I didn’t say don’t be passionate or communicate your value. What I said was don’t pick a niche. For example, when I was firing at Nike, nothing turned me off more than a portfolio that was completely footwear design. I never looked to hire “Footwear Designers”, I looked to hire fantastic designers who could solve problems and were passionate about footwear. Even if the person only ever worked at footwear companies, I wanted to see side projects, branding, packaging… more than just the tasks assigned. I wanted to make sure that the person was going to operate beyond a narrow bandwidth and cause trouble at the company with every creative output, and that they were taking hands on experience from outside the industry and brining it in.
That might read like semantics, but there is a pretty big difference. When I interviewed at frog design one of the interviewers sat down and said “ugh, a footwear guy”. I smiled and said, "nope, just a guy that works for one of the biggest brands in the world who solved problems for users that happen to take the form of shoes. "He leaned forward, I got the job.
Now that I am in CE I feel the same, and of the team I’ve hired all of them have done things outside of CE. It makes for a richer design culture. Fight the niche.