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Please give junior UX designers a chance
And the weird stuff I get to hear from hiring managers.
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 actually do that, so this Medium rant should do, right?
This is the kind of shirt (typo), I get to hear.
“We need somebody that can hit the ground running”
What you are really saying is that you are not going to invest too much (or nothing at all) in onboarding this new hired. You can have the most experienced designer in the world, but if your requirements, processes and ongoing projects are not well documented, your designer is going to take between two and six months to be productive regardless of the experience.
Hit the ground running… uhm, also sounds like you started several projects without a UX designer and you need to play catch up. Don’t tell me you requested that position several months ago, the budget was just approved this month, and now you need to find somebody very quickly to fix issues before the next release. If that is the case, you do…
