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Full disclosure: I am not a veteran designer, so this article only refers to junior UX designer positions. I’m by no means throwing shade at recruiters or hiring managers. The goal is to spark discussions and hopefully help us learn from each other in a respectful manner.

Tech is hot, tech is booming, tech is ‘now’, and everyone wants in to get a piece of the pie. We all know it’s incredibly competitive to get into this exclusive party, but a good host doesn’t just listen to people already in the party. She listens to the outsiders as well.

This is not a hate mail toward the host though, more like a love letter actually. This is a love letter to UX — I’m writing because I care about the UX hiring process and, well, I tend to subconsciously apply design thinking to everything I see and experience.

So, in the proper manner of UX-ing (please add this verb to the dictionary), let’s start with the users, because…

Job applicants are users too.

Let’s get it out of the way so we can assess the balance of “power” here. From a purely business perspective, job applicants might not be considered users. If there’s a need to hire someone, it should ultimately benefit the organization itself. The stakeholders are the recruiters, hiring managers, business owners, and ultimately investors.

But aren’t job applicants users too in this hiring process?

Applicants do interact with the brand. Our experience is a valid ‘user experience’. Sure, we might not use the product, and if there’s anything that makes us unhappy, it’s not going to affect the profit margin of the business. Most applicants, myself included, are mature enough to not hold a grudge against a business simply because our job application experience is not exactly the best.

If I apply to a designer position at Amazon and get rejected, I’m not going to stop using Amazon Prime. (But if my loyalty to Amazon Prime makes me look better in my application, please consider it; I’m just, you know, putting it out there.)

From a human-centered perspective though (aha, keyword, he knows UX stuff), isn’t it logical to think of job applicants as users rather than numbers or metrics?

After all, job applicants are humans too, you know, with feelings.

Applicants are already stressed and don’t need to see extra hurdles.

@jeshoots | Unsplash

Since applicants are humans with feelings, we do feel stress, anxiety, self-doubt, self-hate, impostor syndrome, and sometimes even panic attacks.

OK, I blame my millennial gay self for making it sound dramatic.

But at least anxiety is real.

I asked my fellow BrainStation classmates, and we all felt some sort of anxiety going into the design job hunt and trying to earn a spot in tech.

Our anxiety was induced by many factors, but in the spirit of UX, let’s walk through the user’s journey map, shall we?

Phase 1: The door seems to be locked for beginners.

Jason Blackeye | Unsplash

Why do 90% of entry-level UX design jobs require a 4-year degree in HCI, engineering, or design (maybe an Ivy League Master’s too) and 3–5 years of design experience?

As bootcamp grads, we are told to apply anyway and disregard the “years of experience” requirement if the number is 3 or less. But if that number doesn’t mean anything, why is it even there?

I asked some people who were already in the UX field, and the answer was, well, job posting writers do it because…they can.

Personally, I’d argue that it’s not a valid reason from a human-centered perspective. We should write job postings the same way we approach UX writing: research-based and usability-tested. If it’s not even a real requirement, maybe it’s best to remove it completely.

Phase 2: There’s fog and we don’t know where we stand.

Jakub Kriz | Unsplash

If you have ever used the experience level filter on LinkedIn, you will see entry-level jobs that require 5+ years of design experience and associate jobs (supposed to be a bit more senior) with only 2 years of experience required.

Every organization has a different hierarchy. Some don’t even have one. As job applicants, we don’t know any of that. What does “entry-level” mean to you — 5 years of experience? OK. What does “senior” mean to you — 2 years of experience? OK I guess. (Anyway let me just hit that Apply CTA button because it looks visually appealing.)

Please provide some much needed context and use the filter carefully. Sure, job applicants should assess ourselves and try our best to see if we would fit the role. But what’s the harm in giving transparent information? Something like the progression framework from Cleo would be great.

And if your organization doesn’t have some sort of progression framework, shouldn’t there be one for not just prospective employees but also current employees? Even if we get hired, we want to see what our future career path at the company would look like.

Phase 3: How many steps are there in the process again?

Faris Mohammed | Unsplash

As fresh graduates from bootcamps and colleges, we all hear horror stories about the long UX hiring process. Maybe it’s not particularly longer than other professions, but any interview process that has more than 3 steps for a junior position might be daunting.

Behavioural scanning, whiteboard challenge, app critique, design quiz, take-home exercise, everything is fair game. I don’t think any junior designer would complain about the nature of any of those exercises.

But what’s daunting is if there are 4, 5, 6, or even 7 rounds for a junior role. What’s daunting is not being given transparent information of how many steps are left. What’s daunting is passing one round only leads to more rounds ahead. What’s daunting is being dragged along for too long only to receive a rejection email in the end.

And on the topic of rejection, let’s talk about rejection emails.

Alessandro De Bellis | Unsplash

I think all sensible adults know that a nice rejection email is just sugar-coated rejection.

But humans love sugar, no? An ice cream on a gloomy day doesn’t hurt. Sure, recruiters and hiring managers don’t have to mean it 100%, but seeing that we get rejected because our current offering doesn’t fit into your current demand, rather than the fact that we are deemed as not good enough, does make our day a bit better.

The words make a difference. Your wordsmake a difference.

There are email automation tools to make the email more customized. Throw our first names into the email title. Mention our first names again in the body. Explain that it’s a “fit” problem rather than a “qualification” problem.

We still get rejected in the end, but seeing a positive and uplifting message is better than a generic one. And even a generic one is better than *suspense music please* ghosting.

Ghosting 👻 is not cool in dating. Not in job hunting, either.

Job applicants understand why we are ghosted. There are business needs, and rejected applicants ain’t one.

But it doesn’t really cost too much for any organization to send an automated email (even if it's automated to sound customized) so that we are in the loop.

The business case for not ghosting applicants is this: an opportunity for the brand to appear humanized and for people interacting with the brand to feel humanized.

Complain about millennials and Gen Z as much as you want. We might be too sappy for your taste because back in the day, people used to get hard, cold rejections all the time. But we’re not “back in the day" anymore, and the future is not just sappiness; the future is user experience; the future is mental health.

After all, it’s about mental health.

Matthew Ball | Unsplash

It’s 2021. Let’s talk more about mental health. Women, men, cisgender or transgender, genderqueer or non-binary, gay or straight, we should come together to tackle the stigma of mental health. It helps to be openly vulnerable, not overtly and dramatically, but openly.

As job applicants, the job hunt just adds another layer to our existing mental health issues. Maybe we’re strong enough to realize that it too shall pass. Maybe our problems have not reached the aggravation point of depression.

But maybe, just maybe, we’re close to hitting that mark.

So if you’re already in the exclusive party of this fancy tech world, maybe you have the power to make small but impactful interactions with us outsiders. Every word you write, every sentence you speak, every action you take, it does impact the humans behind the applications.

And that mindset is not just human-centered for the business sake.

It’s humanizing.