Vol. 026 - How did I land UX jobs in the past

Hi designers,

Welcome to Vol. 026 of the UX Jetpack Newsletter, where I share job searching tips weekly. This week we are talking about:

1. How did I land UX jobs in the past?
2. How should designers learn to code?
3. Striking a balance for your portfolio
4. Curated eCommerce storefront design

If you enjoy those tips, please consider sharing them with your friends. They can sign up at https://uxjetpack.com/newsletter

How did I land UX jobs in the past

Everyone thinks I know a lot of people in the design industry,

but it wasn't like this when I first started.

I graduated from a design school, but I barely knew anyone in the design industry.

I thought I was pretty good with my grades; there was no way I couldn't find a job in this hot industry.

The thing is, no one cared about my grades.

Every company I applied to thought I had the right skills, but they always went with another candidate.

I couldn't get referrals because I didn't know anyone, so I had to mass-apply.

I tried to attend networking events, but I only stood there listening to other people, too afraid to talk.

It took me six months to find my first product designer job.

Things got a little better the second time.

I started to reach out to people online and do video chats.

It's still hard to talk to strangers, but it's much easier to get started.

I slowly met more people and expanded my network.

Even then, it still took me a year to land a job.

So if you are looking for a UX job today,

don't give up.

Slowly reach out to more people.

You will get the job you want.

How should designers learn to code?

2024 is the easiest time to learn coding.

Every designer should learn the basics of HTML/CSS.

By knowing the basic structure of the web, it's much easier to communicate with developers. You can understand why developers say something is achievable or not.

I learned how to write HTML/CSS by doing projects. That's always the best way to learn a skill. With the help of ChatGPT, it can tell you exactly why your code works or doesn't work.

You can use these three websites where you learn in an interactive environment. It makes it easy to understand how the code works.

FreeCodeCamp https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/2022/responsive-web-design/

Scrimba https://scrimba.com/learn/htmlandcss#

Learn HTML CSS https://learnhtmlcss.online

Striking a balance for your portfolio

The hardest part of a portfolio is to strike a balance between showing enough process without being lengthy.

Hiring managers care about your thinking, and recruiters care about whether you know the process.

You’ve got to consider both people and give both what they want.

In your case studies, try to have:

1. Your final design is at the very top to grab attention.
2. Give the impact of your design right away.
3. Focus on the learning and reason why it’s important, not explaining what you did for each step.
4. Shorter paragraphs, with bullet points and graphs.
   

Having your portfolio lengthy isn’t always a bad thing.

Focus on what’s important.

Make it easy to read.

Curated eCommerce storefront design

If you are a designer working in eCommerce, this is a website you must know.

It has all the cool eCommerce websites. You wouldn't want to miss this.

Check out 👉🏼 storefront.design

If you enjoy my newsletter, please leave a testimonial. It would help me a lot to grow my audience.

Ryan Yao

Say hi 👋🏼 on LinkedIn and ☎️ Book a 1:1 with me