What are your pain points as a designer/researcher looking for a job after graduation?

[zaralogue]

Tell us your job search pain points 🤕! They might be related to one of these categories, or something completely different:

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs?
😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs?
🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs?
🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have?

[annapfEDU]

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs?
Online mostly, I know of a company by reputation or by looking up its product and then head straight to the careers page. Resources like LinkedIn, or posts on facebook, (any social media posts really) tend not to be helpful since one random post by a friend / connection might be for a singular job with a very specific purpose.

😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs?
What exactly is a "designer" at this company? Being a designer has many different responsibilities and are named different things at different companies. I generally need to look at product, design, and software engineering categories in career sites to make sure I haven't missed one design job or another.

🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs?
Experience measured in years -- whenever I see "needs x years of experience" I get intimidated and know that I'd be filtered out by the resume bot immediately and so I don't bother applying.

🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have?
A PDF copy of my portfolio! Who has that except if they went to art school?? I have a website, not an A4-sized 50 page PDF document!

[signe8699]

The biggest pain point I've found is not having enough UX experience. Employers seem to view UX education and UX on-the-job experience very differently.

A less significant, but still notable pain point is lack of expertise with certain tools (e.g. I'm new to Figma and am a beginner-ish with photoshop).

[sevenmagpies]

Tell us your job search pain points 🤕! They might be related to one of these categories, or something completely different:

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs?
I have been looking for UX generalist roles on Indeed, and Linkedin mainly. I will go to specific companies as well as Twitter.

😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs?
potential employers undercutting on wages, needing 3-5 years for an entry-level position, all of the positions available seem to be senior or principal.

🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs?
Bad application UI and UI that is not mobile-friendly. Also, having to re-input all of my resume information in every. damn. time.

🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have?
driving business decisions and working with stakeholders. I like using Tamara Adlin's job hunting tool that has two weeks and two books away from being able to do something. This helps me identify jobs I can apply to because I believe I could pick up the skills I am missing.

[sevenmagpies]

Also, we don't go through practicals, I didn't know I needed two separate portfolios. Also, how do you find the time to apply for a job when you work full time, are a parent, and go to school. It also takes forever to go through interviews. It can take months to hear back and then months to even finish the loop.

[kaelihall]

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs?
I haven't been, much. I have a job currently in product management and I've been satisfied with getting experience at my current company while I finish my masters. I do search around on LinkedIn sometimes just to keep an eye on what the job market looks like.
😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs?
I'm still unsure if I want to continue as a PM or focus more on UX Research. Either way, most big companies want a ton of experience and I've only got about a year under my belt.
🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs?
I'm really busy with work and school, and would just like to save the mental energy of starting a new position to when I have more bandwidth (after graduation). I also think I need more experience.
🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have?
Years and years of experience. Also, it seems like a lot of PM jobs want a technical/CompSci background which I don't have. My portfolio needs sprucing too.

[blergles]

My biggest pain point in the job search has been figuring out where I might fit, as a career pivoter with significant experience that's not necessarily related and a resume that reads more appropriately for someone in management.

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs? Through my network primarily, plus various job boards
😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs? Understanding the culture, path for growth, how siloed (or not) various teams are, and also how mature the design organization is
🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs? When looking at a company, I won't apply if it has poor reviews of the company on job sites, poor WoM from industry friends, or if the job description is so broad and/or deep that it seems like the department is understaffed. What's made it difficult for me to apply to jobs right now: Pandemic parenting/COVID K-12 online school demands are no joke. Making the time to network, improve my LinkedIn, finish, and polish my portfolio on top of full-time work and homeschooling has been extremely difficult.
🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have? coding skills, portfolio

[aneeshack4]

Tell us your job search pain points 🤕! They might be related to one of these categories, or something completely different:

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs?
Twitter has been a great source for me to find jobs! I follow people I admire & a lot of them will post openings on their teams & some are even hiring managers. Developing an online presence and relationships has been crucial to expanding my network - I've also referred a bunch of people I met online or at conferences & stayed in touch via twitter. The tech world feels smaller on twitter. It's also been a great way for me to learn who I don't want to work with - how diverse a team is, whether a manager has reports who vouch for them, sometimes even the vibe/culture of a team becomes apparent. This mostly works for me because I mainly follow women & people of color in tech & they're usually vocal & open about sharing their experiences. DMing mutuals has helped reveal some more insider info too.

Though I just wrote a big thing about Twitter, in my life, hiring managers and recruiters mostly find me on LinkedIn so even though I don't like using it, it's been the most successful way to get hired. Job boards like Women in PM have also helped because often times hiring managers share their emails there which makes it possible to cold-email them with a personalized pitch.
😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs?
With Product Management roles, I've found that the common 5+ yrs & subject area expertise requirements make it easy to self-disqualify. Not sure as much about design & UX roles but I've seen across the industry that words like "rockstar" "ninja" & gendered, aggressive language turns away people too.
🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs?
To be honest, I take the approach of apply even if I don't think I'll get it very seriously. This usually means I get a ton of rejection emails but for me I frame success as trying and failure as not trying. So as long as I tried and applied, it's a success in my book.
🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have?
Product Manager job apps don't really ask for much - some have questions that resemble typical Product interview questions so having some answers queued up helps. Once I did enough of these, I had a bank ready. I think for design, research, and even front end engineering roles, portfolios/personal projects are probably the biggest gatekeeping thing... if you work full time & try to get away from screens when you're not working, it can be hard to cultivate that.

[jacquelinhiggins]

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs?
I get daily emails from indeed, zip recruiter, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and a couple other places. I also am in a few meetup groups and slack channels that post jobs.

😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs?
A lot of these job postings are from big companies, like FAANG or adjacent. I think I might have a better chance at a smaller, lesser known company and I don't know what those companies might be. I also struggle with junior or associate positions that state you need 3 or 5 years experience. How is that even junior!?!?

🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs?
The years experience required. I also lack confidence in my abilities as a career transitioner with a LOOOONG employment gap due to being the primary caregiver for my two children over the past nearly 9 years. It is also not the best time personally with remote school for my children as I am their task master and question answerer.

🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have?
Mostly years experience. I look at the descriptions and I think, "Yeah, I could do that or learn it." I also worry that I am not as skilled in UI or don't have a unique enough portfolio to get my foot in the door.

[blergles]

Same anxieties re: career transitioning, same struggles here as a pandemic parent. Solidarity!

[markyojic]

🕵🏽‍♀️ Where have you been looking for jobs?
Online, in different platforms.

😓 What is difficult about identifying potential jobs?
As a designer with limited experience, many jobs required 2-3years of experience for a junior position, which is confusing and intimidating.

🙅 What has prevented you from applying to jobs?
VISA restrictions! Sometimes it is because it is heavily involved with code or graphic design, which is not my wheelhouse.

🔍 What are some things that job applications ask for that you feel you don't have?
Knowledge of coding, and practical experience.

Additionally, I know it is impossible, but I would hope for some feedback from either recruiter or hiring manager about my applying material or interview performance.

[marktas]

I primarily use LinkedIn to look for jobs and find jobs relevant for me. The biggest pain points I've found include building a portfolio that's succinct, complete and accurately reflects who I am and what I do. Another pain point with the portfolio is including the right kind and amount of information.

Finally, I think leveling is another issue with applying for jobs. You may have enough professional experience where a really junior role wouldn't be suitable, but not enough design-specific experience for mid-level or senior roles.

[vwallen]

🙅🔍 Changing career paths means having an odd mix of a lot of parallel or peripheral experience, but not the direct education or career path into some positions. Being simultaneously "junior" in some skills and "overqualified" in others.

[signe8699]

So true! Well said.

[zaralogue]

Thank you everyone for your contributions! Although this was a hypothetical project to give us fodder for the talk today, there are some great themes in here that I will share with our talent team at GitHub. I'll anonymize everything and your names won't be shared.