#3: Weekly Digest
The purpose of this newsletter is to help you grow as a designer and human and increase your chances to get hired in UX. While I am trying to form my voice for this newsletter, I will be experimenting with the content strategy, so bear with me 🙏
Disclaimer: all opinions are my own, just sharing my thoughts.
💬 Quote of the week
Think for yourself. Everyone has a unique picture of how things work and function, and yours is as valuable as anyone’s.
— Kelly Slater
🙋♂️ Question of the week
Why are companies coming back with offers below what I thought was industry standard?
This is a complicated one. I’ve been in this situation a few times and every time I heard this, my enthusiasm went significantly down. In one case, I negotiated and was able to move 15%-ish higher their initial offer, but in the cases when they were not flexible, I declined. The leftover feeling is negative and puts such companies lower on my raking list. It’s hard to tell for sure why somebody would do this in every case, but here are the key reasons that I’ve observed and heard of.
Sometimes, the company doesn’t understand the real value a UX designer can bring to their success. For them, a designer is a person who just creates pretty pictures of what they are told to draw. For me, this is a red flag that such a company might not be a good investment of my time.
Sometimes, hiring managers like the process of bargaining and they perceive the offer negotiation process as one. They expect that the candidate starts above what they are aiming for. Hence the company intentionally starts lower than what they want to pay, expecting to meet in the middle. To be fair, some candidate who prefer doing it this way and others who prefer a more concrete way when there is no negotiation at all. Very personal preference with no right or wrong answer. Often, cultural differences affect one’s preference to “bargain”. From my experience, in most cases the negotiation is expected, so do negotiate.
Sometimes, a company has a very limited budget that can afford only a less experienced person, but they just hope for the best that they can get a higher calibre talent for a lower price. If they realize that you are over-qualified, but still want to hire, they may be more open to negotiating and going above their initial budget. From what I learnt, quite often these budgets are not set in stone. If they feel the candidate is right and is a good “investment”, they may add (significantly) more. This is also a reason why many companies are not so open to sharing their pay range (which I understand, but still don’t support).
And sometimes, the value of your expertise in their opinion may be indeed lower than in your opinion. It could be that you just lack relevant experience. You could have enough overall experience, but it may not be as relevant to what the company is doing. For instance, you’ve designed a dozen great e-commerce websites, but the company is a SaaS platform for managing accounting practice. Or you’ve worked on complex enterprise systems and applying to the position of mobile apps designer. The relevance of your previous experience plays a big role.
It could also be that you have relevant experience, but the complexity and the scope of ownership are lower than what the company is estimating for this job. It depends on the scope and expectations for this particular role they are hiring. Usually, they would list key responsibilities and summarized description hinting at how large the role’s scope is. Some companies may still be open to hiring a person not at this level, but who is close enough and shows evidence of fast learning and increase in ownership.
It could also be that you didn’t show good examples of your work supporting the narrative. Or just didn’t perform in the interview to the best of your potential (due to stress, anxiety, exhaustion, personal problems, etc.). I’ve seen this a few times. The designer was not choosing the right case studies to highlight their relevant skills and experiences. If you have several projects under your belt, you should be very intentional about choosing which projects you present and which ones you skip, or how you prioritize them, which skills/steps within each case study you highlight and which ones you reduce to a short blurb. It’s your job to understand what kind of skills the hiring team is looking for (based on the job description and preliminary conversations) and tailor the story to show relevant evidence.
And don’t forget, that another very common reason could be that you just don’t have enough under your belt. I know too many people who think they are more qualified than they are. There is a problem with varied job titles, role definitions, years of experience expectations, work environments. These inconsistencies result in different “standards” of quality and expertise. A huge problem in itself that harms the overall UX industry and the reputation it has built over the years.
🤔 Interesting
Mac OS X Big Sur critique. Nit-picking, but valid. What’s more curious is that the more I work in the industry with rigid launch dates the more I get empathetic for not-so-perfect experience launches. I can easily imagine that the product team had to cut corners here and there for the first version. I see these as minor imperfections, but many people online can’t help but express their thoughts. Aren’t there bigger problems to talk about and critique? Nobody is perfect. View post.
Bootcamps: The Fast Food Industry of UX. Good analysis of issues with UX bootcamps, cookie-cutter portfolios, market saturation, eroding built credibility of UX, and more. Good points and a few suggestions on how to address these problems. View post.
Tips for designing your portfolio. A (very experienced) design leader and practitioner (I know) shares thoughts on his expectations from a designer’s portfolio. Concise and practical advice. I used this structure to capture the speaking points for the interviews and they really helped me crystallize thoughts in my head and get a smoother structure for the storytelling. View post.
Head of Instagram gives an explanation of the new design (with the Shopping tab). Found this one quite curious. I can’t recall a person of this level doing something similar online. I think this is due to the backlash of the new app layout that prioritizes the new shopping feature. I wonder if the public complaining was that serious that they decided to get the top executive to give the justification. View post.
Funny. Old message about people using your product not the way you envisioned, but a new illustration, made me laugh 🤣. View post.
💭 A thought
Linkedin recently launched a new feature that allows you to double-tap the post image and it will get an automatic like (at least, this is my assumption =). I am surprised how many people jumped on this bandwagon of getting cheap phony likes. Every day I see a new post in my feed saying something like this “double-tap to see the secret”, “Double-tap the image if you see beyond this illusion. Only few will see this.”, “Double-TAP image if you wish you could forget Year 2020.”, and many more. And a lot of such posts come from people with a director, or VP, or something similar in their title. FFS, this is such a weak move. Just stop. Post something valuable and insightful, not a BS way to get more likes on your posts 🤦♂️ You can do better.