Photo by Hatice Yardım on Unsplash

In my undergrad, I had a class that was focused entirely on professionalism as a designer. During that time we honed our written skills — crafted resumes and most importantly, created a sample cover letter.

What is a cover letter? It’s certainly not describing your work experience, that is accomplished in your resume and portfolio.

At the end of the day, a cover letter is about telling your unique story.

Why is your story important?

Let’s dial back to the current state of everything right now:

With the increasing number of UX role layoffs, as we hit the midpoint of 2023, we find more and more that there are too many people and not enough jobs.

If you’re someone who is searching for a new role or for your first role in the UX field you know this to be true … the market is tough right now.

Large tech companies continue with their hiring freezes.

Every potential job on LinkedIn has 300 or so applicants.

It can feel like you’re one small speck in the cold and uncaring universe that is the current job market.

Differentiate yourself with your unique story

We then run into one small issue…

There are several ways to differentiate yourself from others in the market:

1. Increased technical skills, such as prototyping, wireframing, and creating documentation
2. Increased soft skills, such as communication, problem-solving, and emotional resilience

In the current market, it can be difficult to get a role to develop these skills in the first place. How are you supposed to increase your skills in managing and applying feedback if you don’t have anyone to help you in the first place?

As such, these two areas are important, but won’t be the focus for us today. Because there is a secret third option that we can focus on …