The Survivor’s Guide to Unemployment: How to make it in a turbulent job market
To celebrate the one-month anniversary of my being unemployed/actively starting my UX job search, I have decided to share the tactics, tricks, and habits that I have cultivated from the world of sports coaching, psychology, and being an experienced career changer (third time and counting) that will help you to navigate the long journey towards employment.
A mentor of mine highlighted a YouTube video titled “Is UX (Writing) slowly dying?” which, as a newcomer to the UX Writing world, piqued my interest. In it, Dr Kat succinctly explains the challenge newbies to UX are facing, in terms of the reduction of salary and increase in layoffs. She also states that these days newcomers need to do more than simply show a bootcamp certificate and an active LinkedIn profile to land their first job.
So what’s the pathway to success?
Self-assessment and skill enhancement
“Destiny is not fate, it’s navigation” Richie Norton.
If you want to know where you’re going, you need to know where you’re at. Most likely you’ve completed or are close to completing a UX Bootcamp. Good news: Congratulations, you’re a dedicated student! Bad news: That’s not enough. Here’s where the real work begins.
Take the time to assess your skills and compare them to what hiring managers are looking for in their job postings. Are there any specific areas that interest you? Perhaps you speak multiple languages and are drawn towards localisation for example. If you have a head for numbers, maybe you could study data analytics. Try and find a niche that you feel you would enjoy learning more about and become more of an expert in that area.
For a deeper understanding of what is expected of you as a UX writer, check out the free ebook “UX Writing for Beginners” by Andy Carney.
In an industry that develops and moves as fast as tech, you must continue to learn and grow your skill set to stay up-to-date and relevant.
Building your portfolio
“If you think a thing is impossible, you will only make it impossible” Bruce Lee.
This is an essential step to take and one I recommend you dedicate time to regularly. Little and often is best. Making a portfolio is hard for many reasons: you don’t know where to start, you want it to be perfect before sharing it with the world, you aren’t sure what to include, you feel beset with imposter syndrome etc.
I wasted so much time being handicapped by these thoughts until I finally took a course with Bite-size UX that broke down the process into manageable tasks.
Firstly, start with a format you feel comfortable with to host your work; showcase your Figma skills by using it to create your portfolio, build a free website with Wix or Canva, or pay for a domain and go for a full build.
Secondly, pick your best case study and aim to finish it. Don’t do a bit from one study and a bit from another, that only leads to a mess of unfinished work.
Thirdly, break your case study down into its relevant parts, and list them all to begin with; research, interviews, surveys, design, iteration, testing, etc. Briefly explain in each section what your aim was, how you tried to achieve it, and your findings. Imagine it being a script for your presentation at a job interview. Don’t just list deliverables, explain why you chose to use them. Don’t assume the listener knows what your product is, tell them succinctly.
Finally, you can edit the sections so they flow nicely along as a story. Maybe you can merge similar sections or remove some that don’t add anything to the outcome. Embellish it with images and show your personality in how you present the information. Repeat for all your case studies!
At first, your portfolio might look a bit bare, but that’s ok. It should merely motivate you to add more examples of your work to it. You can show ideas for improving the design of products you regularly use. This resource from the UX Writing Hub has a ton of ideas to help you.
Creating content
“There is no conversation more boring than the one where everyone agrees” Michel de Montaigne
If you want to be taken seriously as someone who wants to work in UX, you must be prepared to engage in the ongoing conversation. This could be writing long-form articles, blogging, posting on your socials, creating videos etc.
There is no shortage of subjects that you can talk about, perhaps start with the areas you chose as your niche. Comment on posts by others that are talking about what interests you or that you feel passionate about and build from there.
It can be daunting to publish something for the world to see but don’t doubt how supportive the community will be. Unless you’re writing an article about how kittens are awful and should be catapulted into space, you should be ok.
Signing up to a platform like Medium to have all your articles in one place can be a good place to start, and from there you may attract editors who use your articles for their publications — more exposure for you as a writer and importantly, building your community.
Networking and community
“Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives” Michelle Obama.
This was one of the hardest hurdles for me to overcome, personally. For some reason, I was finding it hard to ask for help. The more I started asking, however, the more connections started to be created.
In an age where your resume must be tailored for each job role to reflect the keywords, it’s the human connection that will be the most likely route to getting your foot in the door somewhere for your first interview.
I have been so touched by the kindness of strangers since coming into the UX community. Whether it’s been friends of friends taking the time to give me some pointers, inviting me to join Slack groups or workshops, someone even offered to let me shadow them for a day at their work to see what a UX Writer does in the real world.
Use LinkedIn and other online communities to find people in your area who may be willing to mentor you, offer you advice, or meet for a coffee and connect face to face — it’s all valuable. If they can see your online presence and portfolio, and then put a face to that person in the real world it will stand you in good stead.
Helping others has been shown to release endorphins and serotonin in the brain, reduce loneliness, and be one of the fastest ways to get a stranger to feel closer to you. It makes sense that a community of people who empathise for a living would want to take the time to help those who are just starting. And the best thing is that once you’re established, you can pay it forward to the newcomers from your swanky corner office.
Applying for jobs
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run”. Babe Ruth.
Quite possibly this is the most soul-destroying aspect of your routine. You will apply for many jobs. You may not hear a reply from most of them. Some may ask you to conduct multiple interviews and invest your time and energy into skills tests, only to ignore you.
This is no reflection on you. If a company decides to ghost you, that’s on them. Once you accept these things are out of your control, then it makes it easier to let go of the agonising about whether you may have had a comma out of place on your resume.
However, not all companies treat applications this way and some have even taken the time to offer me feedback on my application. Use it and carry it forward.
There’s been a ton written by people much more experienced than me about how to best tailor your application for each job so my advice is to take the ideas that resonate with you and use them for yourself.
Ensure that you have a single source of truth to keep track of all the applications you have sent out, you don’t want to wind up on a call not knowing what job you’re interviewing for.
I use Airtable to keep track of job ads, job boards, where I am in each phase of each job application, contact details etc or you could a service like Teal.
Goal setting for success
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit, suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion” Muhammad Ali.
By now, you have a big list of things to do. Courses to complete, portfolio sections to design, networking to be done, articles to plan and write… it can be daunting. The only way to make any sense of this monstrous workload you’ve created is to set some goals.
Make a list of all the tasks and have them organised somewhere, maybe as a spreadsheet, software like Todist, or simply a paper chart. Prioritise the tasks in order of importance, or when you want to have them completed.
Finally, and this is the magic ingredient to help you stay motivated to complete your goal, make a list of the reasons why you are undertaking each task. Be totally, brutally honest as possible with yourself. You’re more likely to form a habit by seeing the reason you started it.
Then you can start breaking things down into smaller, more attainable goals. Count how many modules there are to the course you’re looking to finish and make a realistic plan about how often you can do that task and for how long. Ten modules at one module per week, give or take a couple of weeks for delays. You’ll have a new skill for your resume within 3 months.
Biohacking to boost performance
When I was working with professional athletes, you would be amazed at what they would do to get an edge over the competition; from ice baths to game theory. Below are some less extreme, scientifically proven ways to turbocharge your performance so you can blast through your workload.
Take a siesta — a personal favourite from my adopted home country of Spain. Religiously followed by sumo wrestlers in Japan to Olympic athletes. A quick nap in the afternoon has been shown to boost mood, aid memory, and reduce stress. The trick here is to not fall asleep for too long, 20 minutes should do it. I take an espresso after lunch and sleep until the caffeine wakes me up. Works like a charm.
Move — so simple but so effective. Move your body. That’s it. Stand up from your desk/sofa and stretch out, have a dance, or just take the dog for a walk. If you don’t have a dog, take yourself for a walk (just don’t get caught peeing on any lamposts). If you need some free videos to stretch out any aches and pains, I can’t recommend Gold Medal Bodies highly enough.
Find your working rhythm — are you a morning person or a night owl? Most likely it’s down to your CLOCK gene so if you’re more alert first thing, try working on the more taxing tasks and save easier things to do for later on. Play around until you find what best works for you.
Check the weather — plan your week accordingly. If you know there are a few sunny days ahead, try to meet some of your network outside or find a place to work outdoors. Dose up on vitamin D, it’s good for you.
Take time to have fun/give yourself a break — I cannot stress enough how important this one is! So many studies show that our performance improves the happier we are. In a work situation that can be whether we feel valued but in a case where you’re expected to be self-motivating, you have to be both the worker and the boss who breaks out the beers early on a Friday. Take regular breaks to jam on your guitar or call a friend. Take a day to yourself where you do no work at all and just have fun; it’s the one perk of being unemployed!
Conclusion
If you’ve made it all the way here, well done! Hopefully, you will now have a better idea of how to help yourself towards landing your first job.
Assess where you are right now and the next direction you would like to go, set some goals, break them down into manageable chunks and have fun making connections along the way.
Remember that you are not alone, always reach out to someone, especially if you’re having a rough day, there will surely be someone who can lend an ear and some words of encouragement.
Landing your first gig seems to be harder than it ever has been in UX but with the right mindset and approach you will achieve it.