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3 things to consider for your first UX job hunt

Justin Lee
UX Collective
Published in
8 min readAug 24, 2020

An abstract perspective drawing of a cube to represent viewing the job hunt from different angles

I’m writing this in the middle of 2020, and if you’re a recent graduate from college or a design bootcamp, you might be searching for your first full-time job, which — even under non-pandemic circumstances — is an incredibly stressful situation.

There was a recent article going over some expectations for the new designer, and I wanted to add a few practical tips and perspectives that might be helpful.

There’s usually a large information gap between fresh applicants and the companies hiring, so my hope is my perspective — as a former first-time applicant, as someone who has been on hiring panels, and as someone who did the actual hiring — can help fill in the details.

1. Consider smaller startups

If you’re looking for your first full-time job, aiming for the big tech companies is going to be an uphill battle. They get thousands of applicants and, more often than not, will just end up relying on their referral networks. As you’ve also probably seen, most of the openings that aren’t just for college grads expect a minimum of 2–5 years of experience.

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Responses (4)

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Thanks so much for writing this. I graduated from a UX bootcamp a few months ago, and I'm in the middle of my job search. Recently, my motivation has definitely been waning because it feels like such an uphill battle, but this article was really…

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Thank you, Lee. Very informative and specific advice! 😁

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However, the current biggest gap in your skillset is figuring out how to get things done within an actual company.

This is such a great point!! You've definitely opened my eyes to the flaws of putting such a huge emphasis on mentorship at your first job. Thank you!

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