Unsolicited advice from a UX Manager
By: Jared Williams
Tags: User Experience, Ux Management, User Experience Design, UX, UX Design

Let’s get started, here’s a possible scenario…

You’ve taken UX courses or graduated from a UX bootcamp and you want to start working as a UX practitioner. Your portfolio is looking slick, your resume is ready, and your profiles are updated. You’ve invested time and money into yourself and it’s time to make that investment pay off so you start the job search.

You submit applications and get an interview scheduled. Dang, you are rejected. You get more interviews and the rejections happen again and again. The feedback you receive indicates that you’re not experienced enough or the feedback is so vague that it’s not clear why you were rejected.

My unsolicited advice for you

Be authentic and market yourself

Try explaining why you’re the best person to fill the role, how you’ll apply your skills and past experiences, and how you’re different (not better) from the other candidates. You are uniquely you, embrace that and try to find people who need and appreciate someone like you. Sometimes people have the skills for a job, but their personality isn’t a good fit. People are like chemistry, if you mix the wrong ingredients it might explode. Some personalities thrive in casual work environments and some thrive in formal environments so try to find what works best for you and look for missions that you want to support.

Explain your approach and reasoning

If you’re unable to explain the reasons for your decisions and how you arrived at the solution it could indicate that you’ll do the same on the job. That’s not desirable to a manager who’s relying on you to make informed decisions. You need to back up your decisions and explain your process about how you got from point A to point B. I need to know how you learned about the problem, what methods were used to understand the problem, how those methods informed your decisions, what constraints and risks there were to consider, and how you measured success. I’ve listed some questions that I may ask a candidate during an interview.

• How did you find the problem?

• What methods were used in researching the problem and how did they inform your decisions?

• What caused the problem?

• Where was it happening and who is being impacted?

• What were the risks of not addressing the problem?

• How frequent is the issue?

• How much does it cost to support the issue?

• How much does it cost to fix the issue?

• How was success defined?

• How effective was the solution?

• What constraints or risks were considered in the solution?

• What were the measurable outcomes and how were they measured?

Frameworks can help you

Frameworks can help with definition, organization, prioritization, and so much more. The framework to use for your project depends on the type of work you’re doing. I recommend learning about frameworks that make the most sense for your projects or role and learn them really well, I’ve listed a few below.

• Hierarchy of User Experience Needs

• UX Honeycomb

• Elements of User Experience

• Jobs-to-be-done

• Hook Canvas/Model

• BASIC UX

• Google HEART

It’s important to understand when and why to apply a method

If you’re making journey maps, empathy maps, and doing heuristic evaluations you’ll need to explain why you chose that method and how it was used in your decisions. Different methods are applied at different times for different reasons, it’s really important to understand how the information from the method applied informs your solution. If you don’t know when to use a method, an answer such as “I’ll find out” or “I’d have to refer to my guide” is a response that I’d find acceptable for entry and junior level candidates.

Words matter, choose them wisely

If you speak negatively about an organization, former manager, or colleagues it can show lack of maturity, business etiquette, and raises red flags for me. There is no circumstance that justifies that type of behavior so avoid it. As a manager, I need to feel confident that you’ll remain respectful to the organization. Keep in mind that we’re strangers meeting for the first time and we only get one chance at making a good first impression.

The failed project question

Some managers won’t ask you about failed projects, but what I’m trying to see is that you can identify and understand what went wrong, when it went wrong, and why it went wrong. This is your opportunity to show that you’re able to learn from mistakes and apply that knowledge toward future projects.

ROI and Outcomes

I invest my time and energy into the UX team and I expect the same from each contributor. I’m responsible for delivering measurable outcomes based on the team’s collective abilities and essentially showing the ROI on our salaries. You need to show the outcomes of your work instead of asking me to take your word for it. You need to show the difference between the pre and post work to demonstrate that your approaches are effective. Outcomes can be measured without Google Analytics so think about what data sets you’ll need to show success.

Be prepared for your interview

As a hiring manager, I have already invested time and energy into you before an interview is scheduled. A good candidate prepares by understanding the company and its products/offerings. First impressions matter and you only get one chance at it so make sure you’re properly groomed, dressed appropriately, and prepared to explain how your experience and skill sets are applicable. If you’re interviewing remotely try getting set-up in a quiet place with sufficient lighting and use headphones as they tend to provide better audio quality.

Wrapping up, rejection sucks for everyone

It NEVER feels good to reject a candidate, I dread it and it sucks. Rejecting people who want to work causes me to have feelings of guilt and anxiety, but it’s my burden unless I can hire everyone so this is my way of trying to help.

Thanks for reading my article and good luck.

Respectfully,

Jared Williams