As 2024 winds down, many of us are looking forward to some well-deserved downtime after a year of constant changes in the job market marked by restructures and redundancies. I know that updating your profile can feel like a low priority amidst all the work and life commitments. But I’ve also seen the perks of remaining job-ready and how challenging and stressful it can be to jump into a job search at short notice.
The holiday season’s slower pace is a perfect opportunity to invest a little time in yourself by refreshing your profile—without the usual stress. With hiring traditionally ramping up in the new year, taking these few hours now can give you peace of mind and a confident start to 2025.
Below, I’ve put together a quick, actionable checklist to help you prepare for the new year. It’s designed to be efficient—requiring only about 4 hours total—so you can enjoy your break while setting yourself up to be job-ready in the new year.
5 steps to get job-ready
Step 1: Update your LinkedIn
Time needed: 1-1.5 hours
LinkedIn is the main platform for job searching and being found and shortlisted for new opportunities. Taking the time to update and optimise your LinkedIn profile can make a huge difference:
- Check your contact details: Ensure your details are all correct and add a link to your work samples / portfolio site
- Headline: Update your headline to reflect your target roles & keywords that might be used to search for this (e.g. “Product Designer; UX/UI Designer” or “Lead Consultant – Service Design, Research, Digital Transformation”).
- About section: Introduce yourself with 1-2 paragraphs that clearly state what you do, your key skills, and highlight any niche experience and accomplishments.
- Work experience: Update each role to give context by including:
- Brief introduction to the organisation: Industry, size, market position
- Role & team: Explain where your role sat within the team and working style (e.g. agile squads, product team, innovation lab, consulting to the business)
- Projects: List products, services and problems you worked on
- Achievements: Show your impact / celebrate your success
- “Open to Work”: Activate this setting—either add the green badge or set it to notify recruiters discreetly.
Step 2: Refresh your resume to be job-ready
Time needed: 30 minutes
Keep your resume concise (2–3 pages), and focus on your most recent & relevant experience.
- Transfer Content: Copy your updated LinkedIn details across for each role, and use your About section for your intro paragraph.
- Quick formatting: Tools like Canva are great for outputting a professionally formatted resume quickly.
TOP TIP: Dodge the analysis paralysis! Don’t overthink formatting or keywords at this stage; the aim is to have an updated resume you can refine.
Step 3: Create project overviews
Time needed: 1.5 hours (about 30 minutes per project)
Craft three one-page project overviews—they are a great way to showcase your work. Start with the text and lists—you can always add formatting later.
For each project, list:
- Who: Client, brand, industry sector
- What: Product, service, project, problem you were trying to solve
- Your role
- Your process: List your approach, key artefacts you created
- The team: The squad, project team or collaborators across the business
- Results: Impact, outcomes, status, learnings, reflections
- Visuals: Choose one or two key images to feature – ideally 1 final product hero shot and 1 project artefact
Once you have your content ready, simply format these into one-page project overview using the basic format outlined below:
TOP TIP: Use Figma to create a shareable slide deck that you can share via URL.
Step 4: Set up job alerts
Time needed: 15 minutes
Take advantage of job alert features on LinkedIn, Seek, Indeed, Glassdoor and Google to get notified about relevant opportunities.
Step 5: Connect with Specialist Recruiters (like me!)
Time needed: 15 minutes
Recruiters with expertise in your field can be invaluable allies in your job search and getting job-ready. Beyond connecting you with active roles, I help candidates by providing insights into the current job market, explaining hiring trends, providing advice on how to gain more traction with your profile, and ideas to improve your market visibility.
Here’s how to find us:
- Research Recruiters: Look for those posting roles in your focus area for your location.
- Connect: Reach out with a brief message introducing yourself, and sharing your resume and portfolio link.
I hope this checklist makes it easier for you to get job-ready without stress. And if you’re in the HCD space and want more targeted support—whether for resume advice, market insights, or job connections—I’m here to help. Wishing you a restful end to 2024 and a fantastic year ahead!
About the author
Kate Verran is Aquent Australia's Talent Specialist, focused on supporting candidates within CX, UX & Service Design. Roles include UX/UI Design, Product Design, UX Research, CX Design, Service Design, HCD, Chapter Leads, UI Design / Visual Design and more! She works with candidates of all experience & skill levels, working across Australia, or looking to relocate to Australia from overseas. Being purely candidate-focused allows her to objectively provide talent with visibility of all human-centred design (HCD) related opportunities across our Australian business. In turn, this means our clients have access to all the best talent — it's a win-win and part of the reason our candidates regularly become our clients, and our clients become our candidates. She's a self-confessed geek and a passionate advocate for inclusive design, accessibility and social impact. She's always looking to expand her connections – drop her a line to chat re. active roles, market insights, career progression support, industry event information, and client / studio recommendations - [email protected] / +61 2 8288 8288
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