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This is the last episode of 2021. After nearly two years of outlining the content for this episode and nearly two months (at time of writing) of recording & editing, here’s everything I know (so far) on landing a job in UX. I hope this content is not only useful to you and anyone you know looking to land their first (or next) job in UX, but I sincerely hope this episode is greatly inspirational and even life-changing for you. I forgot to say it at the end of the episode, so Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Joyous New Year dear Defenders! Take care of yourself and each other, and I’ll see you on the other side of this year with more amazing UX/Design content! Jason Ogle Bio Jason Ogle is human, not dancer. He’s a growth-minded, avid reader and listener whose vehicle is a rolling university. He’s an innovative and strategic design leader focused on product creation, growth and conversion. He’s a passionate user defender who fights for the users who are victims of bad design decisions. He’s an influential podcaster who uses the enchanting magic of audio to inspire and equip an audience of hungry and ambitious designers. He’s an evocative (often contrarian) writer who believeth in the power of the written word. He’s a confident, highly self-aware servant-leader who believes that humans are so much more than resources. He’s a loving husband (22 yrs and counting) and father of six here on earth (which speaks to his leadership abilities), and one already in heaven (which speaks to his deep capacity for empathy). Fun facts: He once had to get a manicure to be a hand-model for a tech ad, got his uvula surgically removed while recovering from ankle surgery, and has a rare essay titled “Altars of Satan” given to him and signed by Eldridge Cleaver. Timestamps Origin (4:50) Count the Costs (9:53) Portfolio (21:18) Resume (29:49) Networking (35:03) Applying (40:38) Interviewing (50:11) Negotiating (1:02:32) In Closing (1:09:45) Links Jason Ogle LinkedIn Jason Ogle Website Jason Ogle Resume (Before) [PDF] Jason Ogle Resume (After) [PDF] Land a Job in UX Series 079: Listener Spotlight – Landing My First UX Job [PODCAST] 055: How to Get Your Foot in the Door with Andy Budd [PODCAST] 056: Building an Effective UX Portfolio with Sarah Doody [PODCAST] 057: Interviewing Like a Boss with Andy Vitale [PODCAST] 058: Finding the Right Cultural Fit with Justin Dauer [PODCAST] Ken Coleman Show [PODCAST] Ken Coleman Resume Guide [PDF] Imposter Syndrome: Why We Have it and How to Kick it in the Privates [PODCAST] Radical Empathy with Seth Godin [PODCAST] Best Advice for Someone Looking to Land Their First UX Job (LinkedIn Thread) Build your design portfolio around one awesome story [ARTICLE] 2022 UX Salary Guide (US + Canada) – Vitamin T aText (Text Expander) Song credit at the end Comeback Kid by The Midnight Merch “Your Ego is Not Your Amigo” Unisex T-Shirt (double-sided) $24.97 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page Transcript Show transcript Origin So, let me kick things off with a quick backstory. Toward the end of 2019, actually just before the holidays, worst possible time to be told you don’t have a job. Spoiler alert. I was called into an office, and immediately saw one of the VP’s of design, and also an HR person, and I knew immediately, okay, this is the end of my tenure. I had been at my company for nearly seven years. I was working for an extremely toxic leader. The first moment I realized that, my goal was to get as far away as possible from this person. An opportunity opened up for me to help out on more of a user experience focused team within the organization. And so, what I ended up doing was I ended up moving onto that team and into a user research capacity, which is really out of my wheelhouse, honestly. I’ve done little bits here and there, but I’ve never actually taken on that responsibility. But, it was a good stretch for me. And I learned a lot in a short amount of time was able to conduct some important research. I found myself sort of in limbo because there were a lot of changes that were actually started beginning to happen on this new team that I was on new leadership, and you know how that can happen. It’s happened to me before. You get hired by a specific leader, that person leaves, and a new leader comes in, and maybe they don’t like you for whatever reason. Maybe you’re not a yes man or yes woman. And they have an ego trip. This is a true story. And they don’t like that. And maybe there’s some age-ism issues, that happened to me too at the same place. This guy just wanted young people who would just comply and just do whatever he said and not challenge his decisions. So he got rid of me. Anyway, that’s sort of what happened again to me, just in a little bit of a different capacity. New leadership came in and I kind of found myself the new guy. And last one hired first one fired kind of thing. And so I ended up. Getting the talk and told, “Hey, we got to let you go.” And so of course that was, it’s always a gut punch, right? Especially when you’ve been committed to a company for so long and everything, but, all that to say they handled it extremely graciously with me. And gave me, like, I think two more months to kind of wrap things up and gave me time to even work on my portfolio. Got the severance, and everything, so I was super grateful for how they handle that. It was a just total pro way to do things and companies listening. I know you have to lay people off. I know it’s business, it’s not personal, but it certainly feels personal to the person being laid off. Really, please try your hardest, do your best to let that person off as gently as possible. Don’t just give them like a day and to just be gone. Right. It’s not cool. Especially when somebody served there, and been loyal for a while. Please take that to heart and please be respectful and empathic about how you go about doing these things because it hurts. It just, it just does it’s it may not hurt you because you still have a job, but it hurts the person being told they no longer have the means to provide for their family. So, the very beginning of January, 2020 before the great plague, I found myself in transition. It had been seven years nearly since I had to pound the pavement, and all of a sudden, here I am. I’m like scrambling to get a portfolio together and you’ve heard me talk about it before my website. I wanted to hand code it, and it’s still not done. And I had started it even before this happened. I was able to at least get a project on there and I was able to at least kind of get a homepage together. It was a rude awakening for me to all of a sudden find myself on the hunt. To all of a sudden find myself searching for work. And I really, honestly, I felt like a fish out of water. That’s the best way I can put it. It’s been a long time. I didn’t know what the market was like. And honestly, even in 2020, the supply of designers, I felt like was much higher than the demand. It’s been a journey, and I’m very grateful that my transitional period was only about a month, honestly, I’ve been in transition for a year before and that sucked. That really sucked. That was hard. And, I was able to thankfully do some freelancing in the midst of that, but, man it’s hard. I have empathy for you having been in your shoes not long ago. Count the Costs So, before I jump into really giving you as much information and knowledge that I’ve learned about landing a job to date. I really want to actually take a second here to sort of challenge you. And I, honestly don’t do this and I haven’t really done this before. I want to ask you sincerely, and I want you to ask yourself, do you really want to do this? Do you really want to do this? I was reflecting on this a little bit and I love this stuff so much. Obviously. I love this work. I love talking about it. I love talking to others about it. And I love inspiring new designers. It’s one of my favorite things. And honestly, I never get sick of hearing when you tell me, thank you so much for what you’re doing, because of your podcast and this information that you shared or your guests shared. I got my first job in UX. I never get tired of hearing that. But I realized something about myself in reflection, and particularly before even thinking about doing an episode like this. I found myself really reflecting on how I can tend to possibly over-glamorize this field and only talk about the great parts. And that sort of stopped me in my tracks and it made me want to take a step back and try to make sure that I’m honest with you that even though this work is really, really awesome. It is really, really challenging. And it can be very trying. It can be very stressful. It can be deflating. I’m going to take a few minutes here and I’m going to challenge you. I’m going to challenge all of us, especially Defenders, especially you who are trying to get your first foot in the door. That you haven’t worked in this field before, but you have done enough research. You’ve listened to this show. Maybe listen to a few episodes and they inspired you, and I’m glad for that. I really want to talk to you, especially because folks that have been doing this for a while, you may already have an idea, but still tune in, listen to this. Because I really think this is important to count the cost of this work. One of the big challenges, which is again, is a great thing and I enjoy this particularly, but it also makes my head hurt, is solving some really big problems. UX is all about problem solving and trying to make life better for people you’ve never met. Think about that. There’s a lot of sacrifice and that’s why I say it a hundred times, but the superhero metaphor really works in this field. Because you are laying yourself down for people you probably have never met and you may never meet in your life. But you have empathy for these folks because you’re trying to help them. You’re trying to solve a problem they themselves cannot solve on their own. That requires a lot of effort. Especially the big problems. Small problems are easy and they’re fun to solve. The big problems, it’ll make your head hurt and honestly, sometimes it’ll make your heart hurt. Okay. So I want to put that out there, especially if you’re working on complex software. Which thankfully my new job. I am doing a lot of that. So It’s exhilarating and it’s incredibly intimidating. Think about that. If you love solving problems. If you fall more in love with the problem than the solution. Keep listening, and keep pursuing this work cause I believe you’re going to do well. And I believe we’re all going to benefit from that. From you being in this field, working. The other thing I want to say, you have to be okay with ambiguity, and you have to get comfortable with not having all the answers. And then here you go. I’m wearing a shirt right now. that says, “Your ego is not your amigo.” That’s honestly one of the pillars of doing this work and getting into this field, you’ve got to check your ego at the door and you got to leave it there. Okay. If you don’t, you’re going to have a lot of problems in this field and if you’re a leader, God help you and God help the people that are serving under you. Because you’re going to be a terrible leader. You gotta be okay with admitting you do not have all the answers because you don’t. And be willing. To take it a step further. You need to be willing to find those answers wherever you can. And here’s a great response, if somebody asks you, do you know this or like kind of looking to you to have the answer. If you don’t know, be honest and say, I don’t know the answer to that, but I can find out. Right. We have the cannon of the world’s knowledge in our pockets now. We can find out the answer to pretty much anything, I think. To be successful in this work requires immense humility and confidence. It’s a really interesting dichotomy, but it’s possible. It’s hard, but it’s very possible. Because again, this is not about you. This is about solving other people’s problems and providing valuable service. Not shining a spotlight on how awesome you are. I’m sorry. if that discourages you and you want to show boat and you want to be the one in the spotlight all the time, this is not the work for you. That’s a hard truth. But it is true. The best products that I’ve ever worked on and that I’ve ever seen, always involve a team of very different people working together to make it so. If you have introverted tendencies like me, this is another one you’re going to wrestle with. You have to take your headphones off. Get out of your chair and talk to others, a lot. Okay? And now in this pandemic age of remote work, that means of course, many more virtual meetings where you’re talking and you can’t see the faces and reactions of the folks on the other side, that can be unnerving, because not everybody is going to have their camera on all the time and that’s fine. It’s a new normal, we have to be used to that. And we just don’t know. If you lack confidence in that and you just wonder if people are hating on you on the other side and you can’t see their faces, That’s unnerving. You have to grow a lot in confidence and you will when you put yourself out there and you just do it, even if you fall again, get back up more on that later. Expect to be called on and contribute to meetings. That is if it’s not you setting the agenda and running the dang things, a lot. Designers are leaders. Okay. I don’t care if you have a title or not, you are leading the design of the thing that you’re working on. You will be leading a lot of meetings. So be prepared to be called on for answers. Again, be honest about it and, and be transparent. But be confident. You’re the expert. You’re the expert here. So. You’re going to probably be running a lot of meetings, design reviews, and things like that. You gotta get comfortable with discomfort. Okay. So. Introverts unite, separately in your own homes. Again, I touched on this earlier. You want to fall more in love with the problems than the solutions, and that’s hard, especially for newer designers. I know this personally, because I remember the beginning of my journey, I tend to love everything I create. You can’t do that. You can’t fall in love with your solutions, because going to be called out on it. You’re going to have to articulate your design decision. You’re going to have to sell and persuade stakeholders and leadership and customers of your design, and you’re going to have to defend sometimes defend your design decisions. Especially when it’s backed up by research, hopefully it is. So you’re going to throw away a lot of work. Especially work that you love. So be ready for that. It sucks. It hurts. But kill your darlings, right? Like Bob said, Bob Baxley in his episode, I think 78. He said it’s like we’re building sand castles on the beach. Here today, gone tomorrow. In essence, that’s true. And that can be discouraging. So, if you’re wanting to create an art piece, like Van Gogh or something like that, that’s going to stand the test of time, maybe this isn’t the work for you. If you hate throwing away your work and especially your blood, sweat, and tears that went into it. This may not be for you. Okay. Again, in the same vain, be prepared for your work to be rejected. Hopefully not ridiculed, but Hey, it may happen. By your peers and stakeholders. You really have to grow thick skin in this work. That’s a fact. Countless iterations, countless refinements of something that isn’t even going to last terribly long in the grand scheme of things. Again, be willing to kill your darlings. But also in light of that, right? The flip side of that coin, be willing to put everything you can into making that the best possible solution for your users, for your business, and for your own sense of self pride with what you do. Pride in what you do and arrogan…
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