2021 Edition: Your UX Boot Camp Will NOT Get You A Job: Unless You Do These Critically Important Steps
By: Samuel Harper
Tags: UX, UX Design, Tech Career, Bootcamp, Careers

1. Create your own, independent work

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door” — Milton Berle

Photo by Minh Pham on Unsplash

Just because you are currently enrolled in a bootcamp does not mean that the UX fairy is going to immediately hand you a job upon graduation. Yes, the market shows an explosion in growth for UX related fields over the next several years, but that does not mean that you can just do a few UX projects from your boot camp, throw them up on your portfolio, and hope recruiters knock on your door.

I know this firsthand from experience.

Instead, you need to really show that you are capable of working in a team. That you can clearly and efficiently communicate your ideas to project managers, developers, UI designers, and your boss. That you are a self-starter who needs very little in the way of directions.

And that is why I believe everyone who is interested in breaking into this field needs to be a part of real-life projects outside of your boot camp.

You can spend time all the time in the world learning about all the theories of swimming. But if you don’t get yourself in the pool right away, you are sure to drown.

I am a firm believer in creating your own experience. So many of us get in the habit of relying on other people to give us an opportunity to gain experience through work or an internship. But that mindset does not allow us to really grasp what we can really do.

In fact, the best part of this is that you can center your UX project around whatever your interests are.

In my case, I gained a ton of experience back in 2017 when me and a small team of developers and a UI designer entered the Xprize Big Ocean Button Challenge. Our challenge was to utilize existing data collected from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as other government organizations and nonprofits centered around ocean health and then to turn that existing data into a digital product which the general public would find useful.

This was right up my alley. Having majored in marine biology in college, this turned out to be the perfect project for me. I was able to utilize all of the scientific thinking, statistics, and ocean-related knowledge and turn it into a really cool project where I could showcase both my major related skills as well as my new UX skills, all while showing that I can both manage a small team of tech people and also play nice with them.

And from there, our two submissions were born; Lionfish, which allows users around the Caribbean ocean to quickly and easily log their invasive lionfish captures, and Ocean Defenders, an app for kids that both educates and gameifys collecting trash from the beach.

And we made it to the semifinals! Not bad for a then wet-behind-the-ears UX designer!

Additionally, here are some other resources you can gain experience:

Tech groups that cater to individual personal interests:

There are plenty of tech groups out there that are specifically tied to causes you care about; LGBTQ+ issues, environmental concerns, social justice issues… these groups are all over the place.

One group that I have been involved with is Conservation X, which is a community of passionate tech workers that care about environmental issues that feature hackathons, challenges, community meetups and acts as a digital makerspace.

Other major issues facing this world need help, too. For example, the Help with COVID project needs plenty of technically and creatively-minded people to help kick this crisis to the curb!

Photo by Sung Shin on Unsplash

Do an internship

This is a tricky issue, as many internships will not accept people who are not currently enrolled in college. And yet, it seems like the vast majority of people getting into this field seem to be career changers.

I experienced that issue first hand when I was first getting started. The biggest issue I often found myself running into was that being a college graduate, most internships would not accept me on account of them looking for someone currently enrolled in college. And yet, I was not considered for most entry-level jobs, on account of not having enough experience (ironically).

So I found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place.

But I did find that internships that would take me were often associated with relatively new startups who were not able to hire a full-time UX designer, but needed some design work done.

Needless to say, they were not able to pay me for my time. But I did get some work done for them which I was able to put on my resume.

I found both of these internships through AngelList, so you can always start there!

An additional resource that I recommend is Interns.design, which has a fantastic set of internships that you may be able to get!

Photo by Anna Earl on Unsplash

Volunteer

Volunteering can be a really incredible opportunity to build experience, and you don’t need to have the experience to get started. Two great resources are Catchafire and Volunteer Match.

Even if you approached a local nonprofit, church, etc, and offered to redesign their site based on their personal needs (and you measured the outcome carefully), you can create experience from there!

Photo by Hacker Noon on Unsplash

Hackathons

Hackathons are tech challenges that gather tech professionals of all skill levels to solve an issue of some kind. Think of challenges like 24-hour film festivals, where filmmakers are challenged to make a movie in a limited set of time. Hackathons are similar, usually lasting 24–48 hours in duration, although I have heard of some lasting shorter than that, and some much longer.

These are great opportunities to not only build your confidence in working with other tech individuals across various disciplines, but it can be used for work to show on your portfolio, and it is sometimes used as a recruitment tool by certain companies to find talent.

And no, you don’t need to be a super genius to attend one. In fact, there are plenty of new people who attend these all the time. There are tons of hackathons that pertain to just about anything that interest you, and you have nothing to lose by participating!

An excellent resource to find hackathons is Devpost.