5 Things To Do before you decide to pursue a career in UX

It’s no secret that UX design is one of the hottest jobs in recent years. A low barrier of entry coupled with high salary and high job satisfaction, UX designers sit at #24 of Glassdoor’s “50 Best Jobs in America for 2021”, and LinkedIn’s 5th, most in-demand hard skill companies need in 2020.

But, before you dive headfirst into learning UX, realize that there are steps you can do before you commit time and money on education, books, and projects. It’s a tough choice to change careers, especially if you’ve already sunk a lot of effort into your current career. Luckily, although UX is a new field, there’s a huge community of people with anywhere from 1 to 10 years of experience, who are generous to share their experiences.

After spending 7 years in architecture (school and work), it was difficult to step away from all the hard work I put into my career. I realized I couldn’t continue to rely on extrinsic motivators like competition, money, awards, or prestigious education to sustain my interests in architecture. 

So, what I begin in this article, are ways to find the right motivators to help you embark on a UX career and keep you engaged beyond the first job. Then, I dive into ways you can research and reach out to the community, to gain the confidence you need to make the move into this competitive field.

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Find the right motivators

‍‍‍Reflect on unhappiness

When you’re thinking about a career change, it’s crucial to make sure you are changing for reasons beyond the pay, recognition, or rewards. A great salary will be hard to keep you satisfied if you’re unhappy with the everyday work. Note down anytime you find yourself bored, uninspired, or agitated with your daily tasks and responsibilities. 

Yes, I was unhappy with my pay in architecture, and yes, I was miserable because I didn’t have the responsibilities I wanted in my career. But I also recognized that I wasn’t interested in the design work to get from conceptual drawing to construction detail. After getting rejected from a master’s program, I realized the real problem was, I wasn’t passionate enough about architecture to do the work to get me to where I wanted to be.

Know that at the beginning of your UX career, you might not have your choice of tasks and responsibilities. At least for a little while, you’ll be doing some grunt work until you gain more experience and expertise. So, make sure you’re entertained with the idea of moving and colouring pixels for a while.

List things that spark joy

In contrast, listing moments of happiness in your current career is also important, so you know what will keep you happy and engaged in your work. Think about why you wanted to pursue this career in the first place. Think about your interests, hobbies, and skills you like now, and even in the past. What makes you excited?

For me, when I was younger and Android phones just started coming out, I would spend ridiculous hours customizing my home screen— it sparked joy! Ironically, this micro-scale graphic work is what I play with every day now, designing user interfaces.

It’s a saturated market for early-stage designers on the job hunt, with remote work opening the market and raising competition for junior positions. You will need to invest a lot of time and effort to find that first job, so be certain you’re passionate about UX to keep you going in hard times. Even after you succeed to get that first job, expect to be continually learning as it’s a career whose tools, processes, and trends change constantly.

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Gain confidence in your decision

Go beyond Google

Now that you know a little more about yourself, it’s time to research the reality of UX careers, and whether you’d be a fit. 

One of my search terms was: what career did you transition to UX from? Architecture was a reoccurring result because there are many transferable skills to UX design. I gained confidence I could be a great fit for UX design since these skills are part of my list of things that bring me joy.

Another tip is to research more than just quantitative data. Of course, there are job descriptions and salaries, but finding opinions or surveys from people actually in UX makes all the difference. You’ll find frequent tasks, skills to know, and job satisfaction/dissatisfaction from the least to most experienced people. At the end of the day, careers are 40+ years long, so it’s important to understand the short-term and long-term projections if you want to stick around. Search Google, but also dig through Reddit, YouTube, and blogs.

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Connect with weak ties

Talk to people. You might already be convinced you want to pursue UX, but there’s no harm in reaching out to your network privately to talk to someone in UX. It’s easy to believe the grass is greener on the other side, but it’s good to hear it from someone who’s already there. You could share your story and get a second opinion if it makes sense to switch.

Coming from another industry, I didn’t know UX designers I felt I could reach out to. I am super grateful that my support group offered to connect me with their friends or co-workers for coffee chats. I got incredible insight into their everyday work at their companies and it became easier to imagine myself working in UX.

Don’t underestimate the value of people in or outside your network. Many things live on the internet, but information and opportunities relevant to your situation are often not.  

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Seek out the community

If you’re not lucky enough to have connections you can meet, there’s a wealth of knowledge in established communities out there. If you have questions, communities are great places to ask to get a variety of responses quickly. Communities may also host design events, where you can engage with speakers and even network with participants. Remarkably, there are even communities of ex-architecture folks who now work in tech.

For me, I joined a special meetup group referred to me by a coffee connection I made. Every month, people presented tech projects and were given UX feedback. The group wasn’t limited to designers, and this exposed me to many different roles and projects in the tech industry. 

It can be intimidating to enter into a new environment, and communities are a great way to prepare yourself. You can pick up vocabulary and understand common practices and problems by reading and participating in events and discussions. Think of it as taking on an unpaid internship without any real risk. Making a career change takes a lot of confidence, so learning as much as you can before you go into that first job, will help you battle those imposter syndrome moments.

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You have more power than you think

The big takeaway from this is that you have a lot more resources than you think when it comes to changing your career. If I understood this when I was figuring out what I wanted to do when I grew up, things might have turned out differently for me. Doing my due diligence (all the steps above), allowed me to remain super motivated to do all the work to get a job in UX while keeping my architecture job. It was another 5 or 6 months to get my first job in UX, and there are many things I did to get there without a boot camp or a degree. Be on the watch for the next article if you’re curious!

Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on Medium.

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