Hey friends! Let’s talk about how I landed my first job as an experience designer!
For those of you that are new here I’ll introduce myself. My name is Kiera and I made a career transition from an architectural designer to an experience designer (aka UI/UX designer). I have been within the tech field for 9 months now and it has been a complete whirlwind. While some of the day to day resembles pieces of my architectural career, it is a FAR cry from anything that I’ve ever experienced or done. However, let’s go back and talk about why you’re here today.
You want to know how I actually got my first UI/UX job with no coding background, no bootcamp, and with no traditional experience right? Right.
I’ll tell you that ultimately making a transition like this was hard. I believe in God (Hallelu!), and I know this was nothing but Him moving on my behalf. Honestly. Truly. I’ll also add a disclaimer here to say, what worked for me is literally just what worked for me. All of it is hard and everyone’s journey is different. With me coming from an architectural background I found that a fair amount of my experience was transferable to that of a UI/UX designer, but that not might not be the case for you and that’s ok. Do whatever you need to do to break into the field. How you got in doesn’t matter beyond that point. As for me though, I knew I didn’t want to complete a bootcamp because I had too much student debt and felt I could leverage my architectural background. So I went about this on my own and this is what I did.
First, I consumed a healthy helping of online material. I found Linkedin Premium courses, Medium.com articles, and YouTube videos to be extremely helpful in exposing me to what I was getting myself into with user experience. Having a LinkedIn Premium account gave me access to LinkedIn Learning so I checked out Chris Nodder’s UX Design and UX Foundation courses. I also watched Agile Foundations by Doug Rose along with a few others. On Youtube I found content creators like Mike Locke, Sharon Onyinye, and Ugly Unicorns who were really helpful too. They each have a plethora of content on everything from how to ace an interview to how to look for projects for your portfolio. I also liked Medium for when I needed a reminder that I wasn’t crazy to pursue this on my own. Medium has great content in general, but reading people’s stories was motivating.
Secondly, I created a portfolio full of mock projects. I took websites I frequented and reimagined them in different ways and I even created my own made up projects to conduct research on. I went as far as assigning myself criteria to adhere to, created surveys for feedback, designed personas, and the works. I used my portfolio to act out as best I could what a UI/UX designer would do. If you think you’ll struggle to come up with projects on your own there are also websites that generate projects and design challenges like Daily UI Challenge and UXchallenge. If you’d like to see the portfolio I used when applying to jobs you can view it here. Now as far as where and how to display your portfolio, there are a few options you can use. I used Adobe Portfolio since it came with my expensive Adobe subscription :). However, Dribbble, Behance, and Issuu are free platforms you can use as well.
As a segway to this step I will caution you to learn the programs that are mostly used within the field. Those programs are Figma, Invision, and Sketch currently. All three of these are free to download and fairly friendly to learn. Another nod to my architecture background is the fact that we had to learn how to pick up computer programs pretty quickly to showcase our designs. So learning computer programs wasn’t too bad for me, but if you want a crash course on shortcut keys to get you started let me know :). I also learned Adobe XD just because it came with my Adobe Subscription. Becoming well versed in these programs is a necessary step to walk the walk and talk the talk of an UI/UX designer so I stress this step. I will also note that I was asked what computer software I was comfortable with on every interview. There’s no way around it haha.
Thirdly, leverage your existing network! I made do with what and who I had around me! The importance of maintaining your relationships with friends and colleagues CANNOT be overstated. As I mentioned before, I was considering a career change back in 2019. I spoke with countless friends during that time and each time I came away with new connections, new points of contact, and new suggestions. When you think about it, you probably already know someone who is working in close proximity to the field you want to be in. Reach out to them! It was a friend that referred me to my current employer and helped get me in front of the right people to secure the job. It was a friend that reviewed my portfolio with me to make sure it was solid. There were friends and colleagues that connected me to other people that they knew off the strength of our relationship. So again, talking to people is free. Take advantage.
Finally, I also encourage you to look into your previous experiences. I would look at job postings and their requirements and consider how I was already operating in that capacity with my job at the time. Ten times out of ten there was something that was transferable in my existing skill set. I was able to use that and I’m telling you that you can as well. While you might be transitioning into a new field, you are NOT starting at square zero here. You have experience so consider how it applies and tailor your resume to speak to where you’re going. And that folks is my spill.
I hope you all took something from this blog post. As always feel free to leave a comment, tip, or suggest topics for me in the comments. I’d love to hear from you all about your experiences and how we all can connect.
My Best,
Kiera