manager who has none of the same context.

There also isn’t usually someone on the candidate’s side helping them work through all of this. Recruiters can be helpful, but their job is to help the employer find and evaluate candidates. They aren’t really there to help you decide how to position your background or figure out why your search isn’t working.

I’ve worked with plenty of strong designers who struggled with these marketing and sales activities. They know how to do the design work. They have years of credible experience. But they have a tough time framing it in a way that’s easy for employers to see.

Sometimes their portfolio looks good but gives too much attention to projects that aren’t relevant to the roles they want. Sometimes their resume includes everything they’ve done but leaves you unsure what they’re particularly good at. Sometimes their introduction is so broad that the hiring manager has to figure out how any of it connects to their particular role.

A hiring manager can’t directly see how good you were at your last job. They weren’t there for the difficult decisions, the conversations with your team, or the work it took to get something shipped. They have to build that understanding from what you choose to show and how you talk about it.

That’s why I think we need to think and act like marketers and sales reps. We need to focus more on sharing and selling our experience, no matter how good it is. It could be the difference in someone excited in knowing what you can bring to their team or not even giving you a serious review.

I don’t think that means everyone needs to become a content creator or develop a sales personality when interviewing. A lot of it is simply learning how to get more visibility in the market, and how to explain your work to someone who doesn’t already understand it.

A designer I was working with recently was using metrics to make the outcome of a portfolio project feel more substantial. They described “cutting user navigation cycles by 85%.” The numbers were accurate, but they were making the actual result harder to understand.

The simpler version was that the product launched, made an important task easier to complete on mobile, and helped people do it faster. That gave someone a much clearer picture of what the work accomplished.

Don’t force using numbers because it sounds impressive or it’s what someone told you to say. Just be clear and understandable. 

If you’re struggling with this part of your search, I think it helps most to get specific about where you need practice or feedback. Are you unsure which parts of your background matter most for the roles you want? Do you know what to emphasize but have trouble explaining it? Are you showing the work without making clear what you contributed or what changed because of it?

Those are different problems, and each gives you something tangible to work on. You might need help choosing the right projects, an outside read of your resume, or practice talking through your work with someone who wasn’t involved in it.

After going through the home sale, it seems strange that we treat these skills as things everyone should naturally know. Owning a home doesn’t make you an expert at marketing and selling it. Having years of work experience doesn’t automatically make you good at communicating its value either.

Searching for design work is a different job than doing the work. Being good at one doesn’t automatically make you good at the other. It’s perfectly reasonable to need some help learning that part too.

— Chris
The Design Co.

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Want to better convey your design experience to hiring teams?

If you’re having a hard time figuring out how to communicate your experience, that’s one of the things I look at in a Job Search Audit. Shoot me an email at chris@thedesign.co or learn more here.

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