3 success steps to a Ux Research or UI Design career

It can feel overwhelming to know where to start whether it’s your first Ux/Ui job or you are pivoting careers.

From a Ux perspective: Your future boss/team is the end user and YOU are the product.

This article gives three steps to become the BEST product available

Unlike the STAR method (used to write a good resume) or SMART goals (used to articulate accomplishments in an interview), you will do three steps, which I’ve developed for you by Ux-ing my own Ux journey.

Today we will walk down three steps. A pivot bio statement (step 1), articulates your starting hurdles (step 2), which you’ll remedy to show your value gains (step 3). In doing these three steps you have a clear path to correct your (perceived) deficiencies and get hired for your dream role.

Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager and team.
Why do I want to hire the brand of YOU? Your pivot bio statement is the first step.

1. Pivot bio statement

Write down what makes you unique — from both sides

Write a career summary that includes the good (and in parenthesis what you or other perceive as your deficiencies). Let me help you by sharing mine:

Kristina wants to use her design-thinking and mentoring skills from her 20+ years as an exhibit and graphic designer (so she is older and was in a different industry). She seeks to expand on the knowledge gained from her BFA and MFA degrees (so she is expensive to hire) to pivot industries into Ux (so she doesn’t already know Ux) and she wants to work as an entry or mid-level Ux Researcher or Product Owner / PM (but she’s probably not moldable if she’s already had a career). She seeks opportunities to mentor, lead, and move up within a medium to large-sized company’s team formerly working in small companies and orgs (so she wants to work in a B2B / enterprise environment but hasn’t worked for that environment / scale before). She’s chosen to immerse herself with self-education methods rather investing in a trade school, bootcamp, or returning to college for another formal degree (so she doesn’t have money/time/desire to work hard).

The hurdles are what you discovered from step one.

2. Hurdles

Now that you’ve written your (perceived) hurdles let’s expand them. What objections arose? What makes you not career ready yet?

Knowing your mentally blocks is important before you can pivot to your solution. My (perceived) hurdles are below, create or add yours as you see fit based on your pivot bio statement.

1. How do you understand the new industry and its terminologies and buzzwords when it’s not your former background?
2. How do you get the Ux skills without that formal education?
3. How do you acquire team building skills and create a portfolio to showcase talent without a formal degree and gain the skills for an entry-level position as a UX Researcher/UX Designer before having any on-the-job skills?
4. How do you overcome a hiring managers that you may be “too old” as a mid-career job seeker, or not moldable to begin an entry-level position?
   How do you prove your value to people and break the assumption that you are too expensive to hire because you have advanced or unrelated degrees?
5. How do you get enterprise experience with a larger company without having enterprise experience?

Hurdles are easier to overcome when you have solutions consisting of remedies and value gains.

3. Remedies | Value gains

Remedies are answers to the hurdles you listed above. Value gains are the positive outcomes that result from your remedies.

The below section addresses my hurdles (from step #2) and how we can remedy them and add value to your Ux journey. Many of mine may overlap some of your big questions but write yours down too.

Hurdle 1: Learning and understand industry buzzwords
Remedy: Browse UX Research and Ux/Ui design job listings. Search for company-specific posting lingo if you want to get a job at a certain company. Look up these reoccurring terms for a better understanding of the kinds of software or hard and soft skills they seek.
Value: Using a search engine, like Google, gives you the familiarity and a forward research direction. Seeing and learning more about those reoccurring terms exhibits initiative and helps you recognize what teams seek and what the heck that the company you want to work at is talking about.

The internet provides a start to your research journey but it’s not the end-all-be-all answer

Hurdle 2: Not obtaining a formal Ux degree whether it’s because of lack of money, access, or flexibility to attend bootcamps or other programs
Remedy: Lack of formal education doesn’t mean learning hasn’t occurred. Besides YouTube, Medium articles, and more obvious workshops or 1-off classes you can read books. Specifically seek out the college’s books used in current HCI and UX college programs (according to whatever school carries your desired Ux academic focus). You won’t have the class support-network, team assignments, or feedback that you get with formal critiques and student projects but it’s a start (below I share ways to develop team opportunities).
Value: Reading books and the unfamiliar terms referenced within those books (aka — “fat-reading”) provides familiarity with concepts and terms for a deeper dive. Academic books provide a common base of knowledge and language used in your industry. Reading books from student college programs also helps you relate and align to those with formal degrees on your team.

Involvement in hackathons, meetups, and online competitions through Slack or LinkedIn groups gives you realistic team experience and interactions similar to those which occur in diverse business situations.

Hurdle 3: Acquiring team building and Ux/Ui skillsets, showing teamwork and creating a portfolio w/out that formal degree or after a degree
Remedy: Getting an entry-level position begins with building a network and creating example work. Don’t stop at passively learning content and terms. Even if you get a formal degree don’t stop there. Besides creating your online portfolio based on school type projects you need to do other online projects. Join Ux/Ui slack communities and LinkedIn groups. Attend and be active in meetups and webinars that offer feedback or have competitions. Show your passion by being in the industry. Build your network and get industry exposure by volunteering at conferences or enter hackathons that seek designers or Ux-ers as part of their software development teams. If you graduate for a formal program remember your portfolio projects are Ux-ing the same stuff as your former classmates. You should create unique projects to give prospective job seekers some variety (and a break).
Value: Not only do you get projects, practice, and diverse connections but you also develop teamwork stories. Interactions like these better mimic real-life interactions for your portfolio akin to real-world experience because you deal with time zones, web/phone/email/text communication, varying schedules, and team diversity. Developing your portfolio in this type of environment is more like the real business world. In school you are narrowly focused working after your class with a group taught to think similarly who may also be similar in age, geography, or socioeconomic status.
Value Bonuses: With hackathons winning teams win prizes and accolades. If you volunteer for conferences you usually make valuable connections and usually get to attend part or all of the workshops or conference events for free.

Be a leader by being a mentor. Be active in the community to show you care and continue your own growth.

Hurdle 4: How do you overcome a hiring manager that thinks you may be too old, too expensive, or not moldable to begin an entry-level position?
Remedy: Be vocal (not in a rude way) about the idea that you welcome an entry-level opportunity and to not put too high of a price tag on your years of experience. Your personality and smarts will show and if they still don’t want you then it’s probably the wrong environment for you — no joke. Remember you are starting out “green” in this field. Whether you are currently employed or not, continue to mentor others to show your value and desire for growth and teamwork.
Value: Your value will quickly show once you are inside a company but you may also be humbled by how much you don’t know. Work there, learn, and pay your dues because once you have more exposure you can always take those job experiences somewhere else for more pay.

Hurdle 5: Get enterprise experience without having enterprise experience.
Remedy: The best catch-22 to this problem is to create your own answers to big companies’ projects. Do you see an issue with a big companies’ website or an app you use that you feel could be improved? My first consultant job while I was still in school was redoing a menu for a local restaurant. It made them aware of their problems and although the original concept I presented wasn’t shown they did hire me to create new menus that resonated with them. They still use those menus and the logo today.
Value: Even if you do a redesign and the company you present it to doesn’t hire you, you still created a nice portfolio piece from a big company. Beginning with friends or local businesses is a great way to get that exposure.

Keep a record of your connections and what you’ve done. Reflection and appreciation will help you succeed when days seem tough.

Leave knowing this (next steps)…

1. Now that you know what to do the hardest part is doing it. Get an accountability partner or mentor to help you, we never do this alone!
2. Keep a record of what you do. It’s great to look back at the path you are working on when times get tough and you realize you’ve accomplished more than you realize.
3. Keep a binder of connections, pamphlets from conferences, hold on-going conversations with your growing LinkedIn connections, or a list of great resources and know that you are Ux-ing your very own Ux/Ui journey.

Remember that someone out there knows more than you and someone else out there knows less that you.

Help those who know less because ultimately you all benefit in the end.

www.kcandy.com ▪ Kris@kcandy.com ▪ linkedin.com/in/kcandy