How I Became A UX UI Designer in 2 Months | No experience, No degree, No bootcamp | Career Change

hi everyone welcome to my channel so this video is going to be a little bit more different it won't be like b-roll action and walking around it's just gonna be a sit-down video basically today I'm going to be talking about my journey on how I became a product designer in just two months I think I was able to do it based off of my experience and so I'm just gonna walk through my experience and stick along if you're interested so first let's start off with what is ux what is UI what is a product designer basically a product designer is actually a ux a UI designer and so what a ux designer is is that they are there to analyze the user's experience and find problems of areas where um users are feeling pain points and analyzing it and finding the right visual solution to solve for that problem that's simply what it is um simply it's not that simple but it's basically an overarching explanation of what it is I started off my education we're going to talk about my education um I started Dawson which is C Jep in Quebec and what C Jep is is that it is basically two to three years of schooling between high school and University and for you Americans University AKA College it's two to three years I started off in Commerce which is a business program and I did business for two years I joined business because I honestly really enjoyed maths and I like analytical thinking I like that side of things like things that just add up that is rational so I really enjoyed that so I did business and while I was in business um it wasn't what I really expected it to be I didn't hate it but I did love it and I remember when I was signing up for my first credit card because I was turning 18. my credit card allowed us to have a customizable credit card and so I wanted something cool and I opened Photoshop and I started doing collages on Photoshop and I noticed that I really enjoyed doing that and so I remember meeting up with my friend that day in the afternoon I was like hey I did this collage and I I really enjoyed doing it and she jokingly said like you should do graphic design and I'm like and then that night I just couldn't sleep I couldn't sleep I started doing research on all things graphic design one of the opportunity paths seeing what I could do in University if I could get my bachelor's in graphic design if if that's even a possibility because at the time I really wanted to do University and so I looked through it I looked at all the courses and the current and the curriculum and I really really enjoyed all the classes I saw and so I joined graphic design it was a three-year program and honestly I think those were the most memorable and like I think it was the most memorable time of my life I've never been in a program where I was learning and I really enjoyed it I did business for two years so from 2015 to 2017 and from 2017 to 2020 I was in graphic design I graduated in the year of the pandemic graduated online I don't know why I said it like that but we graduated online and then we started looking for jobs um basically some people took the educational route and went to University and I think I was just so eager to start working and start making this money I jumped straight into the industry I fortunately agency reached out to me and I was basically freelancing for them for like a couple of months I'd say like probably six seven months I was freelancing for them we were working a lot with startup companies who are looking for a visual brand language so we're doing all things like I don't know their logos their business cards kind of doing brand guidelines to let them know how to use the logo and how to use the brand language and it was a lot of that and then if you don't know me personally I really love fashion I really love clothes and one of my goals back when I was in graphic design was really to do graphic design in the fashion industry I think that's all I've ever wanted it was in my bucket list it was just something I was striving for I really wanted to do sorry um graphic design in fashion like I was looking at Nike internships if they had internships for graphic designers I I remember seeing like hypebeast was looking for air editorial designers I think it was for like their magazines and stuff and so I was looking around and seeing my options and applying everywhere unfortunately I didn't get a call from those companies but I did get a call back from a fashion company in Montreal and I got the job I got the job there I was on cloud nine I was honestly the happiest girl ever because I I spoke my I spoke I basically spoke my dreams into existence I like was like this is what I want this is what I'm gonna get and I got it and so at that time I was so proud of myself I think I got the job in 2021 I got it towards the end of my birthday uh the the month of February and so I think I started working on March 1st was it March 1st I think it was around that time so it was in 2021 early in the year I started working there and I was so happy I was honestly so happy until they put me through um until the industry put me through and I remember working overtime like literally every day we had summer hours but I was working overtime it was just not a good environment I was underpaid and the I was going through I had no work-life balance I literally wanted to get off of work and cry every day like every day towards the point where I just I got anxiety and I got panic attacks and so I didn't want that anymore so I quit the job and I was reflecting I think towards the end it was like I October it started happening in July right and so it wasn't it wasn't that long it was like three months into the job I was like complaining about my job a lot and I started reflecting about what I want and I was severely underpaid honestly like um I was thinking a lot about my future and thinking about what I want in my future and I know I definitely want a really good work-life balance I want to work on something that I'm passionate about I wanted to make money like I know it sounds really materialistic but money offers you flexibility it offers you comfortability it offers you experiences in life and I really think experiences are the most important things that you could have in your life and I don't think you could do much of experience if you don't have money to afford for it and what I mean by experience is traveling like I really enjoy traveling and experiencing other things from my day-to-day Circle to be able to do that is to be comfortable comfortably Financial comfortable financially and so I was trying to look for jobs that actually pays well at this point because I like the amount of work I was putting in in graphic design it was not translating monetarily even the hours that I was putting and so I I didn't want that life anymore even though that I was so passionate about it and I loved it I just couldn't do it anymore and so I started reflecting and I remember really enjoying coding we had basic HTML basic CSS I taught myself some JavaScript when I was in graphic design in school and I really enjoyed it a lot of people in my program did not like coding but I personally loved it and so I was like okay I'm gonna look into this because I know developers get paid really well basically when you're working in tech companies there's a lot of benefits so I'm pretty sure some of the work-life balance is pretty good and so I started looking into it and I thought about it seriously because coding boot camps are very expensive and I decided to apply while I was still working at my fashion job and I got into the boot camp it was the Concordia boot camp it was the Concordia boot camp I think I did it from 2021 to May 2022 and during that period of time I really felt empowered when I was coding especially when you are able to sell bugs you're able to build whatever like I would do the full design process and then build it and that was incredibly incredibly empowering and I loved it especially solving problems and stuff like I said I was very analytical I really like the logical side of things and which is why I did maths and business at first and it didn't turn out to be what I expected it to be and so I really enjoyed that aspect of coding and when I finished my coding boot camp I immediately already had my resume prepped I already had my GitHub prepped and so I started applying for developer positions and I really thought about it and when I was looking at the requirements of the job there was nothing design related and I really felt that I couldn't sit at the table well at the table I couldn't sit at my desk all day and just code just code and not not do anything creative I think it was it was a hard reality that was hitting me and I was just like I don't think I could do this even though I spent 11 000 it wasn't just eleven thousand dollars it was eleven thousand dollars and 500 on top of that it was eleven thousand dollars and five hundred and I was just like did I just pay all this money not to go through with this and I really started reflecting and I remember always wanting to do ux and UI and I don't know why I wasn't enticed to do it right after I quit my job but I was always interested in it and I did take some free classes here and there I took some LinkedIn classes and things like that I think I took some a century classes to really understand what ux and UI was but I was never really serious about it and so at this point in time I think it was like ends of May and I've already spent like I think a whole week and a half applying like like I woke up and and just Mass applied everywhere for a whole week for Developer jobs and at that point I was just like I don't think I could do it and so I contacted this one girl she was at my c-shap she did Dawson in graphic design did the coding boot camp was a developer and then became a product designer and so I was like that's like the path that I have right now and so I reached out to her and she basically what she did was that she was a developer after her coding boot camp and then within her company she got mentored and she was able to transition into a product designer and she told me that you it's you probably can't find any jobs if you don't have experience or if you don't have someone guiding you or mentoring you and so I thought about it I thought about it really hard after she sent me that message and I was like you know what it um not like her advice but like it you never know I'm gonna try to do what I believe is right and I'm gonna try this product design thing and so at the end of May I gave myself I allocated myself maximum a month actually maximum three weeks to prep a portfolio to prep a resume to prep cover letters a whole three weeks to do all of this at minimum two case studies and so what I did first was that now that I knew I wanted to change into product design I started going on LinkedIn in my area specifically since I'll be applying for jobs in my area I went on LinkedIn and I looked at everyone's path like every product designer every ux designer that was in Montreal I looked at their path and how they became a product designer throughout their career and I've noticed a pattern of a lot of people going through as a web designer and moving to a UI designer to a product designer that way and so I was like oh I've done some web design in my it's not necessarily web design I basically got the assets got the assets necessary to lay them out on the home page of the fashion company I was working at so I was like that's something went related and when I was at my Agency company I remembered mapping out flows for a website and kind of like starting to craft like what a home page would look like and so I was like that's another experience and another experience I did have was building like code my coding my final coding project I basically did the whole design process of building a task management website and so I utilized all of that and tried to push them into my portfolio and I also mentioned it in my resume that my past experiences had some web design elements to it with that after I looked at everyone's career paths what I did was that I looked up a lot of interns so people that were interning at Amazon at meta places like that like the big companies because I'm like it's not easy to get an internship there right so their portfolio must be topped here and so what I did was that I looked them up I found them on LinkedIn I went on their portfolio and I I looked I basically analyzed how they structured their portfolio and their case studies I noticed that there was a pattern on how they did it basically it was interviews Affinity mapping once they found the Affinity mapping they found Trends and once they find the Trends they write down the problem statements the trends and problems that users are facing basically that's what I'm talking about to clarify and then once they find the trends I noticed that they write down what is the problem that they're trying to solve for and so once they have that problem statement they start wireframing offended remapping some solutions even more and they start designing and basically throughout their case study they talk about the whole process and then once they have the final design it everything makes sense you don't like necessarily have to talk about the final design but there's like a little conclusion and so that's how I framed my portfolio and what I did next was that I found some apps or some things that I wanted to build or some things I wanted to improve and I took two problems that I wanted to solve for and I basically took one week to build one of them and another week to build one of them mind you I did not have a job at this time and I was not in school and so my whole day literally I woke up went to the gym showered ate and then just started working on these portfolios I basically had two case studies and some work that I did from my fashion design job like basically different website layouts with nothing on it because it wasn't really a case study but I thought it was it'd be cool to have it on there from there once I had it ready I started applying for jobs and I started um like reframing because basically when I was applying for Developer jobs my portfolio was framed in a way where it was very developer heavy and so now I had to reframe the perspective highlighting or emphasizing more product design skill set that people would like to see in my resume so that's what I was doing and once I did that and once I kind of shifted this perspective on my resume I had like a general cover letter and I started applying and when you apply it takes a lot of time because what I do is that I go through the job requirements and this is a tip for you guys but I go through the job requirements and I look at what they want from um a candidate and basically if there are things that does come up to me that I'm like I have experience in this I have experience in this and I basically go back into my resume and highlight it within my job because you're not gonna write everything you do at your job right and you want it you want your resume to be geared towards them so that when they look at your resume they're like oh she has the skill that we're looking for she has the skill that we're looking for instead of just generally just applying without looking at it try to highlight skills that this job is requiring you to have and so that it would be easier for HR to pinpoint you as a candidate so that you could get an interview so that's one of the tips that I have and then when you have a cover letter do a little research on the company I think it's it's really I think companies like it when you try to tie in their company missions to your personal goals as a person so try to find something that you could lean on or relate to in your cover letter and utilize that in your cover letter and speak about it so that it shows that you did research it shows that you have an interest towards the company and that's basically that I like started math applying I only got rejection letters because I I didn't give a if they were asking for three four years if it was a senior position I was just applying to everything because you never know you literally never know and started applying to everything just rejection letters rejection letters I think I was applying like for three weeks and now it was like kind of like in June and I got my first call back and like I I think I was really lucky but basically this company the only company that reached out to me I got the job and it's the job that I have today and I'm so grateful for them for reaching out to me because I had no experience and they reached out to me they called me the interview went really well it was like a four-step process a very thorough and I got through and so I think I was really fortunate with that and so I got the job in July so I started I think around like end of May that's when I made up my mind I worked towards the portfolio and I got the job in mid-june in mid-july and so yeah it was a lot and I think that a lot of people are looking for experienced people so I think this route might not be ideal for everybody um I also think I was fortunate because I have a Graphic Design background and with my graphic design background it's it's very it's transferable skills that I could use in ux and UI and um I think that was one of the key factors that really helped me get the job um I was a graphic designer I have basic skill set that a product designer needs for the job right and then there's that an analytical aspect wait I didn't even talk about why I wanted to be a product designer so the reason why I chose to be a product designer or ux UI designer whatever you want to call it it's exchangeable in inter inter interchangeable yeah I just really like the problem solving aspect where you need to analyze your data understand what they use your problem is and that analytical side that I kind of enjoyed that sparked something in me and and then kind of solving it visually it was those two aspects in my life that I really enjoyed analytical and also um design creativity and I thought like product design was just so perfect I feel super I really feel super fortunate for my job I love my job we have great work-life balance I think I'm being paid fairly in the market um I wouldn't say fairly in within the company but that's another topic but yeah I generally I feel like I am getting paid fairly I have a good work life balance I love my co-workers super supportive people and yeah it's like everything that I was looking for when I was in a rut back in my previous job and so I think I'm in a happier place now and that was basically my journey but one thing I another advice I want to give you guys is that I think you guys should start with an internship first I think doing oh my God but doing it internship will really allow you the opportunity to know what you like what you don't like when you're working sorry it'll also give you um experience so that you have something tangible for your resume especially if you don't have a Graphic Design background I think doing an internship would really help you gain experience like real work life experience that you could learn from and having a mentor that could help you guide you along the way I think an internship would be like a really good route if you have the time to allocate towards that honestly I was also applying to internships when I was mass applying everywhere I was literally applying to everything internships jobs like everything literally everything so if you can I say internship route is the best route and you can also apply for jobs you not also never know so yeah that is basically the path that I took I'm really happy with where I'm at right now I'm starting this new YouTube thing and I just want to thank everyone for watching this video I don't know if it'll be helpful for you guys but if you do have any other questions or any other thoughts that you have please leave them down below in the comments I definitely do read everything and I'll help you guys answer whatever I can and maybe if you could leave some video suggestions of what you want to see next as well yeah thank you and I hope you guys enjoyed this video it's very different from what I usually do I do a lot of b-rolls here but this time I think I just want to do a sit down video and talk to you guys and yeah thank you for watching

Channel: Helen Tran

Views: 18,799

Keywords: ux, ui, career, design, product design, tech, montreal, bootcamp, no experience, experience, designer, tech career, helen, melen, tran, helen tran, asian

Id: TEXe_fhmtaM

Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023