Why I Stopped Sounding like EVERY OTHER Designer on Linkedin

Award-winning. Passionate. Strategic. Driven.

You've seen those words before – probably too many times. They were on my old LinkedIn profile too. It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t helping either.

I’m a product designer. A good one. I’ve worked across startups, scaling platforms, internal tools, messy legacy systems, and MVPs with a 6-day deadline. But you wouldn’t know that from how I used to describe myself online. My old bio read like it was trying to win a graduate scheme. Or worse – like I didn’t know who I was talking to.

And that’s the issue.

If you’re a freelance designer or a design partner working with product teams, your positioning does more work than your portfolio. Especially when you’re not being introduced by an agency or a recruiter. Especially when the first scroll is your whole pitch.

So I rewrote everything. And I treated it like a UX problem.

TL;DR: If you’re curious what mine looks like now – well, do Google on Tanya Donska.

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The Real Problem

I wasn’t trying to land a job at a bank. I wasn’t looking for freelance gigs off Upwork either. I was looking to connect with founders, product leads, and small startup teams who were already shipping product – but needed help untangling the UX side of things.

They didn’t need a long list of tools. They didn’t need to hear that I was passionate. They needed to trust that I could land inside a messy sprint and sort it out without fuss.

But instead, my old bio opened with:

"Award-winning UI/UX designer with experience across fintech, healthtech, and e-commerce."

Which… doesn’t say much. It sounds like it was scraped off a portfolio generator.

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What I Changed (And Why It Works)

Instead of treating my profile like a CV, I treated it like a landing page. What’s the hook? Who’s it for? What should they remember?

Here’s a before-and-after:

The shift isn’t about being quirky. It’s about being specific – about showing I understand what these teams actually need.

Because if your onboarding sucks, if your dashboard makes people give up, if your conversion flow is bloated with good intentions – you don’t need someone who says they’re strategic. You need someone who can cut through the noise and fix it.

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What Most Designer Profiles Get Wrong

1. Trying to be for everyone.

If your headline says "UX/UI Design Services" or "visual designer, product thinker, Webflow dev, motion hobbyist" – you’re not showing range. You’re just being unclear.

2. Listing tools instead of traits.

I can use Figma. So can 20,000,000 other people. Show me how you think, not just what you click.

3. Writing like a cover letter.

LinkedIn is not your CV. It’s your pitch. Cut the passive voice. Say what you do in a sentence that sticks.

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UX Rules Apply to You Too

Designers forget that we’re also interfaces. When someone scrolls your profile, they’re scanning. They’re reading tone, clarity, energy. You have 5 seconds to tell them what kind of designer you are. Don’t waste it on lorem ipsum.

So here’s what I did instead:

1. Killed every generic phrase that made me sound like I was applying for an internship.
2. Rewrote everything with a single user in mind: a startup lead who’s overwhelmed.
3. Injected tone, clarity, and a bit of dry humour – because that’s how I actually work.
4. Reframed every line as a hook, not a badge.

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Voice is a Filter

The biggest shift? Realising that I wasn’t writing to appeal to everyone – I was writing to filter. A good profile repels as much as it attracts.

If you’re serious about working with the right kinds of teams, say something that makes the wrong ones hesitate. That’s how you avoid getting stuck on projects where you’re treated like a pixel pusher.

So if your profile still says "passionate problem solver" – maybe it’s time to solve your own.

Say what you actually do. Be clear. Be useful. And if you can, be a little human.

You wouldn’t use a vague heading in your UI. Don’t use one in your profile.

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