So, you want to get into UX?

I adore speaking to people making the switch into UX. 

The beauty of UX is you can move into it from a multitude of areas. 

But, that doesn’t mean you’ll be any good.

I’ve seen people move into UX from being fresh graduates from HCI courses, Business Analysts, Lawyers, Project Managers, Developers, Recruiters, Sales people (because recruiters are not sales people!), Artists. You name, I may have seen it. 

I mean, I know someone who used to be a Shepherd! Yes, Shepherd turned UX practitioner. Mental. 

What makes a good UX practitioner? 

Hard skills are teachable, soft skills less so. 

If you are looking to get into UX these are the key soft skills you'll need:

• Curiosity — always be looking to push the boundaries.
• Empathy — Empathy for your users, colleagues, stakeholders and the business profits. 
• Communication — The ability to talk to internal stakeholders to arouse interest in what you do and get them on the same wavelength, able to manage expectations etc is vital. 
• Emotional Intelligence — Being able to control your emotions, make decisions under pressure and deal with different people.
• Collaboration — you could be the geekiest designer ever, but to deliver a truly customer centric product you can’t do it alone. 

Do you have these soft skills? 

Cool.

Let’s move on. 

Formal Education

Next, you need to get some training or self taught. I’m going to help you explore a few organisations and methods you can use depending on your budget. 

Degree

If you studied in a previous life, consider taking a year or two depending on full/part time to study a masters in Human Computer Interaction, Psychology or something similar which are widely recognised in UX as great courses to get into the industry. 

Premium Bootcamps 

Want to condense a year into 3 months? As UX has boomed, so has the amount of people looking to break into the industry resulting in companies popping up who run UX courses. 

A few include General Assembly, RED Academy, CareerFoundry, Academy XI.

These bootcamps are great, but I have to urge you these are like learning to drive these help you pass the test but the real work starts when you get your first role. 

These are not as in-depth as university courses, but they will get you a foot in the door. My biggest annoyance with these courses is people who leave the course and expect to get a mid level role straight away. These are very junior courses, so please align your salary requirements accordingly. 

These courses usually charge between ￡8–10,000 (AcademyXI is only in Australia) but you’ll need to factor in not having a job for the three months as well as time after to finish your portfolio and find a job. The true cost of this course is between 18–20k depending your lifestyle. 

Self learning

This is cheaper route, albeit longer. There are a ton of resources on the internet where you can teach yourself, grab a mentor, speak to people in Slack groups and start a portfolio. 

This route is great to find an internship, not a first role because people from courses and university courses are also coming onto the market. 

I’m not saying it can’t happen, because it absolutely can. It’s who you know, not what you know when you’re breaking into the industry. 

A good resource to use is Interaction Design Foundation, they have a ton of authors and contributors to a very high standard. 

Complete career change internally

Does your current work have a UX function? Can you move over? This is the perfect way, because you already have buy in from the company. 

You’ve done the course, you’ve got basic knowledge. Now what? 

Map out your perfect role

Three things I urge you to look at when mapping out your perfect role: 

• Career advancement.
• Values.
• Health/Well-being.

Career development is very important for your first role. Things to consider:

• Is there a team to learn from? 
• Budget for courses, conferences etc. 
• Have they bought in a junior before? Was it a success? 
• Does the UX work get shipped? You want a portfolio full of end-to-end UX work that gets implemented. 
• Focus on the project, not who the company is. I’d rather work for a small product company on an end-to-end complex project than Facebook on a small microsite. Your first role is vital to get exposure across a breadth of projects. 
• UX research. If you want to be in UX, don’t go to a company who doesn’t do research or have plans to. Makes 0 sense, that’s not UX that is a user-centered UI Designer. 

Values

This is more from a fulfilment prospective, and having the motivation to go into work every day. Making sure the company aligns to your values, ethics and morals is vitally important to create pleasure at work. 

Health and well-being

There is no point working 80 hours a week as a creative, burning out and producing bog standard work. 

Mental health is vital for creativity, so does the company believe in looking after their workforce? What are work hours? What is the working from home policy? Do they allow for flexible working to accommodate your lifestyle as much as possible? 

Creativity flows well rested and happy individuals. 

Strategies to get a job

You know you can get into UX. 

You’ve done a course.

You know what you want in your career. 

Now what? 

You need a job. Flipping ASAP. 

Utilising LinkedIn can be the difference in getting intro’s to companies which don’t advertise roles. Approach Head of UX’s, approach people at companies you want to work for, produce content for people to see who you are, comment on posts to create engagement and a following. 

Sign up to co-working spaces to access their job boards. Someone did this last year, and got a job from it. F**** genius. 

Majority of job boards suck, but sometimes work. The disappointment rate of using a job board is so high, but apply and track all applications. If you don’t hear from them in 3–4 days, search for the company on LinkedIn and approach that way. 

Offline networking is always useful. Great UX meet-ups include UX Crunch, IxDA, MobileUX London. 

Think of your job search as a funnel, but a sales funnel. You need as much swirling around from as many different avenues and something will drop down the middle. 

Conclusion

UX is very easy to get into, but in my opinion it’s not for everyone. The industry needs more regulation. If we keep pumping people in without the increase in junior roles people will struggle to find a job. 

Get into the industry the correct way, do your research, get quality training under your belt and you’ll flourish.