Joseph Louis Tan

Career Creators

The first coaching brand built 100% on Backdoor Referrals™️.
Helping senior UX professionals land $200K+ roles — through referrals, not job boards.

⸻

❌ Tired of fixing your portfolio but still getting ghosted?
❌ Career switch or gaps holding you back?
❌ Final interviews, no offer, no feedback?

It’s not you. It’s the system.

⸻

🚪 The UX job market has changed.

Top offers now go to candidates who build direct relationships with hiring managers — before roles are posted.

No more chasing.
Here’s how we flip the game:

✅ Dream 100 Network → Connect with decision-makers at companies you care about
✅ Trojan Horse Doc → Pitch ideas that prove your value upfront
✅ Strategic Outreach → Messages that get 30%+ replies (vs 1–2% from job boards)

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📈 Results from Career Creators:

→ 3+ interviews in 4 weeks
→ $150K–$300K+ roles without burnout
→ Confidence + a system you can reuse for life

⸻

👋 I’m Joseph — ex-Head of Product Design, LinkedIn Top Voice (37K+ followers), and founder of Career Creators.

With 15+ years in UX and 5+ years hiring across roles and teams, I now help professionals:
→ Clarify their value
→ Own their story
→ Get hired without applying online

Over 1,000+ UXers coached across 25+ countries.

⸻

💡 Want to see how it works?
Grab my free Backdoor Referral Guide (link in Featured)

Founder • UX Career Coach • Career Strategist

SameKind

We bring together top people in the same industry to share highs, lows, and lessons in their careers twice a month in the same city.

Currently for Singapore, we hosting dinners for designers and founders. Coming soon: engineers, sales professionals, recruiters. Stay tuned!

Head of Membership (Singapore)

athena.vc

We invest up to $100K in early stage founders and build with you for 6 months.

As a Design Partner, I help our residents/founders to design, write, build and test their brand, pitch decks, landing pages, ad creatives, and MVPs.

Some recent works:

- A drone startup founder with his landing page design, write an email update to the Prime Minister of India.

- An AI startup design their branding, pitch deck, and website to get more demo bookings and interest from investors/VC partners.

- An Indian startup founder revamped his LinkedIn profile, branding, and landing pages to increase his warm leads conversion as he experiment and test across multiple business ideas pivots.

- A smart glasses startup founder with his branding, website and GTM strategy to launch into the Indian market.

- An Indonesian men’s health founder with his pitch deck to raise $500k from Iterative VC and Jeremy Cai (Italic CEO) by simplifying his complex founder story and business traction results.

Design Partner

ContactOut

ContactOut is a $10M ARR B2B data intelligence platform for 4M recruitment and sales professionals. Built, nurtured, and grew a talented remote 9-person product, design & content team across 6 countries.

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Achieved a 1.8x increase in user acquisition (900k to 1.6M) and doubled ARR to $10M by leading a comprehensive 3-months rebrand, and a redesign of 4 core SaaS products, resulting in a 2.8x increase in weekly active users (17k to 48k), and a 2x increase in daily active users (8k to 16k).

Boosted a 9.9x increase in user activation (8.4% to 82.8%), and a 13-fold increase in conversion rates from organic traffic (0.5% to 6.5%), by streamlining the sign-up and onboarding process, and revamping the homepage, 10 key marketing pages, and 5M SEO directory pages.

Scored a NPS of 88 and employee satisfaction scores of 95%, by leading company-wide team rituals like weekly all-hands, deep dives, team retrospectives, sprint planning, hackathons, and team offsite, and also implemented performance reviews, weekly 1:1s of mentoring and coaching for both product managers and designers, including developing the performance review documents, career levels, competency toolkits, 360 feedback, and individual development plans.

Director, Head of Product Design

Nanyang Technological University

Part-time Lecturer for DR5003 - Introduction to Design at School of Art, Design and Media.

This 13-week introductory course introduces students to the overall concept of design and its role in creating communications, objects, interactions, services and environments.

Achieved Mean Teaching Score of 4.96 / 5.0 (5% above average) & Mean Teaching Index of 99.1 / 100 (8% above Mean Teaching Index for School).

What students have to say:

"Like how he does activities to engage the students in class and the class was generally interesting to learn from."

"Approachable and passionate about the course makes us feel excited about the course too."

"He is very friendly and understanding with regard to trying to understand how our ideas came about and he builds upon these ideas very well. It allows us to be more confident in ourselves as he does not judge any idea for being too simple."

"He used his knowledge from the industry and applied it to the course content which helps to make us relate better."

"I really appreciate it when he showcased to us his portfolios for the logo design and UI/UX proposals. It's nice to see how what we learn relates to real life."

"Very approachable and I felt like I could actually learn from him during consultations. Lectures are very easy to listen to and adapt to the various tools in our assignments and in real life. He was also passionate in his sharing which makes things easier to listen to."

"Very approachable! Prof has many real-world experiences and is open to sharing his journey, an inspiration for aspiring students interested in the UI/UX industry as well. He is also very encouraging as seen from his positive choice of words."

"The ways to foster engagement and collaborative learning made three hours of learning fun and interesting to actively apply what we learnt even in the classroom. I particularly enjoyed the variety of videos, and pictures to understand concepts."

Adjunct Lecturer

CuriousCore

Mentored and coached 20+ students from CuriousCore's User Experience (UX) Career Accelerator programme on strategies and tactics to improve their resumes and portfolios, plan their next career move, and impress hiring managers in interviews to land their dream jobs.

Achieved average student rating score of 9.29 / 10.0.

What students have to say:

"Thankful to him for his sincerity in sharing with me his advice and personal career experiences, and his genuine generosity in sharing his thoughts on my portfolio, CV, and career strategy."

"Joseph was really patient and understanding. He also gave great insights into the hiring process and how I could improve my resume and portfolio."

"Appreciate him for understanding what I was lacking and bolstering it in a very nurturing manner. He gave me the space and prompts to come to my own conclusions as to what I had to get done which really helped drive certain points og my development home. I found the time spent with him well-utilised and structured. Speaking to him was a breeze and very insightful."

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Lectured over 50 students on "What UX Hiring Managers look out for?" so that they can stand out from the crowd in their job applications, get shortlisted for job interviews and get hired.

Achieved an average student rating score of 9.13 / 10.0. 

What students have to say:

"Excellent sharing of his journey and the use of personal style in portfolios really stuck with me."

"Joseph gives very practical advice on what changes we can make to our portfolio."

"Gave great insights on what hiring managers look out for."

"I love that Joseph was very engaging throughout his presentation and gave many useful tips of how we should be crafting our portfolio. I updated my portfolio using his tips and got a good immediate response during my mock interview."

"Joseph is very patient in getting his message across in a clear, engaging and understandable way."

Design Mentor & Guest Lecturer

Income

Income Insurance is Singapore's leading composite insurers in Singapore, offering life, health and general insurance. Part of the Income’s Digital Transformation Office and Corporate Venture Program.

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Increased overall app conversion by 71% (improved download to sign-up by 4X, and sign-up to purchase by 12.5X), and achieved 2X increase in total targetable customer base and daily revenue by strategizing and delivering an improved sign-up and buy flow for SNACK 2.0 app with bite-sized value-added segments to encourage momentum and reduce decision fatigue along user journey.

Led & designed the end-to-end user experience for a centralised business intelligence platform to decentralise & democratise data analytics for customer insights to the whole organisation, raise awareness of data literacy to drive more data-driven decisions, as well as increase employee productivity & reduce operating cost by streaming work processes from 1-2 weeks to minutes.

Designed a 2-hours remote design thinking workshop & trained over 300 participants as part of FutureX by Income 2-days Virtual Business Case Competition 2020, using the 3-Steps Accelerated Design Thinking Framework to rapidly identify a market gap & customers' needs, ideate, prioritise, prototype & test solutions. Achieved CSAT: 84%, CES: 86% & NPS: 42 based on 147 responses.

Experience Design Manager (Digital Transformation Office)

500 Startups

Trained & facilitated over 200 participants virtually as part of the 500 Startups Mentor team for the Youth Action Challenge Season 2 organised by National Youth Council Singapore. Tackled on issues ranging from mental well-being, support for vulnerable groups, jobs and the future of work, as well as environment & sustainability with the design thinking framework and remote design sprints.

Mentored 16 teams of 65 participants remotely as part of Youth Action Challenge Season 2 organised by National Youth Council Singapore on their startup business proposals focused on environment & sustainability to assess & give feedback on its problem validation, desirability, feasibility and viability of their solutions, and its financial, environmental and social impact.

Mentor, Trainer & Facilitator

DBS Bank

DBS Bank is a leading global financial services group across 19 markets with 33k employees (2020). Part of the DBS Transformation Group under the Future of Work department in an agile team of 5.

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Contributed an estimated bank-wide annual savings of 545K employee hours (~$27M) through a 10-15% improvement of meeting behaviours around punctuality, decision-making & psychological safety, by developing & implementing Meeting MOJO, a bank-wide movement (endorsed by CEO) to run effective meetings. Managed the change of managers & employees’ mindsets & behaviours through leveraging on new vocabulary & rituals, behavioural enablers, artefacts & nudges, digital feedback channel, data-driven storytelling reports & guerrilla O2O marketing campaigns. Received press mentions from Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan & Global Finance Magazine.

Managed an 6-person team of UI/UX designers & developers to develop a meeting productivity mobile app. Achieved over 2.4K app downloads in 1st month of bank-wide launch. Gained >90% positive feedback ratings from >500 employees on mobile app’s usefulness & ease of use.

Partnered in ‘Deliberately Developmental Organisation’ north-star project to strategise & establish the foundation & pillars of a high-trust feedback culture. Pitched proposal to C-Suites.

Assistant Vice President, Employee Journey Design Coach (DBS Transformation Group, Future of Work)

Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Ngee Ann Polytechnic is an institution of higher learning with a full-time student population of 13,000. Faculty under the School of Design & Environment. Founded etc.lab, a social design & research centre.

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Participated in an 8-person multi-agency team on a 6-month Sectoral Inter-agency Project. Researched & proposed 2 national policies to support seniors & caregivers in Singapore. Received unanimous endorsement from Social Sectoral Leadership Committee of Permanent Secretaries & follow-up with relevant ministries. Mentioned by Prime Minister in 2018 National Day Message.

Co-founded & co-led etc.lab, an interdisciplinary centre for social impact. Led a team of 10 design practitioners, architectural & product designers across various portfolios of market research & design consultancy projects, incubation of final year projects & design thinking workshops. 

Led & designed the design thinking curriculum for over 130 Foundation & Year 2 students with a team of 3 lecturers. Coordinated industry research collaboration with MSO, NEA, AVA & SportSG,. Mentored & consulted over 120 Year 3 students for their Final Year Capstone & Design Studio 3 projects, which received A' Design Award 2015 & International Design Awards 2014. 

Received the School Teaching Award for excellent efforts to design & facilitate effective & engaging learning experiences for students, as nominated by students & senior management.

Lecturer (Product Design & Innovation), Founding Co-Lead (etc.lab)

Follow for Daily UX Career Tips to Get Hired Fast & Paid More by Mastering Your Career Skills! | Head of Product Design @ ContactOut, Career Coach & Mentor | Steal My 5 Free Career Guides! - Link in Bio

You think the problem is your portfolio.
So you’ve been tweaking it for months — rewriting, redesigning, second-guessing.

But deep down, you’re starting to realize:
→ Great portfolios don’t get interviews on their own
→ Job boards are flooded with noise
→ And most UX roles are filled before they’re ever posted

That’s what I help you fix.

I work with UX professionals who are tired of guessing and chasing.
Together, we build trust, clarity, and momentum — so you get referred into roles you actually want.

Not through more polishing.
Through Backdoor Hiring — the method 50+ clients have used to land $150K–$300K roles without applying online.

Here’s what we do:
→ Get clarity on your ideal role + strengths
→ Engineer warm intros (no begging)
→ Create Trojan Horse Docs that spark instant interest
→ Turn conversations into offers

I call this the shift from Career Chaser to Career Creator.

It’s not about being louder or better.
It’s about being trusted and seen early, before the job ever hits LinkedIn.

Why listen to me?
→ 15+ years in UX & product design
→ 5+ years hiring across teams
→ LinkedIn Top Voice (37K+ followers)
→ Trained 1,000+ UXers worldwide

As one client put it:
“I thought my portfolio was the problem. Joseph showed me it wasn’t. Once I used Backdoor Referrals, I finally got interviews — without applying online.”

👉 Ready to stop spinning your wheels?
Grab my free Backdoor Referral Framework (link in Featured).

Venture Partner

"They probably hired you because you were cheaper."

I felt like an imposter.

Early in my career, I became a lecturer at 27.

The youngest on the team.

Surrounded by people 10, 20 years older.

That was what one of my senior co-workers said.

On my first day.

Another one came to me and said:

"Do you have a portfolio? I'd like to see it if you really are qualified."

Then the third punch in a row.

A designer I really admired.

Someone I was putting on a pedestal.

He came up to me and said in front of my students...

"You don't have enough experience."

I felt like a failure but I wanted to set an example for my students.

But I told myself in that moment:

"If I'm in the room, I belong here."

And that belief alone created a ripple effect.

Within my first year, I received the School Teaching Award.

Nominated by the school management and students.

One of the youngest lecturers to ever get it.

I realized that was what was missing:

Not the résumé.
Not the portfolio.
Not the outreach.

Confidence.

Because until you see yourself as an asset, everything else is just a mask.

That’s why inside Career Creators, we rebuild your confidence before we touch anything else.

I’ve opened 4 final spots in the program before the year ends.

It’s for designers who feel stuck, underpaid, or unseen and want roles with better pay, better culture, and better self-belief.

Comment 'ASSET' and I’ll send you the free training that explains the 3-Phase System we use.

You’ll see exactly how we turn imposter syndrome into interview confidence, step by step.

P.S. That board of thank you messages from my students beats a fancy award I got. You can see why from my smile :D

Land $200K+ UX Roles. No Perfect Portfolio Needed. → Get Clarity, Confidence, and Backdoor Referrals into Roles You Actually Want. | LinkedIn Top Voice | Ex-Head of Product Design

Is it possible to land a $200K UX role in today’s tough job market?

Most people would say no.
But I’ve seen it happen — again and again.

Charlene did it.
Sarah did it.
Jeff did it.

Three stories.
One system.

Charlene spent seven years in marketing before switching to UX.
She sent out dozens of applications — and got ghosted every time.

We built her Backstage Pass — a 5-slide idea deck for her dream company.
Instead of asking for a job, she shared a few ways they could improve their onboarding flow.

That one email turned into a 30-minute chat that ran over an hour.
A few weeks later, a new role opened.
The manager remembered her — and fast-tracked her to the final round.

“For the first time, doors opened because of who I am — not just what’s on my résumé.”

That’s the Backstage Pass in action.

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Sarah was stuck in interviews that went nowhere.
She had the skills, but no traction.

We mapped her Dream Network — starting with a museum she admired.
She reached out to the director, not HR.
They talked about visitor experience and culture — no pitch, just curiosity.

Then she followed up with a short presentation — a simple visitor audit with ideas to improve the journey.

The director was so impressed she shared it internally.
Months later, a design agency director who’d seen her work invited her for a chat.
That chat turned into an offer.

Sarah didn’t chase opportunities.
She created them — through conversation.

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Jeff had been laid off for months.
Three short roles in a row made him doubt himself.
He kept saying, “Who’s going to hire me now?”

He didn’t want just any job — he wanted a team he could trust.

Inside Career Creators, we rebuilt everything from the inside out.
He mapped his Career GPS and found his red thread — a thoughtful, analytical builder who bridges strategy, systems, and people.

Then he built his first Backstage Pass for a company he admired.
It impressed the hiring manager so much they cancelled the normal portfolio review.
Even though he didn’t get that role, the manager became his champion.

That experience showed him that insight beats projects.

A few months later, Walmart reached out.
Jeff walked in clear, calm, and confident.
He reframed his short stints as “experiments in finding the right culture.”
He focused on impact, trust, and fit — not deliverables.

By May, he’d moved his family to Arkansas for a $200K+ package —
and a team that finally shared his values.

Because confidence isn’t loud.
It’s quiet certainty that builds trust — and the right offers follow.

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Different stories.
Same system.

→ Charlene built trust.
→ Sarah built relationships.
→ Jeff built confidence.

That’s how the top 1% land $200K UX roles — without job boards or burnout.

Join my free live masterclass tomorrow:
“How the Top 1% Land $200K UX Roles Without Job Boards, Burnout, or Luck.”

Links to join in the comments below 👇

See you there.

I hear this a lot.
“I’ll start reaching out once I fix my portfolio.”

But here’s the problem.
The portfolio isn’t the starting line.
It’s the finish line.

The best portfolios don’t create opportunities.
Opportunities create the best portfolios.

Think about it.
You can’t fix a story by rearranging the slides.
You fix it by living a better story.

Most hiring managers don’t care about the perfect case study.
They care about how you think.
They care about how you make sense of messy problems.

That’s why I teach people to build proof first.
Send one small idea deck.
One 5-slide Backstage Pass.
One note that says,
“I saw this on your app and thought of a way to improve it.”

That small proof builds trust.
And trust opens doors your portfolio can’t.

I talk about this shift in the masterclass replay.
It’s up until Sunday night.

🎥 Watch it before it comes down — https://lnkd.in/daMGspgd

It might save you months of fixing something that wasn’t broken.

Why most UX designers get ignored (and how to stand out)

Too many UX designers rely on their portfolio to get them hired.

Here’s the problem: Portfolios don’t get you jobs. Positioning does.

If you look like just another designer, hiring managers will scroll past you.

🚫 Generic skills like “Wireframing, UX Research, Prototyping” won’t make you stand out.
🚫 A basic case study that shows “I followed a UX process” won’t grab attention.
🚫 A LinkedIn profile that says “Passionate about design” won’t get recruiters to DM you.

So what works instead? Power Positioning.

✅ Find your niche. What’s the unique problem you solve?
✅ Showcase impact. Instead of “I designed a new UI,” say, “I improved task completion by 38%.”
✅ Build your brand. Share your insights, case studies, and lessons online—make hiring managers notice you before you apply.

If you don’t position yourself, you’ll get ignored. If you do it right, companies will start coming to you.

Who here has a clear niche? Comment below.

The biggest changes in my career came from tiny steps no one saw.

I realised that again this morning when I looked at the felt board on my desk.
It says: Small steps done daily build the career you dream about.

And for a moment, I just sat there.
Coffee in hand.
Quiet Sunday.
Thinking about how many times I used to wake up like this feeling stuck.

That heavy feeling.
Not knowing what move to make next.
Telling myself I needed a big breakthrough.
Then doing nothing because the “big thing” felt too far away.

If you’ve felt that before, I get it.
I’ve lived it.

When I look back now, it wasn’t the big moments that changed my path.
Not the job titles.
Not the perfect projects.
Not the lucky timing.

It was the small things I did on days that looked exactly like today.

Sending one brave message even when I doubted myself.
Fixing one tiny part of my portfolio instead of waiting for a full rebuild.
Sharing one honest thought on LinkedIn even when my voice shook a little.
Helping one person with no plan or outcome in mind.

None of these felt important at the time.
But they stacked.
They moved me forward.
And I see the same thing in the clients I coach every week.

The small steps mattered more than the big moments.

So if today is one of those quiet Sundays where you feel behind…
or unsure…
or tired of trying…

Try this:
Take one step that takes less than five minutes.

Send one message.
Rewrite one sentence in your story.
List one company you care about.
Reach out to one person you admire.

Just one.

Because small steps change your direction.
Daily steps change your life.

That’s the reminder I needed today.
Maybe it’s the reminder you needed too.

UX designers say they’re too busy to do strategic outreach.

But they’re somehow not too busy to:

❌ Scroll job boards for hours
❌ Apply to 50+ jobs a week
❌ Tweak their resume endlessly

If that approach worked, wouldn’t you be hired by now?

Here’s the truth:

👉 3 hours of strategic outreach > 30 hours of mass applying.
👉 Hiring managers don’t browse job boards—they hire through referrals.
👉 The best roles aren’t even listed online.

One of my clients landed 5 interviews in 2 weeks just by shifting his focus from job boards to direct connections.

It’s not about working harder. It’s about working smarter.

If you want to learn the 3-hour-a-week job search system, DM me “3HOURS” and I’ll send it over.

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