Member-only story

Please give junior UX designers a chance

And the weird stuff I get to hear from hiring managers.

Luis Berumen Castro
UX Collective
6 min readMay 26, 2020

Young girl (with a black eye) saying: “I am your new UX Designer”
Original illustration: Girl with a black eye by Norman Rockwell

Every time I see a young UX Designer working hard to get their first job I remember when I was like them, knocking doors with a printed portfolio full of school projects. Yes, printed portfolio (I am not that old, I just started working very early).

Now as a Senior with almost two decades of experience, I am more likely to be at the other side of the room during the interview. I get to read every single cover letter and the resume (just kidding, I click to the portfolio first, then check the resume and almost never read the cover letter).

Lately, I see how the job market is treating new designers, and I have to share something with all of you: I am very frustrated of seeing every single job opening asking for at least three to five years of experience!

Employers need to stop their b.s. and start giving more opportunities to junior designers. I know I should not care, this is not certainly a position for me and it is not my company or team, but when I get so see a job description that is very clear that a junior designer just coming out of university should be able to apply. I feel like sending an email to the hiring managers to convince them they should be open the doors to new talent. I am too busy to…

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Luis Berumen Castro

Design Leader & Mentor. 👋 Tell me your story! Find me at www.berumendesign.com & Let’s connect www.linkedin.com/in/luisberumen/.

Responses (44)

What are your thoughts?

We need these kinds of minds to improve business and minimize the impostor syndrome that juniors have because of the unicorn search on job applications. In this sector and in other ones. Thank you for making yourself heard even though it does not currently affect you.

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Many teams would benefit in having a freshly starting UX person on their team. They are hungry to learn and that enthusiasm is contagious. I like to think of it in team sports. Every year a new crop of rookies joins a team full of veterans. They…

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It takes a lot of hand holding, time and energy to guide a jr. designer up to the level of quality that is expected in the market place today. "UX designer" is a fading away term as more and more companies are looking for product designers to fill…

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