Ux entry level position without college degree

Hi everyone. I’m changing my career from sales to UX. I don’t have a college degree but finishing Design Lab’s 400 hours course ( they do provide job search assistance ), volunteering at nonprofits and helping them with their websites design. Should be able to get an entry-level job as UX.

My biggest fear is that I don’t have a college degree. Most employers ask for that but I build my portfolio and have good knowledge of UX, I should be able to secure an entry level position.

Please let me know what your experience has been and what’s the best way to build your portfolio.

Thank you.

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Hey :slight_smile:

Really exciting that you’ve decided to change your career, and super beneficial that you have sales experience - you should definitely highlight this when you’re applying for UX jobs!

Based on my experience as a Community Manager at CareerFoundry, I’ve never seen not having a college degree as a problem for our graduates - in fact, quite a lot of people who take our courses don’t (or they have a degree in something completely unrelated). You’re completely right in that having a great portfolio is one of the keys here, this along with good industry insight, and connections (having a good mentor helps with this!) go a long way. We decided to offer all of our graduates a job guarantee, because we’ve seen that when students are equipped with all the right learning materials, portfolio building assistance, and mentoring and community support, they’re ready to secure that first UX job.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions - I’m more than happy to help :slight_smile:

Laura

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Thank you for your reply Laura.
My question is where do I start. Are there free courses that help me prepare before signing up for a big course at CareerFoundery ?.

Please let me know.
Thank you.

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No problem at all! :slight_smile: We have a free short course available here.. We’ll also soon be launching a UX Fundamentals course that will be a smaller cost commitment than a big course - feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this!

Hope you enjoy the short course!

Laura

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Hi Sayed,

I am also in the same boat as you are as I come from a retail banking background from the last year and the rest is IT experience. I have no degree either but I feel very confident that taking the right course with the proper support at the end and a solid portfolio will absolutely be your key to transitioning. I have been working with Laura and Martin from CF to take their new course and feel very confident I will be in a UX design role by the end of this year :slight_smile:

Just need to keep your head high, pick your path, and work hard to give yourself the best odds.

I will be starting my own thread at some point to follow my progress with starting the course to finishing, my portfolio, and the jobs i’m applying for… kind of like a journal that other can follow and get motivated from.

Talk soon!

Mike

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We’re so happy to hear this, Mike - we’re super excited for you, and it’s really great to hear that you’ll be sharing your journey with others to help motivate them too :slight_smile:

Laura

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I couldn’t agree more with @CoolMike90. Keep working hard in pursuit of being a UX wizard, and you’ll be fine.

The tech world, perhaps more than any other, is a performance-based world where your ability to complete the tasks in a position is way more important than the education that got you to that point. If you can build your skills and your portfolio, you should be in a good position to make things work out.

FWIW, I came to UX with zero formal training in the topic. I certainly had less formal training than you, but perhaps a stronger portfolio due to quite a bit of design and development work I did in the past that included UX work. It can absolutely be done.

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Coming from the IT industry, I think they are at a point now where certifications out weigh degrees in every aspect…

Quite honestly with the cost of degrees and the time it takes to do them I would much rather prefer a super focused 1 year MOOC or bootcamp that actually teaches what I need to know for the field and become adept to it… kinda like how carpenters, masons and other skilled trades people do.

One of the goals I have after becoming a UX Designer is to also be a evangelist for the field and see if I can make it more clear cut for those of us who are in these fearful positions without degrees coming from an unrelated field.

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Congrats on finishing the Designlab course! From all that I’ve read and heard, with good projects and a good description of your process, you can land a job without a college degree. If Designlab has the career assistance, what has been their advice on portfolio pieces? Do you feel ready to move into a UX role after completing Designlab?

I just came across this video on Creating a Portfolio When You’re New to UX in a UX series. Thought it may be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_D298hAH0

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Hi,

You’re already half way there into getting your role. I come from a healthcare background which is far away from the world of web. I would say that as long as you keep focused and enthusiastic to learn, you’ll get your job. I have a degree in a completely different discipline and still managed to get a Junior role. However, it wasn’t straight away and I had a stepping stone job role as a Junior designer/web developer prior to becoming a Junior UI designer - you will get a lot of rejection. But never let that stop you if you truly want to be in UX/UI.

Hope that helps - Just make sure you have your portfolio online - get some mock UI designs there and talk about them to anyone and everyone who is willing to listen, eventually you’ll get to a place that is willing to take a chance and can see you’re excited about UX/UI.

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Your education doesn’t really matter. UX is difficult to break into because it’s multi-disciplinary and not degree oriented.

You can of course your sales background as an advantage. You can write about how sales help with pursuing clients. A great sales man knows psychology and a great UX designer knows psychology as well. It’s all about defining within the context.