Landing a job in UX is hard

Fact: Landing a job in UX is hard.

We’ve seen ads from bootcamps that say they include a job for students at the end—guaranteed! Woof. That’s a tough promise to keep. Certifications ensure that skills are in place, but landing a role often requires so much more. At the end of the day, it usually comes down to luck, lots of patience, who you know, and even being in the right (virtual) room at the right time. There’s no one-size-fits-all model or path to follow.

In this post, we’ll hear from two UX Writers Collective students who share their honest takes on transitioning into UX—and the valuable lessons they’ve learned along the way. (P.S. Harry is ready to work!)

Five lessons Nick learned during his career transition

The following section was contributed by Nick Harris, UX Writing Fundamentals graduate 

A couple of years ago, during a cold night shoot in an industrial zone near downtown LA, I decided to change careers. At the time, I was working in film. I’d gotten into the industry almost two decades before, and I loved my work. But as this particular shoot continued past 2 a.m., I grew more sleep-deprived, more exhausted, and more annoyed—and as I realized that, for the past 90 minutes, all I’d done was calculate, then recalculate, when I’d get back home (around dawn, with any luck)—it hit me: I couldn’t do this anymore.

Changing careers is terrifying. It can make you feel stupid, small, ignorant, and unemployable. It can be hard to find a job, to get in that door. Believe me, I know.

Here are five things I wish I’d known starting off my career transition journey:

1. Don’t underestimate the power of your soft skills.

My biggest hurdle, while transitioning into UX, was myself. I’d convinced myself that my previous career experience was non-transferable. This can’t possibly apply to work in UX, can it? Thankfully, I was wrong. 

Though the technical specifics of film work are not transferable, everything else—negotiating, managing difficult situations, working on tight deadlines, thinking on the fly, and keeping on top of 20 million things at once—all of these skills are very much appreciated in UX, and any career for that matter. These are sometimes referred to as soft skills. You have them, I have them. You tend to pick them up as you go along in life. They matter more than you think. In content design, you’ll use them often to get buy-in on your work.

2. Have a plan of action. 

The UX world is like any other: there are structures, systems, customs, histories, and practices that you need to learn before you can competently succeed at UX work, even at a junior level. You need a plan of action that you can use to learn what you need to know. Whether that’s attending a UX boot camp (as I did—a topic for another time), or teaching yourself online, you need a way to track and develop your UX skillset. One resource you can use is the UX Writers Collective. There are also a wealth of other resources, great books, Slack channels, and professional tools out there to help you learn. 

3. There is no guaranteed job waiting for you. 

No one is going to just hand you a job. I repeat: no one is going to just hand you a job. 

Transitioning into UX, I expected—unrealistically—that jobs in this sector grew on trees (and that the streets were paved with gold, and that the entire population of Silicon Valley would line up to meet me, and so on…). 

But no. Work is work. Finding a job is just that. A job. It’s difficult. You have to be proactive. Which brings us to point number four…

4. The real work begins AFTER you pass your course.

When I emerged on the other side of the UX boot camp, I felt like a warrior for a couple of weeks. Then, reality sank in. I was still unemployed and had to find a job. Like I mentioned earlier, soft skills came in really valuable here: networking, self-discipline, flexibility, adaptability, and lateral thinking. 

People told me many times that learning UX is like drinking from a firehose. Partly, what they’re talking about, is this stage in your career transition. 

UX is a huge field with a bunch of different niches and sub-roles. There’s UX Design, UX Writing, UX Research, Content Design, Service Design, Content Strategy, UI Design, UX Architecture, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, and ma