👋 Hey, I’m Nikki. Each week I write about user research strategy, communicating impact, and using AI to do your best work
What’s coming up!
Free 30-minute live session on Claude Agents for User Researchers on October 20th at 4:30pm GMT
(Paid) 3-hour in-depth workshop: Introduction to Claude Agents for User Researchers on October 27th from 2:30-5:30pm GMT
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Welcome to a new home!
As you might be able to see, I’ve moved from Substack to Beehiiv — this move came for a number of reasons, most of all trying to make the experience easier and better for you, as well as giving me more flexibility to grow. Also, I don’t 100% agree with Substack’s vibes and how they make money, and have taken months to research this (and many other) platforms. Anyways, all this means is that there will be a slightly different format but you can still expect:
Weekly content on user research strategy, impact, and craft, including how to use AI without diluting rigor and craft
Slightly shorter content to make it easier for you to read and put into practice same day or week
For paid subscribers, on top of this, you get: a grab this with each newsletter including something you can download or copy to get you started, weekly or bi-weekly podcast to answer your questions, a community space in Beehiiv, and a hub of ever growing resources, access to all content, including extra templates, recordings, and ROI calculators
And, I have redesigned our hub (!!!), which is where all the resources live. You can find the hub here. Free subscribers have limited access to information, while paid subscribers get all the goods.
As always, I will do my best to keep the topics and writing as relevant to you as possible and to bring all the vulnerability, real examples, and share everything I can with my experience to help.
I’d be ever so grateful for you to take this survey to help me get a pulse on the topics I should be aiming for and what is most helpful for you:
Anyways, today we are talking about…
Surface-level vs boss-level impact
I review a whole lotta resumes, and a lot of the problems I see boil down to:
Bullets reading like a job description. Things like “led generative and evaluative research," "collaborated cross-functionally," "conducted workshops" and "created personas" describe what any researcher can do, so hiring managers don’t care nor do they learn anything meaningful about you
Too much in one. Packing four or five activities into one bullet is like reading a run-on sentence. You tell me nothing of consequence when you put everything in one bullet, as it reads too broad with no real outcome
No numbers. Please, PLEASE, put numbers where every you can. Whenever you write a bullet, always think "how many," whether that was sessions, participants, stakeholders, teams, features or decisions
Vague phrases and jargon. Phrases like "maintain positive CSAT," "enabling the design and feature adaptation," "aid in product development" literally mean nothing. They are the buzzwords we hate to listen to in town halls, so please don’t put them in here
Tasks as achievements. Lines like "create and test prototypes," "communicated product plans and progress" and "developed SOPs" are tasks with no result. Please don’t list out the tasks you did, but rather the actual things you changed
Strongest material buried or in the wrong order. Please put the most important and impactful work you did at the top of the list of each job! This way hiring managers read it first. I don’t want to have to search for the cool shit you did
…But, the BIGGEST ISSUE I always see is…
NO IMPACT!!!!
The number of times I see bullet points that describe a given activity and either end there or on something like, “informed product decisions," "enhanced user satisfaction" or "successful launch."
As a hiring manager, guess what I’m asking:
SO WHAT? WHAT DID YOU DO? WHAT HAPPENED?!?!
Everything stays surface level. And surface level does not give me, the hiring manager, the information I need to know to consider if you would be a good fit for the role we’re hiring for.
And if I can’t work that out, I’m not inviting you for an interview (not be harsh but just telling the truth here!). We look at SO many resumes, the ones that stand out are the ones that tell us what changed because of work, what the consequence was of the work.
Instead, I need you to tell me the CHANGE that happened because of your work, which can look like:
Team or business metrics moving
Decisions being made
Things going on the roadmap
Customer metrics (ex: satisfaction) moving
How do you do this?
Go from surface-level to boss-level impact
I like to think about each bullet point as a ladder and, as you move up the ladder, your bullet becomes more strategic and impactful. Each rung answers "so what" about the rung below it.
Task. What you did. Conducted usability testing.
Scale. How much of it you did. Ran 30 usability sessions across 4 airports.
Output. What the research produced. …which surfaced 12 notification issues or …which informed 2 product decisions.
Change. What someone decided or did because of it. …which led to redesigning 5 system notifications.
Boss level. What moved for users, the team or the business. …so technicians complete tasks 43% faster with 36% fewer errors.
Surface-level bullets sit at rungs one to three. These days, it’s more and more important to get as boss level as possible on your resume so you up your chances of getting to the next step of the job process.
How to make the leap
I have six exercises that I recommend you go through, all building on each other, to help you get to the most boss-level resume possible. Do they take time? Absolutely. But are they worth it? 100%. I’ve gone through these myself and have coached hundreds of researchers through these same exercises and I promise they will leave you feeling more comfortable and confident with your resume.
Exercise 1. The brain dump
When you edit your existing bullets, the old wording anchors you and you end up shuffling the same words around. So start with a blank page instead.
What to do
Take one role at a time, starting with your most recent one
Set a timer for 30 minutes
Write down every project, initiative, process and piece of work you're proud of from that role, one line each
Don't polish anything, don't worry about numbers yet, and don't judge whether something is resume-worthy.
Prompts if you get stuck
Which projects did you lead from start to finish?
What did you build that didn't exist before you arrived, like a process, a participant panel, a repository or a template?
Which study do you still bring up in interviews?
When did a team change its mind about something after seeing your research?
What did you teach other people to do?
What did you make faster, cheaper or easier for your team?
What did leadership thank you for, or keep asking about?
What would have gone wrong if you hadn't been there?
Exercise 2. Rate your rungs
Now you want to see where your bullets stop.
What to do
Copy your current resume bullets and your brain dump lines into one list
Next to each one, write the number of the rung it reaches right now
Highlight anything at rung four or five
Worked example
Bullet or brain dump line | Rung | Why |
|---|---|---|
Collaborated cross-functionally with product, design and engineering | 1 | A task, and one every researcher does |
Conducted 25+ interviews with drivers across 3 cities | 2 | Has scale, nothing about what came of it |
Delivered actionable recommendations on substitutions | 3 | An output, with no change mentioned |
Built a participant panel of 600+ customers | 2 | Scale, no outcome |
Substitution research led to a new "approve swaps" feature | 4 | A change happened |
Trained designers to run usability tests | 1 | A task, missing how many and what it led to |
Most people find almost everything at rungs one to three when they do this, which is normal, so please don't panic. This is here to tell you which bullets need work and how far to push it.
Exercise 3. The "what did that lead to" chain
This exercise is the main part of the workbook. For every bullet at rung one, two or three, keep asking the same question until you hit something a person outside research would care about.
What to do
Write the bullet at the top of a page.
Ask "what did that lead to?" and write the answer on the next line.
Ask the same question about that answer, and keep going.
Stop when you reach a number that moved, a decision someone made, money or time saved, or something people could do that they couldn't do before.
For each bullet, this almost looks like you are “5-whying” yourself. Do this by asking:
What did that lead to?
What did that lead to?
What did that lead to?
Where I stopped:
Example:
Bullet: Delivered actionable recommendations on meal substitutions
What did that lead to? The product team agreed to stop auto-swapping items
What did that lead to? We built an "approve swaps" step in the app before the shopper picks
What did that lead to? Customers started approving or rejecting swaps themselves
What did that lead to? Refund requests for substituted items dropped from about 12% of orders to 5%
Where I stopped: Refund requests dropped from 12% to 5% of orders
When the answer is "I don't know"
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