This is the last episode of 2021. After nearly two years of outlining the content for this episode and nearly two months (at time of writing) of recording & editing, here’s everything I know (so far) on landing a job in UX. I hope this content is not only useful to you and anyone you know looking to land their first (or next) job in UX, but I sincerely hope this episode is greatly inspirational and even life-changing for you. I forgot to say it at the end of the episode, so Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Joyous New Year dear Defenders! Take care of yourself and each other, and I’ll see you on the other side of this year with more amazing UX/Design content! Jason Ogle Bio Jason Ogle is human, not dancer. He’s a growth-minded, avid reader and listener whose vehicle is a rolling university. He’s an innovative and strategic design leader focused on product creation, growth and conversion. He’s a passionate user defender who fights for the users who are victims of bad design decisions. He’s an influential podcaster who uses the enchanting magic of audio to inspire and equip an audience of hungry and ambitious designers. He’s an evocative (often contrarian) writer who believeth in the power of the written word. He’s a confident, highly self-aware servant-leader who believes that humans are so much more than resources. He’s a loving husband (22 yrs and counting) and father of six here on earth (which speaks to his leadership abilities), and one already in heaven (which speaks to his deep capacity for empathy). Fun facts: He once had to get a manicure to be a hand-model for a tech ad, got his uvula surgically removed while recovering from ankle surgery, and has a rare essay titled “Altars of Satan” given to him and signed by Eldridge Cleaver. Timestamps Origin (4:50) Count the Costs (9:53) Portfolio (21:18) Resume (29:49) Networking (35:03) Applying (40:38) Interviewing (50:11) Negotiating (1:02:32) In Closing (1:09:45) Links Jason Ogle LinkedIn Jason Ogle Website Jason Ogle Resume (Before) [PDF] Jason Ogle Resume (After) [PDF] Land a Job in UX Series 079: Listener Spotlight – Landing My First UX Job [PODCAST] 055: How to Get Your Foot in the Door with Andy Budd [PODCAST] 056: Building an Effective UX Portfolio with Sarah Doody [PODCAST] 057: Interviewing Like a Boss with Andy Vitale [PODCAST] 058: Finding the Right Cultural Fit with Justin Dauer [PODCAST] Ken Coleman Show [PODCAST] Ken Coleman Resume Guide [PDF] Imposter Syndrome: Why We Have it and How to Kick it in the Privates [PODCAST] Radical Empathy with Seth Godin [PODCAST] Best Advice for Someone Looking to Land Their First UX Job (LinkedIn Thread) Build your design portfolio around one awesome story [ARTICLE] 2022 UX Salary Guide (US + Canada) – Vitamin T aText (Text Expander) Song credit at the end Comeback Kid by The Midnight Merch “Your Ego is Not Your Amigo” Unisex T-Shirt (double-sided) $24.97 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page Transcript Show transcript Origin So, let me kick things off with a quick backstory. Toward the end of 2019, actually just before the holidays, worst possible time to be told you don’t have a job. Spoiler alert. I was called into an office, and immediately saw one of the VP’s of design, and also an HR person, and I knew immediately, okay, this is the end of my tenure. I had been at my company for nearly seven years. I was working for an extremely toxic leader. The first moment I realized that, my goal was to get as far away as possible from this person. An opportunity opened up for me to help out on more of a user experience focused team within the organization. And so, what I ended up doing was I ended up moving onto that team and into a user research capacity, which is really out of my wheelhouse, honestly. I’ve done little bits here and there, but I’ve never actually taken on that responsibility. But, it was a good stretch for me. And I learned a lot in a short amount of time was able to conduct some important research. I found myself sort of in limbo because there were a lot of changes that were actually started beginning to happen on this new team that I was on new leadership, and you know how that can happen. It’s happened to me before. You get hired by a specific leader, that person leaves, and a new leader comes in, and maybe they don’t like you for whatever reason. Maybe you’re not a yes man or yes woman. And they have an ego trip. This is a true story. And they don’t like that. And maybe there’s some age-ism issues, that happened to me too at the same place. This guy just wanted young people who would just comply and just do whatever he said and not challenge his decisions. So he got rid of me. Anyway, that’s sort of what happened again to me, just in a little bit of a different capacity. New leadership came in and I kind of found myself the new guy. And last one hired first one fired kind of thing. And so I ended up. Getting the talk and told, “Hey, we got to let you go.” And so of course that was, it’s always a gut punch, right? Especially when you’ve been committed to a company for so long and everything, but, all that to say they handled it extremely graciously with me. And gave me, like, I think two more months to kind of wrap things up and gave me time to even work on my portfolio. Got the severance, and everything, so I was super grateful for how they handle that. It was a just total pro way to do things and companies listening. I know you have to lay people off. I know it’s business, it’s not personal, but it certainly feels personal to the person being laid off. Really, please try your hardest, do your best to let that person off as gently as possible. Don’t just give them like a day and to just be gone. Right. It’s not cool. Especially when somebody served there, and been loyal for a while. Please take that to heart and please be respectful and empathic about how you go about doing these things because it hurts. It just, it just does it’s it may not hurt you because you still have a job, but it hurts the person being told they no longer have the means to provide for their family. So, the very beginning of January, 2020 before the great plague, I found myself in transition. It had been seven years nearly since I had to pound the pavement, and all of a sudden, here I am. I’m like scrambling to get a portfolio together and you’ve heard me talk about it before my website. I wanted to hand code it, and it’s still not done. And I had started it even before this happened. I was able to at least get a project on there and I was able to at least kind of get a homepage together. It was a rude awakening for me to all of a sudden find myself on the hunt. To all of a sudden find myself searching for work. And I really, honestly, I felt like a fish out of water. That’s the best way I can put it. It’s been a long time. I didn’t know what the market was like. And honestly, even in 2020, the supply of designers, I felt like was much higher than the demand. It’s been a journey, and I’m very grateful that my transitional period was only about a month, honestly, I’ve been in transition for a year before and that sucked. That really sucked. That was hard. And, I was able to thankfully do some freelancing in the midst of that, but, man it’s hard. I have empathy for you having been in your shoes not long ago. Count the Costs So, before I jump into really giving you as much information and knowledge that I’ve learned about landing a job to date. I really want to actually take a second here to sort of challenge you. And I, honestly don’t do this and I haven’t really done this before. I want to ask you sincerely, and I want you to ask yourself, do you really want to do this? Do you really want to do this? I was reflecting on this a little bit and I love this stuff so much. Obviously. I love this work. I love talking about it. I love talking to others about it. And I love inspiring new designers. It’s one of my favorite things. And honestly, I never get sick of hearing when you tell me, thank you so much for what you’re doing, because of your podcast and this information that you shared or your guests shared. I got my first job in UX. I never get tired of hearing that. But I realized something about myself in reflection, and particularly before even thinking about doing an episode like this. I found myself really reflecting on how I can tend to possibly over-glamorize this field and only talk about the great parts. And that sort of stopped me in my tracks and it made me want to take a step back and try to make sure that I’m honest with you that even though this work is really, really awesome. It is really, really challenging. And it can be very trying. It can be very stressful. It can be deflating. I’m going to take a few minutes here and I’m going to challenge you. I’m going to challenge all of us, especially Defenders, especially you who are trying to get your first foot in the door. That you haven’t worked in this field before, but you have done enough research. You’ve listened to this show. Maybe listen to a few episodes and they inspired you, and I’m glad for that. I really want to talk to you, especially because folks that have been doing this for a while, you may already have an idea, but still tune in, listen to this. Because I really think this is important to count the cost of this work. One of the big challenges, which is again, is a great thing and I enjoy this particularly, but it also makes my head hurt, is solving some really big problems. UX is all about problem solving and trying to make life better for people you’ve never met. Think about that. There’s a lot of sacrifice and that’s why I say it a hundred times, but the superhero metaphor really works in this field. Because you are laying yo
