Why I Stopped Sounding Like Every Other Designer on LinkedIn

You’ve read a profile that starts like this:

“Award-winning, passionate, strategic, multidisciplinary designer with a proven track record of creating intuitive experiences across multiple sectors.”

You’ve read that. I was that. And I hated it.

Not because it was false. Because it meant absolutely nothing.

My old profile read like it was trying to land a corporate job at a bank I’d never bank with. It was safe. It was polished. It was SEO’d within an inch of its life.

But it wasn’t me.

When You Realise You Sound Like Everyone Else

The turning point came when I scrolled through 20 designer profiles on LinkedIn, and every one of them sounded like mine. Same buzzwords. Same “creative problem solver” language. Same bullet points listing every tool known to Adobe.

I started wondering: if you covered the name on the profile, could anyone even tell the difference?

Probably not. Which is wild — because I do good work. I’ve designed complex internal tools, scaled platforms from zero, and cleaned up more post-agency Figma carnage than I care to admit. But you wouldn’t know that from the way I used to write about myself.

I’m Not Selling a CV. I’m Selling Clarity.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want a full-time job at a giant corporation. I’m not freelancing pixel-by-pixel.

I work in a UI UX design agency as a product design partner — embedded in startup teams, sorting out their UX messes and helping them actually scale.

So why was I still introducing myself like I was applying for a graduate scheme?

The clients we work with at DNSK WORK — startup founders, product leads, deeply overwhelmed marketers — don’t want to read a CV. They want to know if you can think. If you can solve. If you get it.

So I rebuilt my profile like I would a broken product:

• Who’s the user? (A founder under pressure)

• What’s the problem? (Every designer sounds the same)

• What’s the goal? (Get them to pause, laugh, nod, and book a call)

I Rewrote the Whole Thing. Aggressively.

Here’s how it went:

Before: "Award-winning UX/UI designer with 8+ years of experience..."
After: "I design the part of your product people complain about."

Before: "Helping businesses create intuitive digital experiences."
After: "You know that screen no one wants to touch? That’s my happy place."

Before: "Skilled in wireframing, prototyping, and design systems."
After: "I sketch fast, ship faster, and love cleaning up messy flows."

Each line now filters people. It either makes them think “yep, this person gets it” — or it sends them running to a safe, corporate portfolio full of rounded buttons and lorem ipsum. Either way, I win.

The Most Fun I’ve Had Writing About Myself

Honestly? Rewriting my profile was the most creatively liberating thing I’ve done this year. I wasn’t just ticking boxes. I was actually saying something.

I told real stories in the experience section. I dropped the feature list and focused on the fun, messy, uncomfortable bits — the parts that make real product design interesting.

You wouldn’t put lorem ipsum in your UI. So why are you filling your profile with it?

If You’re Not Saying Something, You’re Saying Nothing

Voice isn’t fluff. It’s a filter. And if you’re a designer working solo, in a small studio, or as a consultant — it might be the only thing that gets you in the door.

The right words act like a magnet. They repel the wrong clients. They attract the ones you actually want to work with. That’s not branding. That’s just being clear.

Because let’s face it — no founder wants to message someone whose entire profile reads like a ChatGPT prompt from 2022.

A Few Things to Kill Immediately:

Be Memorable or Be Scrolled Past

If your profile sounds like a template, that’s how people will treat it. If it sounds like you, they might actually remember it.

So write like a person. Be clear. Be confident. And if you can, make someone smile while reading it.

Because nobody wants to hire a buzzword.

They want to hire you.