Think of skills, not titles
This post is part of a larger series of posts aimed at helping designers present themselves online. Learn more about “Crafting Your UX Portfolio” here.
It’s a big, confusing world out there when it comes to user experience design. Big because designing an web or mobile application is complex; there’s many moving pieces to successful app design. Confusing because we’re all learning new things almost daily, so different people associate different meanings to different titles.
Seriously, there are hundreds of titles out there:
- User Experience Designer
- Interaction Designer
- UX Strategist
- Visual Designer
- Product Designer
- User Experience Researcher
- UI Developer
- and on and on…
Sprinkle on a “level” indicator: Junior, Mid, Senior, Lead, Director, Honcho, Ninja, etc. and you’ve got yourself an insane amount of titles you could use to describe what you do 😲.
Unfortunately, these titles mean different things to different people in different companies. But titles are important! So what do you do?
Talk about your skills
The best way to describe yourself is to identify your skills. What tools do you use to get your job done? What design exercises are your go-to methods? What’s your process look like? Here are examples of skills you could highlight:
- Researching (customer development), concierge prototyping
- Content strategy (messaging, timing), information architecture (navigation, page flow)
- Problem definition, constraints, product vision
- Interface: sketching, wireframes, design patterns, click-through prototype
- Visual composition: grid, typography, color theory, contrast, imagery, illustration, iconography.
- Front-end development: building style guides, components, templates; prototyping; optimizing performance; implementing production code;
- Testing: conducting usability tests; QA and bug testing;
- Organization: expectation setting (scope + deadlines); prioritization; decision-making; unblocking other parts of the process;
If you work with teammates, ask them how they’d describe your role. What title would they give you?
It helps to ground yourself by seeing how other’s define their roles and titles. Take a look at these before moving on:
The 5-minute skill list
Julie Zhuo — one of today’s prominent design writers (and a personal favorite writer of mine)— shares her thoughts on the most important traits to an interviewer:
The far more important question is: how promising is your capacity to learn? Some of the best designers I work with today weren’t the most skilled when they interviewed. But they had potential. They asked questions, they put themselves in situations that stretched them, and they made it their goal to get better.
Self-awareness and proactivity are two sides of the same coin. If you’re self-aware, you know what you are and aren’t good at. If you’re proactive, you’re going to do something about it.
Knowing yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, where you want to grow and where you want to be… these things are incredibly important. Let’s do what designers do best: let’s be intentional about this.
Before you start the job hunt, spend just 5 minutes with a piece of paper and list out all the possible skills you could say “I’ve done this at least once.”
Have your list? Highlight the skills that you feel comfortable saying “I can do this better than most people I know.” Put a star next to them.
Finally, look through the list for skills that you really want to improve in the next year. Pick no more than 3. Circle these skills.
You should have a list of skills and talents… a few highlighted with stars are your current strengths that you’ll polish as you present yourself to future teammates… a few skills are circled, the ones you’ll throw yourself into head first to make better and better until you’re happy with where you are.
The list serves another purpose… (bwahahah, EVIL MASTERMIND LIST!! No not really, it’s actually quite the hero.)
This list will also guide you when reviewing job postings down the road. You’ll dissect job postings based on these skills, finding jobs that align with the list you’ve made (in terms of both strengths + areas where you can grow.)
Next up → “Finding culture fit”
