Yesterday in office hours, a senior product designer asked me:

“Do you think every bullet really needs business impact?”

We were screen sharing her resume.

Good companies. Real projects. Clear bullets.

On the outside, nothing looked “wrong.”

But she was not getting the traction she wanted.

As we talked, we saw the gap.

Her resume showed tasks.

It did not show impact.

Here are three shifts from that call that might help you too.

1) Boring layout, sharp story

Her resume used a two column Canva layout.

Nice to look at.

Hard to skim.

Think about how many resumes a recruiter scans in a day.

Their eyes are trained to look for a certain pattern:

→ Who is this

→ What have they done

→ Where did they do it

→ How recent is it

When your layout fights that pattern, it creates friction.

It is like hiding the “buy” button on a product page.

You want their brain focused on your story, not on decoding your design.

Takeaway

→ One column

→ Standard order of sections

→ Clean typographic hierarchy

Let the content carry your uniqueness.

2) From UX outcome to business story

One of her bullets said:

→ “Reduced support tickets by 40 percent”

On its own, that sounds good.

But it raises silent questions:

→ Forty percent of what

→ How often

→ Why should I care

So we slowed down and did some simple math:

→ Roughly how many tickets per week

→ How many fewer tickets after the redesign

→ Time taken per ticket

→ Size of the support team

→ Estimated hourly rate

With those numbers, we could estimate:

→ Hours saved per year

→ Cost savings per year

Now the bullet could become:

“Helped save an estimated 60k per year in support team time by redesigning the partner portal.”

Same reality.

Very different signal.

This is the shift from “I improved the UX” to “I improved the business.”

Try this

Pick one project where you know things improved.

Write down:

→ Before: what it was like

→ After: what changed

→ How that change shows up in time, money, or risk

Then write one sentence that captures that in plain language.

3) Treat the top of your resume like a trailer

Most resumes waste the first screen.

They open with:

→ Contact info

→ Tool list

→ A generic “UX designer passionate about users” sentence

So the first 7 seconds do not answer the real question:

“Why should I care about this person now?”

In the call, I showed how I write the top section for senior and lead designers:

→ Years of experience

→ Types of products and industries

→ Types of companies and team sizes

→ One or two proof points tied to business outcomes

Short, specific, and tailored to the role.

Think of it like a trailer.

If the hiring manager only reads that top block, they should already know if you might be their person.

If your job search has felt stuck, it is often not because you are underqualified.

It is because your story does not yet match your true impact.

You have years of messy, hard earned experience.

Your resume should make that feel obvious in under 10 seconds.

If you want help sharpening that story

This week I opened a few free 30 minute Career Clarity Sessions for experienced product designers who are:

→ Burned out by job boards and ghosting

→ Unsure what their best next move is

→ Ready to aim at roles that pay them for their real value

On this call, we will:

1️⃣ Map where you are in your career arc

2️⃣ Spot the strongest proof points in your past work

3️⃣ Decide the one story your resume and portfolio should lead with next

If you want one, just reply to this email with the word:

→ CLARITY

I will send you a short intake form and a link to book.

If it feels like a fit, great. If not, you still leave with more insight than you came with.