Breaking into UX - advice?

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Hi Seyon,

Congrats on your commitment to a career change and completing the CareerFoundry Course! I know it’s frustrating when you’ve been working hard to make things happen without results. Good for you for posting about your experience. Here are some initial thoughts that I hope will help:

You’re obviously doing a ton of activities to get your name out there. I wonder if perhaps too much?

Maybe take a look at everything on the list above and just focus on the activities that will get you the most bang for the buck - for example, how are the creativemornings and meetups going? If you chose just one of those two, which would it be? Think 80/20 rule (google it if you haven’t heard of it) and see where your efforts can yield the most results.

It’s hard to give you specific advice without knowing more specifics about your job search. Of your dozens of applications, did you feel all of them were the right fit for you or were they rapid-fire in nature? What are the criteria you are using to apply? Are you up front in your applications about being new to the profession? Have you followed up on any applications by phone?

Just about every job opening out there right now wants a minimum 3-5 years experience, but those people are extremely hard to find. Besides your portfolio (which looks fine, BTW), what else are you doing to differentiate yourself? Sometimes a simple design element on a resume can help it stand out from the crowd.

Think of your resume as a “ticket” into the show. Before you can get in to interview with a hiring manager, you usually have to first get past the HR gatekeeper. Put on your UX hat and think of how you can make that person’s life easier. They are poring over dozens of resumes each day, but many HR people do not have a good understanding of what UX design is. Using your empathy skills, think of how you might educate them to take a chance on you. Hope that helps!

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Good on you. I’m so glad you took the jump.

I can see why you’re feeling disheartened – you’re being incredibly proactive.

Mary’s advice is solid, as always.

I’ll call in a couple of other people that might be able to give you support and perspective.

Mostly though, hang in there.

Edit: I wonder if a chat with this person might help?

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Hey @seyonwind!

Congrats on completing your course! I work at CareerFoundry (I also used to volunteer at a CreativeMornings chapter - the Edinburgh one) and I’m not sure if you’ve seen but tomorrow two of our Senior UX Designers will be doing a live Q&A on Facebook - I’d love to put your questions to them and have them answer as I think they can help here! The broadcast happens at 1pm ET/10am PT so feel free to tune in! If you ‘like’ the CF FB page then you’ll get a notification when we go live :slight_smile:

P.S. something my CreativeMornings chapter used to do is have a ‘community minutes’ section after the speaker. We’d have 3 people from our community take the stage one at a time for 60 seconds to share something, whether it’s that they’re hiring, looking for a job or launching a new project - it always worked extremely well and we had people get jobs and freelance gigs from taking part. Maybe this is something you could ask to do at your chapter, to share that you’re looking for a UX role? It’s a little nerve wracking but could work well :slight_smile:

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Hey, @seyonwind!

First off, I have to say, your dilligence makes me feel lazy, and that’s coming from someone who clawed his way into the profession from the level of “homeless bum living in his car.”

Clearly, hard work is not your problem.

Also tight is your portfolio, and you seem to be doing all the right things when it comes to networking and volunteering. I think there’s a lot of validity, however, to what @maryshaw said about focusing on your most productive networking and volunteer opportunities. I’d take that to heart.

Apart from that, I have suspicions that there might be something in your resume or cover letters throwing up red flags. Of course, it’s hard to know if that’s the case or what, in particular, is causing the issues without seeing the documents. In general, however, my recommendation would be to go back through your resume and cover letters and ensure that everything included is UX-oriented.

For instance, I see that you listed your background as being in “education, digital media, visual art, woodworking, and CAD design.” Two of those-- digital media and visual arts-- jump out at me as being possibly UX-related, and your CAD Design piece seems like it might have been as well. Unless you taught some sort of visual design class, that probably needs only a line or two. Ditto with woodworking.

A good approach to consider may be a skills-based resume, rather than the traditional experienced-based resume. This highlights what you can do, what you feel comfortable with, and where your strengths lie. These are also great for getting past the automated portion of resume weeders as they highlight key words and skills that automated programs look for before sending along a resume to a human being. Tutsplus has a pretty article on the topic, and Google can supply you with a ton of examples. If you aren’t using this format, I’d give it a go with a few of your next few applications and see if it helps.

Most importantly, if you do nothing else, do not give up. Success in anything worth while does not come overnight. Your battle right now is one of your will against your skill. You’re locked and loaded with skill, and now the world is testing your will. I know it’s tough when you’re doing all the right things, living like your dream, walking like your dream, surrounding yourself with your dream, making the investments. I know it’s hard when you’re doing all of this, and your mountain isn’t moving, and nothing is happening yet.

Understand that the action of making progress is progress in itself. The push, the process, regardless of the outcome, is progress. If you keep giving your effort, if you keep that grind up, I promise you-- your mountain will move.

Life’s just decided it has a little more challenge for you. Don’t give up.

I hope that helps. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to give you a hand!

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Thanks for attending my session! I hope it was at least a little helpful. I’m also glad my words could provide a bit of light at the tunnel.

Here’s my standard disclaimer: I have some feedback, and if it sounds harsh I apologize. I really want to help you improve, and what I say is done purely in the spirit of making things better. You don’t seem like the type of person who has issues with constructive criticism (a great quality to have as UX’er), but I wanted to put that out there to help reinforce that I’m not saying any of this just to be a doo-doo head.

Giving your resume and cover a cursory look over, I can tell you that your resume does not do justice to the level of effort that you put into your future career. Looking at this, all I see is someone who’s worked as a freelance UX’er since July, with other job history that indicates you’re good with technology but otherwise isn’t relevant to the position.

Fair or not, it looks like you don’t have a lot of actual UX Experience or ability. Given your level of involvement with the community and actual experience working on UX projects, you can do a lot better. Your goal at this point is to show that this is more than just a hobby for you, and a career that you’re actively participating in despite not having a permanent position.

What I’d change here:

  • Switch to the skills-based resume to highlight what you can do/have done.
  • Highlight the projects you’ve contributed to or volunteered with. Speak to your specific contributions where possible.
  • Include your volunteer experience at Creative Mornings (but make it clear what your role is and that it’s a volunteer position).
  • Your cover letter is too long. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to read a full-page cover letter like that. I do like the “T” style, but you don’t need to hit on every point in the job listing. Pick the 2-3 most important ones, and sum up the rest of your qualifications in a couple of short paragraphs. You want your cover letter to be a half page, max. Anything more than that simply won’t get read.

@laura, @HAWK, @maryshaw, do you agree with my thoughts on @seyonwind’s resume and cover letter? Any others of your own? I’ll freely admit that my opinions are my own, and that there may be better ways to proceed. I’d like to hear what the consensus opinion might be.

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100%

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Absolutely!

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@seyonwind One more idea for you - check out https://www.catchafire.org. It is a “marketplace” of nonprofits looking for skilled volunteers. You might be able to land some real-world projects there to beef up your portfolio :slight_smile:

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Mary also offers a paid mentoring service which might be of use if you want to dig deeper. Details are on her site.

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This is AMAZING advice! Thank you, @seyonwind, for putting yourself out there, and in a public forum where others can learn along with you. And thank you to everyone else for providing this great advice! :smile:

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Hey @seyonwind,

Great! We’ll be doing another Live Stream on Dec 1st, so tune in if you’re free :slight_smile:

Yeah you should ask! We used to do it and it worked really well! Good luck :slight_smile:

Laura