What Next for My Design Career?

What keeps me up at night? This is it! Hearing from my colleagues and friends that they have been impacted by the layoffs.

I am inspired by the powerful question of "Why is this happening to the people I know? And to take it into something actionable, I begin to wonder how I can help them?

Because my experience has been around design practice, so I put together resources that were helpful for me when I started looking for design jobs. So here you go!

Ask Yourself "What's next?"

A few questions that I asked myself are:

• What are some good moments I enjoyed during my previous job? I like to focus on what I enjoy doing more than what didn't work well. Because this will help tailor my focus, starting wit positivity, when searching for the company to apply to.
• What kind of environment I see myself in? There could be things that didn't happen during the last job but could make your work life even better if you can have those. Sometimes, I call this a magic wand question.

Brushing Up Resume and Portfolio

My 2 cents is to always keep my resume and portfolio up-to-date. But if you haven't, don't panic. It's OK! I do that, too! Life goes on and we get too busy with work, family, hobbies and other fun things. This medium article written by Trista Liu is one of my favorites when I need just enough inspiration to begin cleaning up my resume.

For portfolio - It is fair to say that the companies will ask for your design portfolio when applying to UX-related jobs. Portfolio is something I am still learning on how to make it sustainable over time. Each company has their own flavor of how they view design roles. Thus, I find myself having to tailor my portfolio towards their needs. There are online and static forms available for portfolio creation. Once the tool is chosen, focusing on the content that tells people who you are, what you can do and how you think and work is important. I refer to this article published in Interaction Design Foundation because it was simple enough and didn't scare me with awesome portfolios that are out there already.

If you are looking for more 1:1 help with resume and portfolio, ADPList was very helpful for me.

Connect and Apply to The Jobs

Once the two questions are answered or somewhat answered; resume and portfolio are ready to go, it's time to connect with people who may be working at the companies you are interested in applying. Don't be afraid to ask for help (e.g. referrals). Connection is powerful! This can be done through attending networking events or go old school, reach out to your network directly.

Applying for jobs is a full time job. The application forms can be lengthy, almost like citizenship application if you ever have to fill out one. Finding uninterrupted time to complete at least 1or 2 applications a day was helpful for me. If more than 2 applications can be submitted, you rock! But this is not about number of applications, it's about you and how you feel about applying to those companies.

Prepping for Interviews

Now that the applications have been submitted, it's time to get ready for all forms of interview. I will summarize the ones that I typically experienced.

• Phone Screening

Phone screening is exciting! I usually jumped up and down as soon as I hear from HRs, recruiters, a member of a team or a hiring manager. On a bright side, I was probably one step closer to be part of the team. Phone Screening is not just another call. It's the time for you to learn about the company and more in depth about the opportunity.

Prepare some questions:

"Could you describe what the environment looks like at work?"

"Why did you join X company?"

"What are some opportunities for this role (that you apply for) to support?"

You will also be asked to talk about:

Yourself

What interest you about X company?

What are you hoping to do?

This article was helpful for me to help prepare me for phone screening.

• Behavioral and Structures Interview

Congratulations! The company wants to keep learning about you! Usually the conversation and questions are tailored towards learning about you and how you solve a problem.

"Tell me about the time when you handle a challenging situation."

Carl Wheatley summarized UX design interview questions really well. I referred to his article quite often when I prepared for behavioral interviews.

• Exercise to Uncover Your Design Process and How You Think

Whiteboarding exercise is the most popular one that I have seen. I practiced this exercise over and again until I felt comfortable. There are a number of design problems that you can have fun with. UX Design Institute has a good list of design problems that I regularly refer to.

I suggest reading this 5 steps to master whiteboard design challenge and use whiteboarding template that is available on Figma.

From this point on, the interview process can vary, depending on the roles you applied to.

• The hiring manager may want to speak with you.
• The hiring team may invite you to hang out with them.

If any if these situations happen, don't panic. They probably would like to show how awesome they are. Be curious! Prepare a lot of questions. Here are some examples. Although, examples are provided here, it is recommended you add your own personality and show that are really curious.

From the author - I hope this article can be helpful for those who are back on job hunting mode. My intention is to craft something that can be helpful and actionable for a lot of people. Cheers! - Moni Gmitro