How to Get a UX Design Job
Tobias van Schneider / WNW Member & Founder of Semplice
Given the popularity of UX design, it's becoming harder to stand out in the field. You have competition from all sides as a UX designer: new people are entering the industry every day, and seasoned graphic designers are changing their title to get a job.
Meanwhile, companies are still learning how to hire UX designers and where they fit into their company. So how does a UX designer not only get a job but make sure it’s a good one? As you might guess, it requires more than hard skills and proficiency in prototyping tools.
Solid graphic design skills
With bootcamp courses and online classes making UX design accessible to people with any career background, we’re seeing a lot of non-designers entering the industry. This isn’t necessarily negative. People with backgrounds in strategy, sociology, systems, writing or other related fields may be a great fit for UX design. But a crash course in UX design does not teach you the foundation of design itself, which can separate good UX designers from great ones.
Great product experiences are not only functional but beautiful as well – the two go hand in hand. Understanding the founding principles of design (for example: grids, balance, and color theory) will improve your UX designs and make you more aware of how your work fits into the whole. This knowledge or lack of it will be evident to potential employers and will separate you from candidates who fulfill only the basic requirements of the position.
An online portfolio
A personal website is a given for any design job these days, but especially for UX designers.
If you say you create web experiences and submit a PDF portfolio or social media page to a company, you’re not making a strong case for yourself. Yet many UX designers still have outdated portfolios or no portfolio at all.
Create a modern portfolio curated with your best and latest work (Semplice.com can help with that), and you’re already steps ahead. Put thought and effort into designing your About page, as your personality might be what separates you from someone else who is also perfectly suited for the job.
Make it as easy as possible for people to discover you online, quickly understand what you do, love you, and contact you. That’s what you’re promising your clients, so do it for yourself first.
“Make it as easy as possible for people to discover you online, quickly understand what you do, love you, and contact you. That’s what you’re promising your clients, so do it for yourself first.”
The ability to show rather than tell
Anyone can throw buzzwords like “empathy” or “intuitive” or “inclusive” around. Few actually demonstrate them in their portfolio.
Instead of saying you craft meaningful user experiences, show how your work made an impact for your client or their audience. Rather than stating you care about accessibility, share a project where this was your focus, or do a personal experiment that proves your interest.
For every case study you write, make it clear exactly what role you played as a UX designer and how your work impacted the project. Explain how you bring clarity and simplicity to your work. Demonstrate how you collaborate with designers, copywriters, strategists, and engineers from beginning to end. If you’re calling yourself a UX/UI designer, show specific examples and experience in UI work as well.
In a field flooded with bold claims and abstract terms, make yourself and your offerings concrete.
“In a field flooded with bold claims and abstract terms, make yourself and your offerings concrete.”
Great communication and writing skills
Long gone are the days of placeholder copy. Good design is design that considers content from the start, and that’s even more true for UX design.
You wouldn’t believe the number of poorly written, typo-filled emails companies receive daily in response to job postings. These emails typically go straight in the “no” pile. Why? Because if you can’t be bothered with those details when a job is on the line, you likely won’t be great with details when it comes to your designs either — and UX design is, by nature, detailed work.
Beyond improving your work, becoming a better writer makes you a better communicator, and that’s one of the number one qualities companies look for in a potential hire. Get better at writing and communicating, and you will find your opportunities increase tenfold.
Thanks to the internet and a plethora of tools and resources, it’s becoming easier to be a designer these days. That doesn’t automatically make you a good designer. Ultimately, the designers who stand out are those who are excellent at what they do. So more than anything else, focus on getting better at your craft and telling your story. We wrote this UX hiring guide that will help you get started. The rest just takes effort, time and practice.
Tobias van Schneider is a multi-disciplinary maker and founder of Semplice, a portfolio system for designers. He writes about productivity and portfolio building on his blog, DESK. Born in Germany and raised in Austria, he now lives and works in New York City. Find him @vanschneider on Twitter.