Out of college and into UX

On the advantages and caveats of pursuing a job in tech

Veronica Erb

Aug 17, 2023

My former professor's question stumped me initially. We were catching up earlier this summer, fifteen years after I had graduated. Between a bite of homemade scone and a sip of tea with milk, she asked, "What might offer a good introduction to whet my students' interest in UX?"

Part of my professor's work is advising her students, who are usually English majors. In her words, some of them "are thinking about a career in library science but don’t know about the broader areas of UX, information architecture, etc."

Information architecture can trace its roots to library science—both Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld, the original authors of the classic "polar bear book," started in libraries before they began organizing the web. So, I find it delightful and a bit ironic that my professor posed one as an alternative to the other, decades after O'Reilly first published Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.

Back when I was practicing UX professionally, I used to answer questions about entering our field pretty regularly. Especially in the first few years of officially working as a "UX Designer," I would answer questions with great enthusiasm. I would even set aside an hour (and sometimes longer if we were really jibing) with folks to talk about my career and what I thought could most help someone hoping to get a job in UX and the broader tech industry.

Here are some things that still hold true about working in UX:

You can get a job without an advanced degree. While UX and related masters degrees and certification programs are much more available now than they were in the late 2000s when I was starting my career, they still aren't considered necessary by many people doing the hiring. This is a huge advantage, because—
Working (any) job is vastly different from attending school. Academics have a kind of clarity and a sense of beginnings and endings that is rare in the work world. Projects blur from one into another, and it's common for there to be as many views of success as there are people in the organization. (And that's often a LOT.) By getting a job directly after completing your bachelors program, you'll get to experience the work world and explore what suits you there. Getting that first job in UX, instead of some other job, will allow you to build a skill that is useful no matter what career you pursue because—
UX, above all, is about understanding how to make things useful and even enjoyable for the people who use them. By building this skill, you'll be prepared not only for a next UX job, but also for your next job search itself, especially for office (remote or in person) and even academic jobs.

Perhaps you noticed that I didn't say that the work itself of UX is enjoyable and valuable. I used to say and believe with my whole heart that it was. I thought that UX was going to quietly and steadily make the world a better place. But recently, as I've written and spoken about before, I've been disillusioned about the effectiveness of UX.

Although I still recognize that UX, IA, and their related fields are needed, I'm not so fully in favor of the way we do UX right now that I can omit caveats about the purpose of a job, any job. So here they are:

A job is just a job. And a first job out of college has very practical purposes:

Be the first step in your transition from student to worker (see second point above).
Support your current existence (shelter, food, medical care).
Maybe: Financially support your dependents or loved ones.
Start (or continue) paying off any school loans you might have.
Hopefully: Start saving for your retirement (YES, already).
Get "real" experience on your resume, because a degree isn't enough on its own any more.

You'll notice that a lot of that was basically about money, and I didn't include anything about enjoying yourself or changing the world. While I think that enjoying work and changing the world are possible, I believe that placing them first in your job search goals will, at a minimum, prolong the process of finding a first job. And I’d say that’s not worth it, because—

Getting too much purpose out of your job can lead to isolation later in life. I used to say, "If I have to work, I might as well enjoy it." And I still believe that, and UX can certainly have its fulfilling, fascinating moments. Tech companies, especially, will woo you with talk of "we're a family here" and fun events or even "free" meals. These offers may seem generous, but they motivate employees to spend more and more of their time at work and with coworkers. All this makes it very hard to leave someday, when you want to advance your career (or change how you live) beyond what the company can do for you.

So, it's important to find purpose outside your job. If you pursue interests and especially other communities who can support you no matter the current state of your career, you'll have a life that is much more content. A volunteer group, a bunch of table gamers, even community center, or otherwise, these gatherings of humans will bring the meaning we all crave much more than any job available.

With all this considered, maybe a first job in UX is for you or a recent graduate you know. The pros that I list in the first second are pretty positive, after all, and unfortunately in this world or at least this country, you pretty much either need to work or find someone else to pay for your existence. (Or, explore other options that are best covered in another newsletter!)

If a person wanted to learn more about user experience design and perhaps try to get a job in it, I recommend the following:

Find and attend the meetup groups in your area. Try searching for "local ux groups," and also look up whether UXPA or IxDA have chapters in your area. You might have luck with the phrase "UX Camp," which is used by a few different organizations. Talking with people in the industry is both the best way to understand it and to find out where you might like to work.
Check out some online communities and blogs. The people in the meetup groups can tell you which are the most relevant to their work right now. Be wary of places (and courses) that want you to pay, though; there's still plenty of high quality resources out there for free. The “Practicing Information Architecture” section of Abby Covert's website might be a good place to start.
Conduct informational interviews with current professionals. I learned this technique from the career advice book What Color is your Parachute?, which is republished every couple years. The idea is straightforward: Instead of asking people for a job, ask them to talk about their career and their organization. You get more understanding out of it, and by the end of the chat, they're much more likely to introduce you to someone else helpful or even recommend you for a job. Who should you interview? The people who you've enjoyed chatting with in the meetups and online communities, and any friends of friends who are in UX or tech.

But however a person decide to exist in the world, whatever first job they eventually get, remember what’s true of all of us: You are valuable just as you are, regardless of your productivity. We all need to have our needs fulfilled, but how you get them fulfilled is up to you.

Just make sure to take time, just as I have gotten to do, to have a scone with the people who help you remember your worth.

* My second two points in this section are owed in large part to the work of Carolyn Chen. I’ve listed some suggestions for starting points into Chen’s work in the companion post to my 2023 IA Conference talk, Liminal Butterfly Goo.

Mentioned in this issue: Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond (the title of the newest edition of the polar bear book), by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango; “Practicing Information Architecture” by Abby Covert; What Color is your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles (I would recommend skimming your library’s latest edition rather than buying a copy).