Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

UX Job Search AMA #2 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
Wednesday, May 21, 2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Share the love for this talk
UX Job Search AMA #2 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
Speakers: Dave Hoffer and Joanne Weaver
Link:

Summary

We’re thrilled to bring back to the Rosenverse an AMA dedicated to finding and getting UX jobs! Co-led by Dave Hoffer, a design leader / hiring manager (from PwC, McKinsey, frog design) and Joanne Weaver, a recruiting agency owner (clients include: Mailchimp, Etsy, Justworks, Grubhub, NY Life), we’ll hold an insightful one-hour AMA to address all your job search questions. Join us! Whether seeking advice on crafting your ideal resume, how to nail your interviews, or understanding what employers are looking for in candidates today, bring your questions. Dave and Joanne are longtime design career coaches and know how to help. You’ll gain valuable insights from us, and we’re sure, each other!

Key Insights

  • Hiring in New York’s UX and product design market is showing hopeful signs with increased mid and senior-level roles, especially in enterprise SaaS and regulated sectors.

  • Design job titles like 'product designer' and 'experience designer' evolve to reflect small role shifts but are mostly about organizational clarity and hiring ease.

  • Employers prefer candidates with related domain experience to reduce onboarding friction, but cross-industry skills can enhance team diversity and innovation.

  • Successful designers now need an end-to-end skillset combining UX, interaction, and polished visual design, often pulling from established design systems for pixel-perfect results.

  • AI hype led to rushed implementations without user-centered design; the next phase will require senior designers to thoughtfully integrate AI into products.

  • Resume and portfolio authenticity matter greatly; AI can help draft materials, but they must genuinely reflect the candidate’s experience to pass interviews.

  • Senior design leaders must maintain portfolios that showcase not only UI work but also team management, strategic impact, and polished visual outputs.

  • Networking creatively and in person, even with small gestures like bringing donuts, is highly effective to bypass ATS systems and build meaningful industry connections.

  • Introverted professionals can succeed at networking by preparing strategically, targeting key people, and focusing on quality over quantity of connections.

  • Strategic design roles focused on early-stage product discovery and insight synthesis often carry titles like design strategist, UX strategist, or product research and insights.

Notable Quotes

"I’m getting hopeful. For what it’s worth."

"Titles will change as roles and skills change; what matters is what you need to do, not just what you call it."

"People eat with their eyes before they eat with their mouths — polish makes a big difference."

"Donuts are delicious, right? Nobody doesn’t like donuts."

"Your resume, your portfolio, your body of work should reflect you as a human being."

"If you get the interview, say, I don’t have experience in that field, but here’s how I solved similar complex problems."

"Networking isn’t just asking for favors — it’s about building relationships and doing something for others first."

"The introvert’s edge is that they research, plan, and have a strategy for meaningful conversations."

"The portfolio should not be a forensic exercise pulled together last minute; it’s a journaling effort capturing weekly work."

"A design strategist role focuses on synthesizing insights and collaborating to produce design specifications rather than doing final screens."

Ask the Rosenbot
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Trauma-Responsive Design: Reimagining the Future of Design Now
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Bria Alexander
State of DesignOps Panel
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Tony Turner
Capturing Deep Insights
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Silke Bochat
5 Antifragile Strategies for a DesignOps 2.0
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Samuel Proulx
From Standards to Innovation: Why Inclusive Design Wins
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Lukas Moro
“Feels Like Paper!”: Interfacing AI through Paper
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Sharon Banh
Reimagining research: What does the field need to grow? [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Yulya Besplemennova
[Demo] Stress-testing GenAI in user research synthesis
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Joi Freeman
A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Andrew Michael
Building a Product Insights Team
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
James Chudley
Decarbonising User Journeys: How minimising enables us to do more with less
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Adrian Howard
Sturgeon’s Biases
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Abbey Smalley
Scaling UX Past the Size of Your Team
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Joseph Williams
Unlocking impact and influence through inclusive hiring in research
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Adam Cutler
People + Places + Practices = Outcomes
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Brennan Hartich
Communicating and Establishing DesignOps as a New Function
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold

More Videos

Ian Johnson

"Simple word-list based filters can easily be tricked by misspellings or slight variations in prompts."

Ian Johnson

Latent Scope: Finding structure in unstructured data

June 11, 2025

Sam Proulx

"Disability isn't rare; one in five people have a disability right now."

Sam Proulx

Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate

September 8, 2022

Prayag Narula

"Design for emotion to create experiences that resonate beyond functionality."

Prayag Narula Hannah Hudson

Empowering Designers to do Good Research

March 11, 2022

John Cutler

"Everyone is circling around similar topics but in very different ways—there’s a battle of models but more similarities than differences."

John Cutler

Oxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)

December 3, 2024

Anna Avrekh

"Allies in the room who are not affected by bias are critical voices to help call out inequities."

Anna Avrekh Amy Jiménez Márquez Morgan C. Ramsey Catarina Tsang

Diversity In and For Design: Building Conscious Diversity in Design and Research

June 9, 2021

Noz Urbina

"You have to verify key data points carefully because AI can hallucinate details in critical areas."

Noz Urbina

Rapid AI-powered UX (RAUX): A framework for empowering human designers

May 1, 2025

Greg Petroff

"In enterprise, we’re moving from systems of record, to systems of engagement, to systems of assets where context drives experience."

Greg Petroff

Everything is About to Change: Software as Material

June 8, 2016

Andy Polaine

"Service design is product strategy."

Andy Polaine Lavrans Løvlie

What is the role of service design in product-led organizations?

December 3, 2024

Patrizia Bertini

"What is your design footprint? Because we do the things we do for a reason."

Patrizia Bertini

DesignOps + KPIs = Measure your Impact!

January 8, 2024