Recently I ran a small poll among UX bootcamp graduates who are actively looking for work to explore their biggest challenges. As most of the alumni students were transitioning into user experience from another field, it wasn’t really a surprise ‘not enough work experience’ 😟 being the main barrier, or at least that’s what they received as a food for thought at the end of a hiring process.

This alone is not a new issue and it seems it’s even getting worse by the unreachably high expectation from both the companies and the applicants, which hardly ever met (Van Schneider Blog) as the time goes by. 😤

I’ve decided to look at the issue with fresh eyes in 2021 and share some tips about what I would I do if I find myself against the odds and gain some relevant work experience quickly as possible. 💪

Open source

We’re all literally using thousands of open source software every single day. Maybe it’s a web browser, an API or some kind of analytics tool for easier data consumption. These projects are maintained by happy individuals for no compensation (mostly) but for passion and belief in their own products. As a designer you have an equal opportunity to contribute to these projects as software engineers, and if the filtering is right, there are currently over 14,000 design labelled issues looking for your help on Github alone.

Sure some of them are small and some are bigger issues, but all you have to do is register on Github (Gitlab or any other repository service) and then look for the project maintainers to send them a direct message or just comment on the issue itself that you will be happy to help on design issues, if they share with you the way of contribution documents.

These documents are often also referred as CONTRIBUTION.MD or a similar markdown file. Github itself also has a whole lot of documentation on how-to do open source too.

If you would like to look up which organizations are actively looking for help you can also use the site Open Source Design, they also have a specific page just for (paid and unpaid) projects to get your design mind sharp. Perfect intro to different type of stakeholders and maybe you can even work on a product you use yourself day-to-day!

Design for Good

Non-profit organizations often find themselves out in the wild when it comes to services like web development and design. I often recommend to my mentees at the Designlab to find early a topic they’re deeply interested on a personal level and choose their capstone project around that. In this way the upcoming case study will be way more authentic than any Spotify redesign.

If someone does this right they might find an organization even at the study phase which they can help out, but if not, then this is a second chance (or like a thousand) to create a great case study no one has. Luckily there are many NGOs looking for design help just by a simple Google search, but there also 3 sites I would like to highlight which are doing great in an organized way and they deserve kudos to that:

— UX Rescue: volunteers can sign up with their extra hours and after joining the Slack channel, all they have to do is to pick the project close to their heart and start working on real projects for real organizations

— Catchafire: many different volunteering options are here from illustration to UX writing for organizations around the globe. The average timeframe of projects are between 4–6 weeks, so it’s possible spin great design out even parallel to each other.

— Benefit Design: this site is committed to advancing the welfare of underserved groups by providing free design services to public charities that build stronger communities. I liked how they focus also on businesses impacted heavily by COVID too!

Internships

I would say if you’re uncertain about a company or you’re still exploring which area of UX you’re mostly interested in, then a short term 3–6 months internship is more than enough to see a bigger organization from the inside and make some good connections for the future. 🤓

Through the years I’ve heard countless stories about interns becoming full-time later becoming, some so indispensable to the company and the team that they haven’t even started from the bottom later. Sure there is a darker side of the coin too, but hey it’s better to have the strings attached for a few weeks / months than fora few years by a strict contract living in a toxic work environment.

Usually intern opportunities are popping up on their respective career sites, so follow your fav companies on the socials, but lately this interns.design website is full of goodies. ✨

Hackathons

As a fresh graduate you probabyl didn’t have a chance yet to work with developers, but more often than not that’s going to be the part of your role too. To get comfortable with designer-developer handoffs and the agile way of working (besides the open source projects mentioned above) hackathons are super fun short(er) 1–2 weekend long events to put some extra experience on paper. 📝

Most of these events are organized around a certain themes like healthcare or telecommunication, but I would say this time put your main interests aside and just immerse yourself into something new to test your design processes, and how you apply them to a new born product or idea from start to finish.

A hackathon gives a lot of chance for networking too as you can team up with people (or sponsors) who might be decision-makers on hiring, so showing your skills in place might pay the sleepless effort really quickly. Just be open and friendly! 😊

The best hackathon sites I recommend are Devpost and the Major League of Hacking for starters. It’s challenging and short, but hey you can not just win some money, but maybe you end up with a great idea to invest in later!

Freelance

I left the biggest whale for last. Freelancing is a life form in itself, but probably the best preparation for some bloody client or stakeholder discussions and you can learn a lot not just about how to present your work, but also what businesses are looking for in design.

For soft landing I would say the best is to look around within your closer circles, or just share the interest on socials and maybe someone might start a new business and your timing is just perfect (which rarely the case TBH). Just don’t forget to set the terms openly, that you’re doing this for strengthening your overall presence as a designer (and also a contract is a good idea) so not really NDA candidate.

After you’re comfortable with hectic guidelines and demanding non-design parties you’re ready to go out there, and fish on larger sites like Upwork and Freelancer, but brace yourself because these sites are heavy on competition too.

I would say if someone likes this form of solving issues in the short term, it might become quickly an alternative of getting a full-time position, but as a newbie it’s quite hard to survive and you’re truly left to learn everything on your own, not just in design operations, but also the business itself. If you’re looking for a resource because you like it, this is an excellent guide.

Thank you for reading so far! 👏 I hope the presented alternatives gave you an idea how to play your game best and soon you have a couple of new projects mentioned on your UX portfolio and CV. These tactics could work standalone, but also mixed together, just it’s trickier with time management.

I also understand if you just want to keep going with the full-time job search and in this case the best I can advice if someone next asks your missing experience, then act like this: “Be confident in yourself. Tell them that you believe you do have the skills and if given the chance you’d prove to them that you could excel in this role and while your past experiences aren’t in design/UX that they have given you transferable skills and prepared you for this.”- Some Wise Man

Are you interested about your potential salary band?