UX hiring managers are looking for three things right now, and UX isn't specifically one of them. Not exactly reassuring if you've spent years polishing your process pages. That's the reality Sylvain Maretto lays out in this episode, and it's coming from someone actually reviewing applications, not theorizing about them.
At the time of this recording, Sylvain was the director of design at Ecosia, the search engine that funds tree planting with its profits. He's spent 15 years building and leading design teams across Berlin, Tokyo, and beyond, with stops at Omio (joined when it was 25 people), Zalando, Tour Radar, and GetYourGuide. He also helped seal the acquisition of Holoplot, the audio technology behind the sound system inside the Vegas Sphere.
He joined Sarah after leaving a comment on a LinkedIn post arguing portfolios need to be more experimental. He disagreed, and what follows is his actual answer: a triangle of AI fluency, UI craft, and business acumen. UX gets treated as a given, not a differentiator.
From there, Sylvain walks through what happens inside an applicant tracking system when 500 people apply for one role. Why the AI built into most of those tools produces noise instead of signal. What a job description is actually telling you, if you read it twice. And how to talk about results when a project got canceled before it ever shipped.
If you've ever wondered what's actually happening on the other side of your application, this is that answer.
Topics Discussed
✅ The three things Sylvain actually screens for when he opens a portfolio, and UX isn't one of them
✅ What happens to your application the second it lands in an ATS, and why you're one of 500 people applying for the same slot
✅ Why the AI built into most hiring software is, in Sylvain's own words, mostly noise
✅ The STAR framework he wants every case study to follow, and why your "action" section is probably too long
✅ What to say about a project that got canceled or never shipped, when you still need to show results
✅ How reading a job description twice instead of once changes what you should actually be highlighting
✅ Whether hiring managers expect different things by country, or if it's really just about company stage
✅ Why Sylvain thinks a narrow, specific niche beats trying to check every box on a job post
✅ The values-based signal he built into his own hiring process at Ecosia that most candidates don't see coming
Links & Resources
🔗 Connect with Sylvain on LinkedIn
🔗 Sarah's book: The Product of You
🔗 Ioana Teleanu's LinkedIn post that started this conversation
🎯 How I can help with your UX job search
📋 Get my UX case study template