Juniors (not) wanted. Is the industry only hiring Seniors?

If you work in tech and you’ve been on LinkedIn or Twitter recently, you may have noticed a general sentiment about the state of the job market. Something along the lines of “the vast majority of companies are only hiring for senior, staff, principal, or lead levels of seniority when it comes to Product Design roles.”

This seems to be a larger issue that is affecting more than just the world of Product Design, and many of the thoughts and tips shared in this article apply to that broader context. However, as a Product Designer with a personal interest into the problem, I explored it more through the lens of what I know best.

To try and gauge how the affected group feel about this topic, I asked on Twitter and Instagram for people to share their experience as “Junior” Product Designers looking for work. Generally, the responses aligned with the statement I outlined above:

On Twitter some mentioned that even when they do find “junior” positions, they actually come with a level of responsibility and requirements that are closer to what you’d expect to find in mid-senior job posts.

Instagram echoed these sentiments, also reiterating on the fact that this problem spans a larger scope than just the world of Product Design!

It’s evident that at least some people feel that the industry is heavily skewed towards hiring above the mid-level, and seeing this, I wanted to dive deeper into this problem and see if I couldn’t figure out if this notion is true, and why or why not.

Time for some numbers

First off, I wanted to validate this idea with a little bit more data. What are actual companies hiring for on LinkedIn right now? And how do these numbers compare to the quotes I shared above?

To find out, I searched for Product Design roles on LinkedIn, and took down the title, reported seniority, and required years of experience for the first 50 jobs I came across (trying to avoid duplicates). Here’s what I found:

The chart above shows the number of job posts for each of the role names I came across in my research. As you can see, the data suggests that companies are in fact looking for mostly Senior/Lead/Principal designers, with 23 jobs specifically mentioning one of those levels of seniority in the title.

More importantly though, the average required years of experience for all the jobs I looked at was 4.25 years, not including the 10 jobs that didn’t mention any sort of required years of experience. Many of the “Product Designer” job posts asked for at least 3 years of experience, with the highest asking for 5 years. One of these roles also had the lowest required experience of all, asking for just 1 year of experience.

Judging by these numbers, it certainly seems like a majority of companies are not hiring for “entry-level” or “junior” positions, aside from a couple.

So why is that? And is there more to these numbers than meets the eye?

Asking the experts

To find out, I spoke to Chino Nnadi, a Talent Acquisition Specialist with over 6 years of experience, as well as Tammy Connelly, the Director of Talent Acquisition at 🛍 Shopify. Both had very similar opinions on the matter, and were full of tips and tricks for getting over the seniority hurdle!

First, let’s learn about the problem.

I asked both Chino and Tammy if they agreed with my numbers above and the general experience I heard from people on social media. Both experts admitted that this need to hire primarily seniors is real, and that their respective companies are also hiring mostly for these roles.

I then asked them why this trend was so common in the hiring world. The reason why, according to both, is mostly due to the pandemic and the push to remote working. As they explained it, this new way of working required companies to rethink and redesign their teams to put in place a more robust structure that could support the more “Junior” side of teams.

“We used to work in larger teams with more Juniors and less Seniors. Juniors would naturally learn from interacting with those teams in their day to day work,”

said Tammy about the impact of the pandemic on Shopify’s work culture.

“In Product Design in particular, you need different perspectives at different points in time. If all those perspectives are from those at a similar level to yours, that’s not helpful for a junior’s growth.”

Chino seemed to share Tammy’s opinion, mentioning a need for more leadership as the transition to remote teams was forced upon companies world-wide as a result of pandemic lockdowns.

Chino also attributed the required experience in job posts to a higher focus on increasing diversity in leadership. As more organizations strive to make their teams more diverse, leadership is an extremely important place to improve diversity.

There’s more than meets the eye

Although both Chino and Tammy generally agreed that there was a hightened need for seniors, they also told me that this wasn’t the full picture. In fact, both said that although they may not advertise it, their respective companies are open to hiring designers with less experience if they feel that they are the right fit!

“When a company says they need to hire a Senior, Juniors can feel like these companies are saying ‘we don’t need you’”

Although it may certainly feel this way, companies still need designers who are earlier in their careers who show the potential to grow into indispensable team members. At the end of the day, each new hire is a piece of a puzzle that talent teams are trying to put together, and your jagged edges may be just what is needed.

Tips for “Junior” designers

At this stage I felt like I had a clear picture of the situation: companies are in fact looking for a lot of senior designers to create the right environment to meet the needs of our new way of working. At the same time, this doesn’t mean that companies aren’t open to hiring more junior designers, they are simply redirecting most of their resources to building robust teams from the top down.

Having this new understanding, I wanted to close our conversations off by gathering some tips for designers earlier in their careers. So here are some things to keep in mind as you search for your next Product Design role, whether it’s your first, or one early in your work life:

1. Don’t look at the years of experience, f*ck them!

With what is possibly the best quote in this entire post, Chino shared a tip that was reiterated by Tammy: the years of experience don’t really matter!

Shopify doesn’t even add a required experience level on many of their job posts, and it is one of the last things recruiters look at.

Rather, they evaluate experience from what they see in a candidate’s portfolio and how they go through interviews and the questions they ask, more so than the specific number of years.

Someone with just 2 years of experience as a product designer, may have already developed a level of thinking, experience, and responsibility that would make them a good fit for a more senior role. This experience could come from other parts of their careers, or perhaps just in a very short period of time within their relatively short career. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible for a candidate with 10 years of experience may not have the thinking or practical experience to actually be ready for the level of responsibility and experience of a senior role.

2. Your experience starts before you formally adopt the Product Designer label

When you see 3–5 years of experience, you may be tempted to think that just because you have been working as a “Product Designer” for a year or two, that you not meet the “required” experience. However, you may have many more years of experience in a similar role or experience with skills that are transferrable to the somewhat broad field of product design. This is another reason why, in reality, that specific number doesn’t matter as much as you might think.

Another great way to increase your years of experience and get your foot in the proverbial door is to apply for an internship. Internships have a lower barrier for entry, and companies hire interns and invest in them to become full time employees in the long run.

3. When in doubt, just apply

Even if you’re not a perfect fit for a role, give it a shot! You may exceed your own expectations, or you may be hired for a slightly different role or considered in the future. You may have a unique and wide range of skills that goes beyond what the role is asking for, and in the past, companies have created new roles just to accommodate a valuable set of skills.

4. Focus a lot on networking and showing your value

Especially early on in your career, see who’s talking about interesting challenges, try to understand their problem, and show that you have an interest in solving these problems! You can participate in these conversations on any craft specific platform like Twitter, Slack, Discord, etc.

Tammy told me that her team pays attention on platforms like Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse for those who ask great questions and show a genuine interest in solving problems and bringing value to a product or a cause. The way we ask questions shows how we think and how we approach problems, and might indicate that a person is interested in more than just how much they can get paid to work somewhere.

5. Tailor your resume and portfolio

With so many different kinds of jobs out there it’s important that you tailor your portfolio and any other application materials for the specific job and employer you are applying to. Remember, it’s all about showing what value you can bring to the company, and not the other way around. Show how that colourful set of skills you’ve developed throughout your working life helps you fit within the puzzle these teams are piecing together!