Journey
The most common topics from 200+ design mentorship sessions
For the last couple of years I have been regularly meeting with designers from various countries and backgrounds to offer them mentorship and career guidance. These sessions are one of the most efficient ways I have found to give back to the community some of what I have learned from it — the same reason why we curate and share content here on the UX Collective every week.
The topics we cover in those sessions vary a lot depending on each designer’s particular goals at that point in time: portfolio review, career advice, design critique, questions about working in agencies or working abroad, or simply high-level conversations about where digital design is headed.
The other day I was looking back at all the sessions I have had.
So many faces.
So many people on the other side of the line.
So many challenges to talk through.
Up to this point I have had more than 200 mentorship sessions, according to my Google Hangout call history. Once I week I’ll jump on a video call, for 15–45 minutes, with someone different.
Honestly, I wish I had kept a more detailed log of every one of these conversations. Each story is so unique and so special that I feel deeply connected to the mentee (despite the short duration of the meetings). And still: when I step back and look at the totality of sessions, I am able to identify the patterns on the most common topics people want to chat about. This post is a collection of some of them.
What’s missing in my portfolio?
This is probably the most common question I get. After putting together a portfolio, going through a few rounds of interviews and not being hired, designers realize there must be something wrong with the way they are presenting their work. In our sessions I try to bring a fresh perspective and give honest feedback on the things that are working or that aren’t on their portfolio. I also invite them to put themselves into the shoes of a hiring/design manager, who is looking at several portfolios a day and will only spend a limited amount of time looking at their work.
The takeaways:
- Designers put too much pressure on themselves to have the most complete portfolio ever, but forget to make their case studies easy to digest and visually scannable.
- Not every case study has to be super detailed or super wordy. The “one image is worth a thousand words” motto is extremely applicable here. Realistically, senior design leaders and recruiters will only spend 1–2 minutes looking at each of your projects.
- Designers find it hard to articulate in one simple sentence how their skillset, personality, and world views are different than other designers. Getting to that one sentence who define who they are professionally can be a process that takes months, and several therapy-like mentorship sessions.
What do I have to study to get into UX?
Professionals from other disciplines who are looking to get into UX will often ask about the best courses, events, books, tools, and resources they should be studying to build the right knowledge base and skill set.
The takeaways:
- You don’t. You have to design many terrible things, fail multiple times, to then get it right.
- If you want to study something, don’t focus on UX specifically; study design fundamentals, classic graphic design, and timeless design principles. Focusing too much on tactical design techniques that are digital-only will only serve you in the short term. Understanding Design at large (with a capital D) will future-proof you as a professional — since its universal rules will rarely change.
- There is tons of content available online, for free. Watch out for companies who promise miraculous solutions, classes and courses on UX. They are mostly making you go through formulaic processes and approaches that you can easily find online. Read tons of case studies.
Understanding Design (with a capital D) at large will future-proof you as a professional — since its universal rules will never change.
Is it time to shift to the agency/client side?
The grass is always greener on the other side. In-house designers have this dream of working in agencies and being able to diversify their portfolio and work in shorter-term projects. Agency designers can’t wait to shift to the product side to own a product entirely and be able to evolve it in the long term. No one is happy.
The takeaways:
- If you’re looking to build portfolio, you might want to try the agency side. The rapid pace, the multitude of industries you’ll be able to dive into, and the diversity of channels you’ll be designing for will help you build elasticity, design muscles, and a shiny portfolio over time.
- If you’re looking for more impact, you might want to try the client side. Lots of designers want to work at companies like Google and Facebook to be able to design products used by millions of people, and to learn how to think product strategy in the longer term.
- To be a more complete designer, you should try both. Or find a company that sits right in between these two worlds.
How do I get into a certain company?
Some designers have a very specific target: the next company they want to work for. They identify with their work, their culture, and their philosophy. That’s great. Getting to a shortlist of companies is not always simple and something not everyone does. Now it’s “just” a matter of getting noticed — and ultimately getting hired by them.
The takeaways:
- If you can design experiences for your users, you can also design the experience of the people who will recruit you. Who are they? What are their goals and motivations? What does a day in their life look like? What is their user journey? How do they interact with “your touchpoints” (your Linkedin, your portfolio website, phone interviews, etc.)?
- Do your homework. Once you understand who they are, how they think, and what they are looking for, the process of getting hired will get easier. If needed, create a custom version of your portfolio tailored to that company. Remember that every touchpoint and every interaction matter, and you likely only get one chance with each company.
How do I convince my stakeholders of the importance of a user-centered process?
A very common challenge mentees raise is the one of selling the importance of having a user-centered design process within their organization — talking to users, testing the product, understanding the audience, iterating the designs based on feedback, bringing consumers into the process. It’s quite common that the mentee is the only UX designer in their company, which means that part of their duty is to help other teams understand what they are doing in the company in the first place, and how they can help.
You’ll need to hack your way to the user.
The takeaways:
- Different companies are at different stages of maturity when it comes to user-centered processes. That’s a fact. Understanding where your company is can help you plan the initiatives, projects and conversations that have to happen to take the organization to the next level.
- It won’t be easy, and there will be a lot of selling you’ll have to do. Which also means you’ll force yourself to develop your soft skills and learn a lot along the way.
- You’ll need to hack your way to the user. Online articles and case studies try to sell an ideal user-centered design process, which can make designers anxious about the gap between where they are and where they think they need to be. In reality, no design process is as perfect as case studies make it seem. You’ll need to hack your way to the user. Improvise. Start small. Do in-house research. Bring friends and family. In companies that are at early stages of UX maturity, small steps are the only way.
Online articles and case studies try to sell an ideal user-centered design process, which can make designers anxious about the gap between where they are and where they think they need to be. In reality, no design process is as perfect as case studies make it seem.
Mentoring has been a great journey, and sometimes I feel like I learn more from my mentees than they learn from me. Meeting with young talent on a regular basis keeps me in touch with what’s new in our industry, with a fresher way of thinking design, and with a new generation of challenges to solve for.
There are a few other topics that always come up in those sessions:
- How do I get to the next level?
- How do I start writing?
- How to prepare for an interview?
But for these, I’m planning longer articles that I’ll soon share around here.
See you in the next post.
