What The Last Showgirl Taught Me About the UX Job Market

I didn’t expect “The Last Showgirl” to hit so close to home. But there I was, watching a former Vegas dancer grapple with obsolescence, feeling like I was staring into a mirror.

At 57, she wasn’t out of talent. She was out of time. The world had changed around her.

Sound familiar?

Earlier that day, I had read Jared Spool’s article, “Why is the UX Job Market Such a Mess Right Now?” He lays it out plainly: the tax credits dried up, interest rates went up, companies overhired, and now thousands of capable, experienced UX professionals are out of work. Suddenly, it’s not about how good you are. It’s about whether anyone is willing to bet on you in a risk-averse market.

Much like the dancer in the film, many of us are left asking: What do I do when the role I trained for no longer exists?

The Art of Reinvention

The showgirl’s journey isn’t a tale of decline. It’s one of reinvention. She fights to be seen as something more than what people remember her for. And that’s where I think our industry is stuck. Many UX practitioners, especially those with leadership or systems backgrounds, are still trying to fit into frames that no longer serve us: job titles that undersell our impact, interview processes that reduce design to a deliverable factory.

But what if, like her, we dared to reframe ourselves?

What if we remembered that we are the talent, and that recruiters and companies should be competing for the value we bring?

Spool urges job seekers to stop spray-and-praying and start telling better stories. I think he’s right, but I’d take it one step further: we need to redesign our professional identities altogether. The market isn’t asking us to prove our wireframing skills. It’s asking us to show how we drive value in ambiguity, complexity, and scale. That’s not a portfolio. That’s a narrative.

Finding Your Worth

“The Last Showgirl” reminded me that dignity doesn’t come from being wanted by everyone. It comes from knowing your worth, even when no one else sees it yet.

Yes, there’s an uncomfortable truth here about age and “fresh perspectives.” The showgirl’s brutal audition scene shows how industries discard experience for youth. But her most powerful moment isn’t when she adapts to their expectations. It’s when she forces everyone to reckon with what they’re losing by forgetting what she represents.

Maybe that’s the real test in a broken job market: Can you still see yourself when the spotlight moves on?

The answer isn’t to chase every trend or diminish yourself to fit smaller stages. It’s to recognize that your experience navigating change, complexity, and ambiguity is exactly what organizations need, even if they don’t know how to hire for it yet.