Some Insights From a User Experience Design Hiring Manager

Last night, I had an incredible opportunity as a panelist UT Austin to meet a ton of talented future UX designers. I came away feeling excited and inspired by a future generation of talent who are already making an impact with their passion for design. The real magic in these opportunities though, isn't speaking on a panel itself, but the conversations that spark and follow along afterward. As I've been reflecting on some of the questions and advice I've shared, I thought it might be beneficial to share my perspective, experience and insights to this larger community as well. Whether you're just starting your career, or if maybe looking to make the next move, I hope some of these nuggets can help you with your career.

1. Finding Your Passion

If you're new to the world of design, welcome! Design as a discipline, and especially anything related to user experience, is vast, with lots of different and overlapping areas of expertise. If you're just starting out, I'd encourage you to explore as many of these as you can, and figure out what aspects really resonate most with you. Is it research? Wire-framing? Prototyping? Visual design?

You'll often hear the term "unicorns" thrown around when referring to designers, because there's a few, incredibly talented folks out there who can seemingly do it all. And if you put yourself in the shoes of a company who's hiring, unicorns sound appealing as well because they can hire one person who can wear the hats of several folks.

But there's a reason why they're called unicorns... because they don't really exist.

Instead of trying to become the proverbial "jack of all trades," I'd encourage you to gain as wide of an understanding as possible in the field of design, but find one (or two at most!) areas where you can really specialize and go deep. If that's visual design, then eat up all you can about color palettes, iconography, grids, rhythm, etc. and then dive deep into becoming very comfortable with a tool, like Figma.

Sidenote: Tools change, so you don't necessarily want to over invest your time into becoming an expert of a specific tool, but the more comfortable you get, and the more you're able to become an advanced user, the more opportunities you'll likely have to establish yourself as a more senior designer when you land your job.

Finally, understanding a wide, if only shallow to start, range of design will help you be more successful because you'll be able to better understand where your work fits in the larger picture of product development. You'll be better equipped to understand and push on requirements if you know a tad about UX and research, or to understand and push on development if you know a tad about coding.

As your career grows, you'll have plenty of opportunity to deepen your skills and experience in the other related areas.

2. Networking is Essential

You've probably heard this a thousand times from everybody, but networking can only help your career. I'll keep this short, but say that you never know what opportunities may come through your network. This is your opportunity to be seen, develop relationships and connections, and expand your influence.

And it's not just a one time thing. As you continue moving deeper into your career, your network will continue to grow and become even more important. As I write this, a number of large companies are laying off people, and while that's unfortunate, I've been relieved by the sense of community I've found here on LinkedIn, as I've seen folks refer their connections to new opportunities.

3. Mentorships are Powerful, But You're in the Driver's Seat

On the topic of mentorships, I'll offer this advice: having one or two mentors is great, but the most important aspect of a successful mentorship is to remember you are in the driver's seat. A mentor can help provide you with a ton of insights based on their own experience, but to unlock that, it starts with you. What do you want to get out of the mentorship? Are you looking for career advice? Coaching? Something else?

I offer this same advice to employees who have one on one's with their managers too. As your manager or mentor, I'm always here for you. But the individuals who really get the most out of it are the ones who come to the conversation prepared with their aspirations and questions already in mind.

4. Don't Overthink The Portfolio

Portfolios, as you might have learned, are incredibly important, but you don't need to overthink them. As a hiring manager, I'm not necessarily looking for a ton of different things in your portfolio. And I'm also not looking for incredibly long case studies. (Who has time for that?) What I am looking for is something that shows me your skills, shows me what you've learned, and ideally shows me the impact of your work.

Even if you have an example of work that didn't turn out as great as you had hoped, that can still be something worth sharing (if not in your portfolio, then maybe later in your interview). In an example like that, what really stands out is not necessarily what went wrong, but what you learned from that and what you'd do differently next time.

Beyond the work itself, there's a few other things in your broader portfolio that can help you stand out. As a hiring manager, I like to learn a bit about your design process and some of your goals and aspirations. Designers are natural storytellers, so tell me a story! And of course, don't be afraid to let your personality come through!

5. Interviewing Is Like Dating

For better or worse, interviewing really is a lot like dating. The reality is, you're going to deal with a lot of rejection and a lot of first dates that don't lead to second ones. And that's okay.

First, remember that all of these are still giving you valuable experience, and opportunities to practice your interviewing skills, and feel more comfortable during the interview process.

Second, if you do get rejected, it may be you, but it may not be. Sure, your skills may not match exactly what a hiring manager is looking for in that position, but there could be a whole number of other factors that led to a rejection that had nothing to do with you. For example, maybe it's a timing thing. Maybe there was another candidate who was also interviewing who was further along in the process, and they were just a better fit. Or maybe there was an internal candidate who moved to fill a role. (Many companies will still post a role externally, even if they already have an internal candidate in mind for a role.) Or maybe there were budget cuts and the role was eliminated. The point is... there are a ton of factors that may not even relate to you that still leads you to get that dreaded email that says "Thank you for interviewing with us, but unfortunately we're not interested at this time." That's okay. Don't give up.

6. A Designer By Any Other Name...

In my almost 20 years of experience, I've seen countless job descriptions with fancy titles... experience designer, UX designer, visual designer, UX architect, design strategist, etc. Sometimes these are driven by the industry, and sometimes they're driven by how the company itself defines the roles internally. All of that is to say at the end of the day, they're looking for a designer, and you are a designer, with a very flexible skillset built upon a very solid foundational design process. Sure, you probably have a specialty (see my points above), but my point here is that when you're searching for roles, don't be initially turned off by a specific job title. Also, if you're searching for jobs, you may need to "broaden" your search a bit too, because a company may not have "UX designers" (and you'd get zero search results on a job website) because they might call their UX team members "product designers" or "experience designers" or even something very internally focused, like "designer level 3". So go broad with your search!

Also, perfect opportunity to also mention that if you are particularly passionate about a specific job title, great! If it's incredibly important to you that the company itself recognize that title, you can always negotiate that during your hiring process. But more often than not, your job title is most likely different externally than it is internally. You're free to brand yourself in your specialty as you move through your career (within reason!), even if your previous companies gave you very specific internal-facing job titles, like "designer level 3". In fact, I actually encourage this because it gives you the opportunity to consider the larger industry you're in, and how to translate your specific experience in a way that makes it easier for future hiring managers to have a more apples to apples comparison of you with other potential candidates.

7. Where Do You Want to Grow?

If you've made it this far, congrats because I saved my absolute favorite piece of advice for last. As a hiring manager, one of the most important things I'm interested in besides your skills and your portfolio is learning about where you want to grow and what challenges you want to tackle next. Not only am I invested in your personal growth, but I also want to make sure that the role I have is going to provide you with the right challenges and inspiration to help you grow. I want you to love what you do, and as your manager, I hope to provide you with all the right ingredients to create the perfect environment to geek out about your passion and work.

Another sidenote (and this is also for my peer managers out there): When it comes to learning about where my team members want to grow, it's also not just about where they are currently and if that's a good fit. It's about understanding their larger career goals, and giving them the opportunities and resources to work toward achieving those goals, even if it's on a different team, or even at a different company.

I'm really just scratching the surface here, and there's a ton of other great perspectives and insights from this larger community as well. What tips have you learned or do you have? Feel free to comment below and thanks for reading!