I was recently watching a YouTube video on getting started in UX/UI design, and one of the recommendations was to ‘look for what employers are looking for’. Makes sense, right?

I mean, you can’t be learning in your own silo without actively identifying what the job market is looking for. This is especially relevant for beginners who are just getting started in this journey.

So I got started on this mini-quest. I analysed 25 recent junior-level job postings tagged ‘UX Designer’ on LinkedIn. I tried to identify the major themes, skills and requirements (including proficiency in design tools) that recruiters are looking for. And then I thought — why keep this information to myself if it could (potentially) help someone else as well?

So here I am, sharing what I found. But before we get to that, a few details and caveats you should keep in mind

• The job postings are from cities across India, which is my country of residence. However, they include open positions from global giants including Google, Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, JMPC, 3M along with a bunch of Indian startups and corporations. It is highly likely that the overarching themes would remain the same in other regions.
• I haven’t written anything on the ‘years of experience’ requirements. From my experience in Amazon, hiring managers sometimes ask for ridiculous amounts of experience in job postings, though they might eventually close the req with someone having relatively lesser experience (I have seen terms like 7+ years, 10+ years thrown around like they’re a joke).
  Hence this is not a reliable metric as per me, especially when taken from publicly posted job openings.
• I have not included generic skillsets that are required for every UX position (and non-UX positions as well), such as the ability to work with cross-functional teams and through ambiguity, collaboration with stakeholders, ownership, being open to feedback and constructive criticism, ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, presentation and communication skills, analytical problem-solving skills, data-driven decision-making, blah-blah.
  These are the most important skills to have, even more than your design skills, but then everyone knows that. The key is to integrate them in your work ethics in such a way that they become second nature.
• There are a lot of unwritten skillsandunsaid expectations, and there are a lot of not-so-well-written job postings. You can never fully understand the scope and expectations until your first round of interview, and in many cases until the day you start working.
  That’s the sad reality. But there is little you can do about that, apart from trying to guess the nature and scope of work by looking at the words used and the stakeholders/teams you’re expected to work with.
• I am just sharing with you what I found, and from a limited set of 30 samples. This is by no means a reason not to go through job openings yourself. In fact, I would encourage you to look deeper for more themes.

With that said, this is what the data tells me.

The top 20 UX Themes that recruiters are talking about

1. Prototypes / UX Mockups, including high-fidelity interactive prototypes (1 role mentioned ‘pixel-perfect detailed designs optimised for developers’).
2. Wireframes
3. User Flows
4. User Research / UX Research (primary & secondary)
5. User-Centred Design / Customer-Centric Design
6. Graphic Design / Visual Design and underlying concepts such as colour, typography, layout, etc. (it still baffles me how much visual design work firms expect from junior UX designers, especially at startups.)
7. Interaction Design
8. User Testing / Usability Testing (includes incorporating feedback from rapid iterations)
9. Responsive Design
10. Storyboards
11. User Journey Maps / Customer Journey Maps
12. Process Flows
13. User Personas
14. Information Architecture / Design Architecture
15. UI Design
16. Accessibility in Design
17. Design Thinking
18. User Stories
19. Sitemaps
20. Mobile-first approach

At the long tail, there are many sub-topics such as micro-interactions/micro-animations, motion design and animations, agile and lean, A/B testing, documenting interaction patterns for product UIs, creating testable hypotheses, iconography, competitive audits, the list goes on…

The top 10 UX tools that recruiters are talking about

1. Sketch (Seriously? I expected Figma here!)
2. Figma
3. Adobe Photoshop
4. Adobe Illustrator
5. Adobe XD
6. Adobe InVision
7. HTML5 & CSS : Bunched these together. I know these are not UX design tools per se, but a functional knowledge of HTML/CSS is considered an advantage.
8. Balsamic
9. Adobe Indesign
10. Principle (added since
11. Zeplin: Added this as the items in #7 aren’t UX tools.

There are a ton of other tools that I came across during my research. Knowing all of them is neither practical nor necessary. Many of them might be outdated or offer functionalities that can equally be managed by other existing tools that you may already be proficient in.

I will soon write a separate post on UX tools where I will cover these in more detail.

The 5 skills that no one talks about

This was probably the real eye-opener for me. These abilities aren’t talked about that much, but are equally, if not more, relevant. They feature intermittently on job postings, and some of these might be unsaid expectations.

• Documenting and maintaining the Design System: A Design System is a detailed documentation of the design style and language in the form of a library or guide, so that the style is consistent across use-cases. Designers need to create, maintain and update these libraries. They also need to ensure that the system is implemented uniformly, so as to achieve consistency in user experience across multiple platforms. One of the job postings stated under responsibilities: ‘Ideate and build a comprehensive library of interactive prototypes to define the micro interactions and micro animations’, while another stated ‘Maintain a local application component system on Figma, pattern library, and detailed design documentation.’
• Ability to defend design decisions: You should be able to clearly articulate the value that UX is bringing to the product vision, the rationale behind your research process and the why behind design decisions. Remember, UX designers are the voice of users.
• Ability to talk business and numbers: Knowledge of business vision, how UX strategy fits with the business strategy, and post-design metrics analysis. A good understanding of conversion metrics and how they influence design choices is important.
• Ability to work with and build upon existing design systems and style language. This might seem contradictory to #1, but the context will depend on the firm you join. In most cases, you need to first learn the existing system, incorporate the style, and then build upon it. As a general rule, most employers except you to understand and remain updated on design best practices and latest trends (including the latest iOS and Android design guidelines).
• Understanding the Technical Feasibility of Prototypes: You can create the most gorgeous and artistic designs in the world, but developer bandwidth is limited (and stretched!) at almost every company. When forced to prioritise between the P1 version of a core functionality and making an existing design more aesthetically pleasing, you can guess what the leadership would go with. It helps designers to have a basic understanding of how design translates to code, and strike a balance between visual appeal, user needs and functionality. This might be easier for folks from a tech background.

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