- Today, I wanna talk to you about taking ownership
of your design career.
This is something that perhaps that we don't put enough
thought into at the very beginning of our career,
we sort of just end up going down a path,
and if we don't stop and think about it, and plan for it,
plan what we want to get out of our design career,
we can end up sometimes on a path
that we're not totally happy with.
So that's what I wanna talk about today,
taking ownership, thinking about what you want
from your career, and how to go out there and get it.
(upbeat music)
Now to start things off, I just wanna make note
that there is a limit to what we can control
when it comes to going after the career that we want.
Unfortunately, in the tech industry in particular,
a lot of biases still exist,
and people are discriminated against,
based on the color of their skin,
their religious beliefs, their gender, this still happens,
it's terrible, and if that's something that's affecting you
in your career, and that's what's holding you back,
the problem is not you, the problem is the company
who is discriminating, through and through,
that's a problem they need to solve.
And unfortunately, there's not much you can do about it,
they need to be making that change,
and people with privilege in the industry,
we need to be educating those people on why they need
to make their change.
I just wanted to make note of that right at the start,
because I think when we're talking about motivational,
go after the life you want, type of content,
we need to recognize that some people
are playing in a different field,
and we don't all have the same opportunities available
to us, unfortunately.
With that said, let's focus on talking about
what we can control.
We can control our own learning, and our own development,
we can control the way we act within a company
as creative professionals, we can control our own tensions,
and figuring out what it is
we actually want from our career.
Now to talk through all this, I had a chat
with a new friend of mine, Amanda Worthington,
she is a co-host of the UX Hustle Conference,
which is a career conference for UX designers.
So all the talks at this conference
are around your UX career and how you can build it up
to be in the place that you wanna be in.
I'm gonna be speaking at this conference,
so if you're watching this video
on the week that it's uploaded,
you should definitely buy a ticket and come along,
I have a link that will be in the description,
where you can get 40% off the pass.
And it's gonna be great, I'm really excited
to give my talk and to help some designers out
with self-promotion.
But anyway, let's get into my chat with Amanda,
about how designers can take ownership over their careers.
So, joining me now, I have Amanda with me,
who runs the UX Hustle conference.
And UX hustle is a career conference,
it's all about your UX design career,
and so I thought that Amanda would be perfect
to talk about this topic with.
Do you wanna introduce yourself to the people, Amanda?
- Sure, so I'm Amanda Worthington,
I'm the co-host with Sophia Prater
for UX Hustle Summit, and I'm actually taking over
the UX Hustle Podcast as well.
And so I've been in UX for the past two to three years,
I was an engineer before, I went into software consulting
and then ultimately, transitioned my career
into UX design.
- Cool, that's really exciting that you have had
all these careers before UX design.
- Yeah, it's been a journey for sure.
- Can you tell me a little bit more
about the UX Hustle Conference to start with?
Because from what I know of it,
it was started to help designers with exactly this problem
that we're talking about, right, of taking ownership
of your own design career.
- Yes, and so when Sophia started it,
it was like, there aren't any other career oriented
conferences for UX, and a lot of the conferences
focus on those hard skills, on how to design,
how to up-level your career in that way,
it was very skills oriented.
And there's so many people coming into this industry,
but, then it's like now what?
What does that look like?
And it's such a relatively new career path,
that once you get in it, there's so many different paths
that you can take between research,
information architecture, the visual design,
there's so many, and even with design systems,
and these other new areas coming out that are blowing up.
And it's okay, I knew I wanted to do UX,
and I checked that box and I'm happy with it,
but now it's like, oh,
now all these other paths have opened up, now what do I do?
- Yeah, totally, and I think that every section
of designer has that choice to make at some stage.
Myself as a web designer,
well I started off as a graphic designer even,
and had to make that choice that I wanted to transition
those graphic skills into web, and from there,
choosing to focus on being a marketing designer in tech,
there's all these little niches
throughout design that people can choose.
What would you say is one thing that,
or a couple of things if you wanna share,
that hold designers back from having the kind of career
that they want?
What are the main issues that you see them running into?
- Yeah, I think, one thing when I've talked to people about
where they see their career going or what they want to do,
there's this anxiety around
I don't wanna pick the wrong thing,
I don't wanna pick and then be stuck.
So I just don't.
And then you're kind of left with this generalist approach
but, it's limiting in some ways,
if you're looking at everything how deep can you really get?
And how do you figure out,
well, I'm super interested in this one area,
let's just go all in on it, that's scary.
And also, I think, in a lot of these enterprise companies,
things get really complicated really quickly.
And if you don't understand the tech side of things
or know what questions to ask or how to facilitate
those conversations with the developers
or product owners, or other stakeholders,
it can be really challenging
and I think some of those conversations
can be intimidating as well.
- It's almost like putting the professional part
in creative professional, is a challenge that designers face
when they first get into the first years of their career,
'cause you learn design, whether it's in a bootcamp
or design school or you've been teaching yourself,
that's when you're learning to be the creative,
and you're learning those creative skills,
but then you get put in the workplace,
and you've gotta learn this professional side
of like, how does a company function?
And all the different parts, and it does get complex
really fast, you're right.
And I think one thing that I've come to realize
as I've been sort of like coaching, mentoring designers
throughout the year is that we need to be our own
best advocate for our design career.
That we can have coaches, we can have mentors,
we can have people sponsoring us and suggesting us
for certain things, but at the end of the day,
we have to believe in ourselves the most.
And we have to be putting ourselves forward for things
and building up our skills to get ourselves into
the place we want in our career,
and that's why I think that not just focusing on continuing
to push our design skills forward,
when we finish our learning phase,
'cause it never really stops,
but we have to focus on these other things.
And like learning about the business,
and learning about systems and processes
and all of that sort of thing.
- That's so true, I like the part about needing to advocate
for yourself, and if you don't know what you want,
it's so much harder to do that.
- Yes.
- And like, it's so much harder,
because I feel like I've had bosses
that have supported me or want to support me,
and it's that, what can I do for you?
And it's- - I don't know.
If you don't have the answer to that,
it's a missed opportunity.
- Yeah.
- Versus if you could say,
well, we don't have a research team,
and I think that we really need to put more focus on that,
and, I think I'm the person to do it.
And then it's okay, let's put a plan in place,
let's figure out how to make that happen.
And things move so much more quickly
when you can tell somebody what you want.
And I don't think it has to be limiting,
it's even just, this might not be the right time,
but I wanna put it out there,
that this is what I'm really interested in.
And if an opportunity comes along,
think of me.
- Yeah. - 'Cause no one else
is probably saying that and speaking up for themselves,
and letting them know, what to do.
And it just makes it easier for the other person too.
- Absolutely, it makes it easier for people to
put you forward for opportunities and to advocate for you
when they know what you're advocating for, yourself.
It can be hard to figure all that out though,
especially, when you're getting started,
and like we talked about,
there's just so many different directions you can go in.
And so, what sort of advice do you have
for people to figure this out?
How do you advise people to do it?
- Gosh, well, come to the UX Hustle Summit.
But, it's funny because a lot of the speakers
that are speaking at UX Hustle
are people that have helped me in my career
of how do you figure out what your strengths are?
And what does success really look like for yourself?
And one of the things I've been thinking about is
you are the user of your career.
- Oh I love that.
Okay, tell me more about this.
- Well, I think as UX designers,
we're taught, it's so ingrained in us
that you are not the user, that you need to go outside
of yourself to get those other perspectives,
to think about the product, the problem, the solution,
from other people's perspectives.
I think that's a big reason why people don't want to
pick one thing.
It's like, I wanna test out all the different things
and see how other people respond to that.
And, really, other people don't matter
when it comes to your career.
If it's what you really enjoy
and what you're really good at, what does that mean for you?
And so many of the answers are just in you,
it's just asking yourself the right questions,
the research and discovery phase is self-discovery,
and self-reflection and self-research.
So I think that's a really big place to start.
- Totally, applying your design knowledge to your career
and going through that process
but with yourself as the problem that you're solving
I suppose.
- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Because I think, actually it's so funny
because you are so close to the problem.
You are too close because it is you.
And so you're not asking the right questions,
the things aren't obvious to you.
I don't know, I think it's so interesting when you don't
necessarily know what your strengths are.
Because you're just so close to it
that you're just doing the day to day
and then it's well, what do I really like doing?
Where do I lose time
because I'm just in flow with what I'm doing?
And how you pay attention to that?
- Yeah, or like you said
you consider your strengths are the things
you see reflected back from other people
and you don't stop and ask yourself what you think
they are, you just take it on.
- Yes.
Or what other people have said.
I would say that a way that I best figured out
what I want from my career as well is,
through looking at and learning about the careers
of other designers.
What are people doing?
What options are out there?
I've heard from a lot of people that my channel has
been the reason they know that marketing design
is a role that exists within companies and tech.
And so that's been exciting for me.
So we have to be doing that, looking out there
at what's around, networking, meeting people,
hearing their stories, will tell us what's an option for us.
- Absolutely, even outside of the industry,
I think it's really interesting,
of how can you pull different things from other areas?
And I think it's cool when,
that's why I'm a conference junky, myself,
I love going to events, and I love listening to
other people talk about their inspiration and motivation,
because, different things come up for me
when I hear those stores.
And I look at things in a different way,
and I think that's such a powerful experience.
And so that's what I'm excited about for this weekend.
- Yeah, I'm excited for it too,
and I'm excited to honestly to find
that a conference like this exists
because the transformational talks
that you make you really do some deep introspection
and self-reflection, those are my favorites to go
at a conference and I will always pick those
over the let me teach you a hard skill any day.
For me personally, it's because I learn best
that hard skill approach when I can follow along myself,
or take an assignment and try and do it,
I don't learn that thing by just people talking to me
about it.
But, I get super inspired by anything transformational,
hearing about challenges that someone else has overcome,
and it just like, I don't know,
whenever I'm at conferences, hearing a talk like that,
I'm like, in my notes app on my phone,
jotting down, not only things they're saying,
but the things that is making me think about as well.
- Yes. - And some of my best
light bulb moments have come sitting frantically
trying to type to get the thought in conferences
as well as listening to a speaker like that.
- Yes, I love that, I always thinks that's the best way
to experience a conference like that too,
is having the notes, but then it's also the random ideas
that are coming to me that are inspiring me.
Like a podcast. - Yes
- Like an event, all of those things.
Especially when you're super motivated,
and there are things that maybe you wouldn't normally say
out loud or you wouldn't normally let yourself want
or think about or, what would it mean if I got into
marketing design?
What would that look like?
And you let yourself down that path a little longer
than you normally would.
- Because you're in a space that's sort of encouraging
that sort of thing.
- Yeah. - Which is really fun.
What about your own UX career?
So we've heard before that you have had this journey
to get into it, what helped you decide to go for it
in the end and to pick the path in UX that you've chosen?
- Yeah, so, I was a software consultant
and I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do forever.
I was traveling Monday through Thursday,
every week basically, which I loved,
I loved my clients, I loved what I was doing
to an extent.
But I knew it wasn't everything.
I loved the problem solving, but when I would talk
with my clients, they were running into the same problems
over and over and over again.
I was like, man, I just wanna solve their problems
once and for all, instead of putting these bandaid solutions
on it.
And, I started taking web design classes online,
I thought it was great, but I was also kind of like,
how do people pick colors, and pick layouts,
do they just pull them out of the sky?
I don't know if this how this really works.
And, I stumbled upon UX, and saw some articles about it,
and what the process was like.
And oh, this is the scientific method,
this is so similar to the processes
I would use when I doing engineering,
that, it just made so much sense to me.
It was, oh we write down our assumptions,
we question our assumptions, we ask the right questions.
So then I started doing,
I continued to do web design,
continued to work on different projects,
and I applied at General Assembly,
and just went all in for it.
- That's exciting Amanda, congrats.
I'd love to be back sometime to talk more about
the General Assembly, because it's a bootcamp, right?
- Yes, yeah, it is a bootcamp.
- People constantly ask me about that,
I didn't one myself, so I cannot comment on it.
So let's have you back some other time
to talk more about that.
- Yeah, definitely, definitely.
I think it's so interesting, all the different paths
you can take, and to me, the biggest thing was like,
why do you wanna do this?
And as long as you know, why you wanna get into UX
and why you wanna make this career transition,
it makes it so much easier when it gets tough
because it does.
- Yeah. - Because it's life.
- Wise words Amanda, I think that's a good note to end on.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
really appreciate you being here.
- Thank you for having me.
- Honestly, I love all this career talk stuff,
in case you hadn't noticed from the rest of my videos
on my channel.
I think it's so important for us as designers
to be continuing to work on our interpersonal skills,
communication skills and all this stuff that can get us
into a really good place in our careers.
I'm excited to give my talk which is called,
"Self-Promotion Is Not A Dirty Word,"
and it's about increasing your reputation
within the design industry.
It went down very well at Config last week,
and so I'm excited to give it again this weekend
in a more expanded, UX focused version.
So like I said, link in the description to buy tickets
to come along to this conference.
And if you're watching this video a little bit later
into the future, then, sign up to their email list
and you can be told when the next conference happens.
Thanks for watching everyone, wishing you all the very best
for your careers, let's go out there and make it happen.
Bye.
(upbeat music)