Dear “junior” UX designers
6 career tips (with love) from a Senior Product Designer
Dear “Junior” Designers,
This is an open letter from the point of view of a Senior Product Designer. My hope for this letter is to equip you with encouragement as well as the actionable insight that will help you become more competitive in your job hunt.
My intention is not to come across as harsh or brazen, but I will tell “it” like it is – brutally honest.
Before you continue reading this, I want to challenge you to close your eyes, take a slow, deep breath in and then pat yourself on the back. You’ve got this far, and it will be ok.
This time will arguably be one of, if not, the most challenging moments of your career as a UX Designer. Bargaining with clients, recruiters, and hiring managers just to get my foot in the door was just as soul-crushing for me as it is for you. I get it.
If you’d like a bit of encouragement, you can watch my story of how I went from unemployed to designing at Microsoft with no degree or bootcamp.
Don’t give up home. Keep learning. If this is meant to be, it will be.
Tip #1: Stop calling yourselves “junior”
As you might have guessed, there is a reason I keep writing the word junior in parenthesis. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that using this word only hinders your attempts to “break” into the UX career field.
But why?
You are automatically placing yourself into a category that you probably don’t want to be in. When a recruiter or hiring manager looks at your LinkedIn or resume and sees the word “junior” prefacing your title, there WILL be assumptions and biases made. Besides, what is the difference between a Junior UX Designer and a UX Designer that just started? Anyone? Anyone?
I often tell my mentees you are what you call yourself. In my experience, it is extremely rare to see a company use the word “junior” in an official designer’s title.
For example, when I was at Microsoft, this was how the role hierarchy was structured:
- UX Designer (bands 59–60)
- UX Designer II (bands 61–62)
- Sr. UX Designer (bands 63–64)
- Principal UX Designer (bands 65–67)
Takeaway: if you want to be taken more seriously, just call yourself a UX Designer or Product Designer.
Tip #2: Stop using UX/UI in your titles and job descriptions
I see this one all too much and it is a bit of a pet peeve. It is paradoxical since a UX Designer works on UI, so what is a UI Designer? I have never actually worked with someone whose official title is “UI Designer.”
Frankly, this is a red flag for me when I see this on either an applicant’s profile or resume or a job posting. It implies a lack of understanding of what a UX or Product Designer actually does, which can (and usually does) include UI design.
Try not to be hard on yourself though, I’ve personally been guilty of claiming UX/UI in a job title in the past 🤫 (not anymore though).
I encourage you to do some competitive research and see look at companies you admire for their design and note what they are calling their designers. See some examples below.
Takeaway: you might be noticing a theme here. Which is, look at what the industry is doing. A little competitive research never hurts.
Tip #3: Simple is better and less is more
I made the mistake early on when I designed my first portfolio of going a little crazy with the gradients and wild “unconventional” pattens. Let me remind you: your portfolio can stand out, but don’t overdo it.
You don’t have to be fancy or over-creative when it comes to your portfolio's template. Remember, you want your site to be easy to use and simple. In fact, I’d recommend using a template from Squarespace or Webflow.
Aaron James, a Sr. Product Designer currently at Netflix, goes into great detail about this here:
Keep your site as minimal as possible when it comes to fonts, colors, spacing, and shadows. For example:
- 1 font family
- 1 primary color (only for CTAs such as links and buttons)
- 1 or 2 colors for backgrounds
- 1–3 colors for font colors (used to define a hierarchy of font sizes and types e.g. title vs. body)
- 4px or 8px sizing (everything is in increments of 4px or 8px)
Think of your portfolio site like a gallery of movie trailers. In my experience, I and hiring managers usually spend anywhere between a few seconds to a few minutes reviewing candidates’ sites. I am on a mission and if I don’t like what I see, within a few seconds I am gone.
On the flip side of that, if my attention is captured within a few seconds, I tend to stay longer. Tools like Hotjar and Google Analytics can help you understand and track your users’ behaviors and patterns.
Ask yourself, “How can I capture my user’s (aka a hiring manager or recruiter) attention in a few seconds?” — all while following best UX practices and principles.
Takeaway: keep things simple. If you can’t strongly justify a design or content decision in your portfolio, cut it out.
Tip #4: You weren’t rejected, you were not selected
Them: “It’s not personal.”
Me: Well, it sure as s*** feels personal when my livelihood depends on getting this role or not.
Them: “Come back when you have more experience.”
Me: How do I get experience when no one will give it to me?
Do either of these sound familiar? I got these responses often when I first started my career. I thought that no one was ever going to hire me.
Eventually, I realized that I should look at it from the business’s side of the table. I had practically zero relevant experience. They needed someone that had proven they could do the job and would pose little risk to their bottom line. This may suck to hear, but it’s true.
Mayuko Inoue, who has previously worked as a Sr. Engineer at Netflix and Patreon, gives a really good explanation of how a company’s resources impact whether or not they can hire an entry-level engineer vs. a senior one. This explanation translates well to hiring designers too.
I reframed how I looked at a situation where my application was declined or I didn’t make it through to a job offer. Telling myself, “They rejected me” cast me as a victim. This made it personal as if they were actively trying to sabotage my career. When I changed to, “I was not selected” I felt much less resentment and was able to better accept the outcome.
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”
— Dalai Lama
The flip side of the coin is that if a business isn’t willing to or cannot bet on you, is that a place you want to work? Businesses can’t have it both ways. They can’t expect someone else to take a risk and grow you from a seed to a prosperous fruit-bearing tree and then come along and pick your fruit. Life doesn’t work that way.
I like to bet on talent and can handle risk. Not everyone has the stomach for it, but the potential gains are astronomical. I have personally benefited from amazing people betting on me. In the end, it was worth their investment 10x. I keep this in mind when advising on hiring designers and do my best to pay the deed forward.
Takeaway: find someone who will bet on you and invest in you.
Tip #5: Seek a mentor
I firmly believe that if someone has something you want, you should seek their advice on how to get that something you want.
Mentorship is the keystone of my career. My mentee needs have evolved over the years, but that has given me the chance to grow my relationships with my mentors. Recently I sought advice from my mentors when deciding if I should leave Microsoft and ultimately advice in choosing my next company.
ADPlist is a great resource when looking for a mentor. I encourage you to check them out.
I’ve been blessed with two very amazing mentors. Drory Ben-Menachem, the
Senior Director of Research & Design at Zonar Systems, and Hayley Hughes a Design Director at Nike. They helped me tremendously get to where I got.
If you are into design systems, take a look at a talk that Hayley did in 2019 for awwwards.
Tip #6 Craft your skillset
If you have watched the video I linked in the beginning you’ll know how much I love to learn. I feel strongly that as designers we must continuously be learning how to be better designers and try new things.
Honing your skillet will be a lifelong task. No need to overwhelm yourself, learn at a pace that you can sustain.
If you are curious how I build and organized the Figma UI kit at Microsoft, take a gander at this article here:
Thank you for taking the time to read this article to the end. I wish you the very best in your career journey wherever that may be. Keep your head up, back upright, eyes forward, and keep moving. Eventually, you will get to where you need to be.
P.S. If you want to hear more advice and learn about design systems, follow me on YouTube.
Warmly,
Josh Cusick
