🤫 The Silent Career Killer #17
Stop Being "FORGETTABLY GOOD" at UX | Unmasking 50 hidden threats to your UX career | part 17 of 50
My dear UX friends, let me ask you something:
If I were to talk to your colleagues about you right now – not just your immediate team, but people across your organization – what would they say is your "thing"?
NOT your job title.
NOT your role on paper.
I'm talking about your “professional brand”, that distinct value you bring that makes people think "ah yes, [your name] is the one who..."
If you're drawing a blank, you're not alone.
But here's the thing that most career advice won't tell you ↴
Your UX brand is about being strategically memorable!
I've mentored countless talented UXers who are excellent at their craft but have completely overlooked crafting their own professional narrative.
They've let their reputation develop by default rather than by design.
Think about that for a moment…
We spend hours crafting the perfect user journey, obsessing over every touchpoint and interaction.
Yet when it comes to our own professional journey, we often just... let it happen.
The Cost of a “Default Brand”
Here's what I've learned after years in the field:
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does professional reputation.
If you're not actively shaping how you're perceived, others will do it for you – and not always in ways that serve your career goals.
You might be:
The reliable workhorse who always delivers (but is never seen as strategic)
The creative idea person (who isn't trusted with major initiatives)
The research expert (who's pigeonholed into just that one aspect of UX)
None of these are bad personas.
The problem is when they're assigned to you rather than chosen by you.
The Strategic Shift
Building your professional brand is NOT about self-promotion, creating a fake persona or becoming a “UX influencer”.
It's about intentionally aligning how you're perceived with the unique value you actually bring.
The Anatomy of a Strong UX Brand
I recently worked a senior UX designer who was fantastic at her job but felt stuck.
When we mapped out how others perceived her, we discovered something interesting: while everyone agreed she was talented, no one could pinpoint her unique value proposition.
She was good at everything, which ironically meant she wasn't known for anything.
Here's how we transformed her brand:
1. The Expertise Audit
First, we listed every project she'd worked on in the last two years and identified patterns where she'd created unexpected value.
We discovered she had a knack for turning research insights into business opportunities – something she did naturally but never highlighted.
2. The Strategic Narrative
Instead of just presenting research findings, she started framing her insights as business opportunities: "This usability issue isn't just frustrating users – it's causing a 23% drop in premium subscription conversions."
Suddenly, executives were paying attention.
3. The Visibility Matrix
We created what I call a version of "visibility matrix" – mapping out key stakeholders and identifying opportunities to demonstrate her expertise:
Product Reviews: Instead of just giving UI feedback, she started highlighting business implications
Team Meetings: Volunteered to share monthly "Customer Insight to Revenue" opportunities
Design Reviews: Reframed discussions from "user needs" to "growth opportunities"
Within 3 months, she was getting invited to strategy meetings she'd never had access to before.
The Power Move Most UXers Miss
Here's where it gets interesting.
Most UXers try to brand themselves through their deliverables – the personas, the journey maps, the wire flows.
But the real power move is to brand yourself through how you think.
Let me give you 3 concrete ways to do this: