Failures in designer career: what do they bring you
By: Ludmila Shevchenko
Tags: Product Design, UX, Career Change, UI, Design

Designers are sensitive souls. Apart from doing their work good, they need the recognition — whether be among top designers on Dribbble or win Awwwards. This kind of victories we usually post on our social networks to present how successful we are. The clients may be attracted by these achievements, other designers will be simply jealous, and a very tiny group of people will be happy for you. Your best friend, mom, and dog, I assume.

In all this successful world or its alternative fake-it-till-you-make-it, there is no place for telling a story of failure. That’s a risky thing, if not presented under the winning side, your level of success may drop down.

The truth is, we all have failures. Whether these are the project issues, your personal exhaustion or changing the career path. The last one is what I want to describe — my story of switching from the work in the design studio to freelance, which, actually, wasn’t planned to be like that at all. You can find my story about the first month of being a designer as well.

That was a moment when I was looking for other opportunities, searching for open positions in different companies. For the first time in my life, I created not just portfolio but the resume, googled to find what’s the point of all the motivation letters, and even thought I understand the rules. Well, I didn’t.

And so, the journey began

I’ve sent my letters to different destinations. These were the startups, the design studios, and well-known companies. I had criteria for that:

I love the product (Spotify)

(Spotify) I love the works of the studio and its attitude (Stupid studio)

(Stupid studio) It seems, we have a style in common (Lifesum, Duolingo)

Talking to a guy I’ve met at Wroclaw Dribbble meetup I’ve heard from him the same idea I believe in— when he was looking for a job entering Framer website he realized that’s the company he wanted to work at. Something should give you a sign, the voice you can hear entering the website, maybe? In my case, it is a bright gradient on the background (joke, there should be more gradients than one).

Another brick in the wall

The first obstacle I faced has nothing with the design itself nor my experience and competence. It’s… my passport.

I didn’t have a strong aim to move abroad and, actually, I’m still in doubt what kind of work, remote or on-site looks more interesting to me as both have the benefits and disadvantages. But filling the info to send your request to a certain company, quite often the last step was to mark — do you have permission to work in, let’s say, European Union? Hmm, at first I thought they’re just curious to know. Ha-ha, such a naive girl.

The truth is, in most cases this tiny detail reflects instantly what will be next. I’m Ukrainian and as Ukraine isn’t in the European Union I don’t have such permission and, thus, the company has to provide it. Usually, companies want to have fewer obstacles from their side which means that they won’t even take a look at your portfolio seeing you don’t have this permission. I don’t want to say it happens always, certainly, there are other companies who deal with it, but for me, all these worldwide rules, in general, seem unfair. In the result, the visa things may limit your choice and possibilities,

the position isn’t equal to everyone.

“Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do” as hippie John Lennon sang and I’m writing these lines crossing the Ukrainian border control, what a coincidence.

Is love to a product enough to join the team?

Spotify HQ, Stockholm

I decided that I couldn’t not to try my luck and sent the resume to Spotify, the company I admire as I use their product every day. The funny thing is that once I even visited their main office in Stockholm. Simply by passing the street, I saw their name and a sign “Welcome to Spotify, we’re on the 4th floor” (the kind of sign that was really friendly-inviting). My curiosity won and I came there saying something stupid like “Guys, I like Spotify, can I take a look at your office?”. You know, every fancy designer visiting California has to publish a photo from Instagram HQ/Airbnb/Facebook, you choose. And so I also wanted to have such moment! Well, turned out, these photos frightened some of my colleagues back at that time.

I’ve read lots of info about the company, the interviews with designers. Once, I’ve attended the lecture by a designer from Spotify team and, of course, the admiration of Tobias van Schneider’s articles, the man who is a master in creating his own brand and who himself was part of this team, all these things kinda motivated me as well. And back to my summertime sadness, I mean life-changing plans, I sent my letter and portfolio to Spotify. The instant no-reply letter said, “We’re extremely happy you’re interested in joining us but as we have a huge number of requests it may take a long time to provide the answer to you”. And so it was. After 3 months, when I already forgot about this situation, I’ve finally got one more letter. Rejection.

I wasn’t upset. In the beginning, it was a dream to join this team but then, I thought —

what actually attracted me in joining them?

I took a fresh look at the app and realized, we have quite different visions on design. Working each day on the black-is-the-color-of-my-soul app doesn’t follow my beliefs. Another thing to ponder — will it be ok for me to be one of a hundred or even more designers in a team? Not sure.

Style in common and inspiring mission to work on

Lifesum — that was another company I’ve sent my letter to. The case when I really thought we’re on the same page! Look at their bright app and website, who on Earth can be a better candidate to join this paradise-gradient-world than…me?

In this situation, I completed several more game levels comparing to Spotify. We had a number of calls to discuss my experience and position details. I talked to different people and met the team of designers. I had a test work to do and present, everything looked like the result would be positive. Actually, during the process, I’ve heard the statements that had a message like “you are part of a team”. But turned out, that was one more trap.

I didn’t get this position. The last feedback I received mentioned that I’ve done a great test work but my presentation was unsure, I worried and didn’t show much interest in the company. Doesn’t my application and time spent mean I’m really interested?

Well, of course, I can’t see the situation from their point of view. And though I was really disappointed with such result, I’m very grateful for this experience.

The conclusions I’ve made

Changing your job, creating portfolio&resume, attending interviews — is an extremely time-consuming thing. Don’t forget to send letters to as many companies as possible (but still choose only the ones you admire) as there’ll be rejections, a lot of them. It’ll happen in any case, even if you’re a rock star of design.

Coworking space Poligon, Ljubljana

In this story, I’ve described only several cases. Apart from that, I’ve received other rejections or my letters simply haven’t been answered. And what I realized back at that time, or actually a bit later, is that

all this process is a game, where you can hardly understand the rules.

First, you’re looking for the position, reading descriptions and suddenly realize — here it is, it’s a match! You’re excited and send your resume and portfolio, answer the additional questions if needed. And then, you’re waiting for the answer. But when it’s a big company, there are hundreds of other applicants and you’re one of them. If you do win the first round, that’s only the beginning, the number of interviews will follow. Don’t forget, there are other applicants on this step as well, the company decisions are unlikely to be done quickly. And so it lasts for a long time and the process is quite exhausting.

You should decide what’s your goal—if you do want to be a part of a huge company, then you should go through all the obstacles on a long road. I realized I prefer to work in a small team.

How to overcome failures

The most important thing is not to worry much about failures as it’s easy to dive into depression with suggestions that you’re not good enough. No, you’re not! You are good. Rejection only means you should go further, find what really matches you, be open to opportunities.

One more conclusion I came up with—be grateful for the failures. The challenges make you stronger and that’s a very important skill not only in design work but in life.

The benefits you can get

I realized that everything is for the best — having failures joining another team I switched to freelance. To me, it meant I have guts to work in this mode, to challenge myself and find new directions to develop. During this period I began to write articles, expanded travel frequency around 10x times more and thus, widen the horizons of the world exploration, was a speaker on a Wroclaw Dribbble meetup, and many other great new things came to my life.

Designworkout Playtype course, campus. April 2019

Later, some of my requests got positive answers. I’ve met cool guys with whom I’m working at the moment and one more team with great folks I hope we’ll be able to work together in the future.

What I also think is that everything comes right on time. Certainly, you should be confident in your actions and follow the goals but at the same time, feel the moment. If the desired result doesn’t happen, then, perhaps, it’s good to check other options, even the ones you didn’t plan to. Courage and confidence in your strength!