How To Become a UX Designer With No Experience l A Beginner's Guide

hi my name is stephanie and we're going to talk about how i became a ux designer in 2022 despite tech layoffs in the living recession and some tips on how you can do the same thing so let's get into it first thing background about me just to give you some context i was an interior designer for seven years before making the switch to ux i did residential but my last couple years were spent mainly doing commercial design so i will be transparent and saying that having that design background did kind of give me an advantage because some of the ui aspects came a little bit easier to me as well as the design thinking process april 2021 is when i joined a boot camp specifically springboard was the one that i did at the ux ui designer track and in another video i can get into um what my thoughts were about that boot camp i'll do that in a separate video i knew i needed some kind of formal training just the way that my mind works the way that i like to learn i like to have homework i like to have assignments so i knew i needed that kind of structure that a boot camp would provide so that boot camp took me from april all the way to december so like eight nine months of like solid work i was still working my full-time interior design job then coming home and then doing a few more hours at night of ux work so i completed my bootcamp december 2021 and then come january 2022 is when i really hit the ground running in terms of applying for jobs applying for jobs was grueling i can't even tell you how many hours i spent on linkedin oh my god like linkedin and i i was funding linkedin with how often i was doing it i was you linkedin is my social media now like it's crazy i'm not even on linkedin for a job hunt anymore and i'm still on there just like oh what's going on oh somebody got laid off oh there's a new position like it was so ingrained in me but the job process the job hunting process was a lot and i'm not gonna sugarcoat it you might get lucky and you get a job within two months and the timing is on your side for me the timing was not on my side it took me a little over six months i was past the six month point when i finally got my job the offer so within those six months it was a lot of talking to recruiters doing info interviews applying applying applying i can get into that in another video about the application process and the job hunt process but overall it was not easy and i want to make sure that people know that like it's going to be tough some people they have great timing and it's pretty quick but for me it wasn't the case so i just want to be honest like you don't know what kind of experience you're gonna get so keep that in mind so how did i do it so first thing and it's not fun to hear six and a half months of applying to jobs you have to put in the time to apply and make sure your application is good make sure your cover letter is good make sure you have your resources set so you can apply a little bit easier something that i had i had a working google doc that had like my cover letters some kind of pre-written answers for questions um my links to my portfolio and my linkedin so that just made it a little bit easier having like a side document to keep all of that um tracked so that's one thing make sure you organize as you apply for your jobs i wouldn't discount cold applying for a job the job i currently have i did that exact same thing i saw the posting on linkedin i applied and that got the ball rolling you know i'm kind of shortening the whole story but that's really what i did but behind the scenes though i was on linkedin every single day i was touching up my portfolio tweaking my resume i was cleaning up my linkedin so i was doing all this other work to make sure that when i did apply to something i was putting my best foot forward so something else you want to keep in mind don't discount the cold apply i know some people get their jobs through recruiter or a friend that works there an informational interview i did all those things and unfortunately that didn't get me my job but that's not to say that those options aren't viable because they are should you become a ux designer it depends which is kind of a crappy answer but it depends i would say yes if ux is something that you're really interested in you have a passion for you've done your due diligence you've done your research and if you have the financial means to do so and by that i mean you have a good built-up savings you have another job that you're working while you're going through this i would make sure you have all of that in place before you make the jump just because i don't know everybody's situation but i personally wouldn't have done it if i wasn't working full-time like i couldn't have supported myself and not worked and solely focused on this bootcamp when it comes to the landscape when it comes to tech i would say for me i always regret not starting sooner like i made the choice january 2021 and didn't start my boot camp till april so even those couple of months i wish i had started sooner and the thing is like if you have a financial ability to do so and you've got another job go through the boot camp once you're done with the boot camp you still have your job you keep applying and then who knows by the time the boot camp is done maybe things will look a little bit better really if you feel that you're being called to ux or you feel like you have a really good passion for you can really bring a lot to it i wouldn't let scary times stop you there's always going to be scary times but imagine the scary times are over and you have your ux certificate or would you rather be i weighted weighted waited the security time's over now i'm gonna start my boot camp no because by the time the scary times are over there's gonna be a lot of jobs that you wanna apply for maybe it's like it's scary now but it's not gonna be scary forever i have one trick that inadvertently helped me get my job that i want to share when you're making your portfolio projects when you're creating a case study when you're picking whatever project that is that's going to go in that portfolio i want you to think about what industry do i want to be in the reason i want you thinking about that is because you can tailor your case study to the industry that you want to be in this is not groundbreaking but let me break it down a little bit one of my case studies in my portfolio was an e-commerce website so this e-commerce website was kind of straightforward you had the seller side you had the buyer's side what that kind of looked like dashboard versus like a checkout page kind of standard stuff but marketplace e-commerce the job that i currently have my role is going to be creating a marketplace so to speak so my case study directly correlated to the kind of person that they were looking for if my case study had been about i don't know a new app a kind of competitor to lyft or uber then my current company would not have maybe want to put me in this role and that not to say that it's a bad thing but i definitely think you can use that to your advantage so if you know you want to say you want to work on an app that helps with loans or financing in your case study you should have something that talks about that directly it's kind of obvious but make it obvious like make it obvious to this fintech company that hey i have a case study that directly correlates to this specific problem and this is how i solved for it i'd be great in this role because of xyz like make it that obvious that like these two can sync up so be prepared for the lows like i hadn't job hunted like this in about four years maybe you know all my interior design jobs were pretty easy to get i knew somebody that worked at the next company so it was a pretty easy transition so i was out of the job hunting process for a long time so be prepared for the lows and when you're in that low it's important to know like why am i doing this why am i getting into ux you have to remember your y's you have to remember your y's because those will help you get through the lows and it's okay to be low it's okay to wallow but it's not okay to stay there so the next step is to build your network and i don't even just mean like having 500 connections on linkedin and half of them are recruiters like that's important too but it's also important to kind of build camaraderie with other designers especially new designers so i'm coming from interior design and a lot of my friends are interior designers a lot of the people that we know are in this industry architects like that's kind of my bread and butter so it's important to have that as well into this new field especially like if you're a career switcher like i am so it's important to make connections with new designers more senior designers really anybody not only so you can just talk about ux obviously but just to like have that framework and that friendship in this new career in this new space of life because i feel like that really helps ux kind of stick and make it feel like this is not something i just decided to do this is literally a part of my life now so okay so that's what i have for you guys those are my tips and tricks that is my background that's how i got into this role so i'm hoping this helps somebody out here when i first was getting into ux i watched a ton a ton of youtube videos about people doing this exact same thing so i'm really hoping that this will help somebody else who's like thinking about it kind of waffling about it to either make the leap or not but just to think about all the different options so thank you guys again for watching and i'll see you in my next one bye

Channel: Hello Stephanie M

Views: 10,606

Keywords: UX Design, UX Design No Experience, user experience design, how to become a ux designer, product design, how to become ui ux designer, ui design, ui designer, ui ux, ui ux course, ui ux design, ui ux design course, ui ux design tutorial, ui ux designer, ui/ux design, ui/ux design beginners tutorial, ux, ux design course, ux design tutorial for beginners, ux designer, ux designer career, ux designer day in the life, ux ui, ux ui design, ux ui design for beginners

Id: J1lpSK8N4xo

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 22 2022