How to leverage disparate career history

Careers & Mentoring
#1

I have been working in a hybrid project management, account management, ux designer, and business analyst position for 3 years.

Which means: I was client facing, reviewing scope, shaping up activities, user and market research, IA and IxD, overseeing design and communicating throughout development, client management throughout. Defined project wide components, a UX process, and on and on.

I feel like I’ve been spread pretty thin across them all. Now that I’m looking for work elsewhere, I’m having trouble figuring out how to leverage this background.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’ll happily answer any further questions.

Best,

#2

My job is similar. I think it puts you in a really flexible position.

I’m running an Ask the UXperts with a digital recruiter in a couple of weeks. Why don’t you put your questions to him?

https://uxmastery.com/what-ux-recruiters-are-looking-for/

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#3

that’s perfect Hawk, thanks :slight_smile:

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#4

I come from a pretty similar background. My jobs have run the gamut. Right now I’m a UX Engineer. Before that, I had a job that was project management, design, development, QA testing, and implementation-- all rolled into one.

My advice would be to not look at your varied background as a liability, but an asset. In UX, we’re in the center of things. We work directly with customers, senior level management, dev, QA, and project managers. The fact that you have experience in these fields means you have unique insight into their likes and dislikes, their needs and challenges. It means you know how to speak their language and communicate in ways that will be meaningful to these very different groups.

UX practitioners are coming to the industry from all sorts of backgrounds. Everyone has something unique to offer. Make your great experience your value proposition.

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#5

I’ll tell you, the question comes from difficulty finding work. Eg:
applying to a variety of positions and having a LinkedIn profile that
responds to the right points, or focuses on the right titles. A recruiter
that sees project manager or ux designer while looking for the ‘other’ role
won’t necessarily understand why I’m relevant.

But I’m seeing where your reply can take me, much appreciated. I’ve pulled
my hours back significantly work-wise, I’ll find the means to find and
articulate or illustrate the overlap that seems so significant.

Same time, the challenge I may be looking for is finding work in a larger
company…

Anyway, thanks ))

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#6

Nice view point! Love it!

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