My story of how I got my first UX/UI job 2 months after completing the Google UX Design course.

My story of how I got my first UX/UI job 2 months after completing the Google UX Design course.

It's very weird to be writing this blog post. I didn't think it would happen for me.

I started my tech journey end of November last year, I wanted to challenge myself and picked front-end development as it provided me with the creativity I wanted as well as some technical thinking & problem-solving which I enjoy. During this journey of learning, I discovered UX/UI - I have a psychology degree so learning about UX/UI felt like home. It was so interesting and fascinating to me. I started the Google UX design course in end of March and put in many many hours every day to finish it off early.

After finishing, I created my portfolio with my case studies (they teach you how to present your case studies as well as how to create your portfolio in the course) - and ultimately decided I want a UX/UI job rather then a front-end developer role. I enjoy front-end development, I will continue working on those skills and creating projects, but UX/UI just comes naturally to me. I love knowing about empathy, user behaviour, user pain points etc. It's literally so much fun and so interesting.

Trying to get my foot into the tech industry, coming from a completely different background was and is hard. There aren't that many junior roles to begin with and those that exist, ask for at least 1 to 2 years of experience. Even some entry-level roles do that, so frustrating and annoying.

At this point, I had a chat with someone who has been working in UX/UI for years and years, and has his own education platform where him and his team teach UX/UI to others - it's called Love Circular and the amazing guy's name is Zaire, during out informal chat, he gave me great constructive feedback about my portfolio as I needed to know if what I've done is good and works well as a UX/UI portfolio because I didn't want to continue applying for jobs if my portfolio was a problem. It wasn't, which was both great and not so great cause it didn't answer why I wasn't finding a job or getting interviews.

It was tiring and draining, seeing rejection emails every day is mentally very hard. But what other choice do I have? At one point, I thought I might as well quit and go back to my old industry, I can get paid well etc but my heart just wasn't in it. I really wanted to work in tech and specifically in UX/UI. So all I could really do is continue to apply.

I got some call-backs from recruiters, I had some recruiters completely ghost me which again so rude and annoying. You have to have thick skin and believe in yourself when transitioning into the tech industry, it's so important and vital for your well-being. You have to be your own cheerleader.

I applied on many different sites such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Reed, Glassdoor and many more, and I applied for any and all junior UX/UI roles. I applied for minimum 5 every day. That's what you just have to do. Apply, apply and apply some more. One day I applied for 15 and one of those ended up being my job offer.

I'll do a separate post about the interview process but just wanted to give advice to those looking, keep trying, believe in yourself, get feedback where you can, there's so many in the tech industry who want to help and guide you. Let them in. Take the support!