📣 Carla landed her first Product Design role in 5 months!

Building projects while on the job search helps you standout.

Nov 15, 2023

Job Searching for 6 months with no offer... 5 months later she got an offer for a Lead Designer in a remote-first startup with a 6 figure salary 🎉

💰 $100K+ salary (Increased salary by 50%)

🎨 Solo Lead Designer role

🪴 Startup

🏠 WFH, Fully Remote

With a background in Graphic Design, moving into Product Design shouldn't have been difficult, but after 6 months of interviews with no offers, Carla decided to seek support and joined the Social Job Search in June 2023.

You can say hi to her on Linkedin.

Here’s how it happened.

Over the past 5 months, she completed 2 internships and 20+ interviews across multiple companies. Finally, she found a company that values her work, matches her personality, and was excited to have her onboard.

Every week, she was doing interviews with multiple companies. Here’s a snapshot of her job search tracker that she shared on Linkedin.

Once she joined the program, networking was key to the job search process. She sent DMs to all kinds of people like designer, recruiters and hiring managers, who were all happy to hear from her.

She even got to final rounds with 3 companies - but they weren’t the best fit… until she landed an interview through a small recruiting agency that supports women in tech.

Every week she:

✅ applied to 20+ jobs

✅ directly connected to 30+ new people

✅ worked on practicing design presentations

✅ worked on new design projects at her internships

The Job Offer 🎉

By 4 months into the program, Carla was connecting with multiple companies every week. Sometimes, she was talking to 5+ companies at one time.

By the time she was interviewing at Marble, she was able to use a new design project as her case study. This new case study was the stepping stone to showcasing her design abilities in a real business setting. She also updated her portfolio to reflect this new experience.

In fact, Carla had just completed a short internship at Naos, a fintech startup, re-designing an end-to-end user experience for their fintech application. Her internship experience elevated her design and presentation skills, helping her land the role.

During her time in the program, she worked with a Job Search Coach to:

✅ optimize her LinkedIn profile, portfolio and resume

✅ learn how to use strategic networking to connect with new people

✅ practice case study presentation skills for interviews

✅ improve her mindset throughout the job search

When looking for a new role, she really wanted to work with a small team that valued her work. She found that at Marble when she started meeting with team members in the hiring process. Everyone from the Recruiter to the Software Engineers was excited to meet with her and learn about her design experience.

Carla signed an offer in Oct 2023 for a base salary of $100K+. Her first Product Design role, that’s fully remote with a 6 figure salary. 🤩

She went from working as a freelance graphic designer for years to joining a growing startup as the Lead Product Designer! I am so excited for her in this new 'employed era'! 🎉

“Since joining the program I've been getting plenty of interviews, networking a whole lot, and constantly working on my portfolio and my LinkedIn brand. Before I thought networking was just shooting out messages and hoping for the best, but as I learned here, it's about genuine connections through conversations and coffee chats and thanks to those I've met some really wonderful designers”

- Carla