The User Experience community is a generous one. Throughout my career, seasoned researchers and designers have shared their time with me—answering questions, offering encouragement, and giving invaluable advice.

I’m humbled that folks considering a career in UX now ask me to connect. These conversations energize me, and I’m honored to have the opportunity to pay it forward. One of the most common questions I get is: How did you break into UX?

Let me just say, it was a bit of a process…

the long & winding road

discovering

It started with a quarter-life crisis.

I was working in advertising as an assistant producer. The work was fun, but parts of me I loved were starving. I longed to do work that made the world better. I also wondered about the people using the products we sold:

Who were they?
Did the products we sold actually solve their problems?
And, if not, could we improve the products, so they actually would solve people’s problems?

It turns out those are not the kinds of questions an ad producer gets paid to answer. They are, however, the very bread and butter of User Experience.

I’d never heard of “UX” before a tech friend mentioned it to me at a party. The way he described it lit a spark in me. I began devouring online resources—books and blogs and videos. I started volunteering my time out of work with a food tech startup to try practicing these new skills. The more I learned, the more I recognized UX as what I’d been looking for all along: A creative career grounded in analytical thinking that is centered around helping people. I still celebrate these core aspects of my work.

LEARNING

Once I realized I wanted UX to be my job, I had to figure out how to make it happen.

I considered graduate degree programs, but they were so expensive, took at least two years, and offered no guarantee of an in-industry job at the end. Without the assurance of landing a high-paying job, I was reluctant to take out the enormous student loans academia demanded.

Instead, I opted for General Assembly’s UX Design Immersive program. Only 10 weeks long, I figured I could start getting real world experience—and, critically, a paycheck—within a few mere months. And the tuition at the time was only $10k. (It’s more expensive now but still a heck of a lot cheaper than graduate school). I talked to every GA grad I could get my hands on and then resolved to take the plunge.

My instructors were sharp and encouraging. The project-based curriculum gave us practice with the design process from week 1. Upon graduation, I had five projects in my portfolio—one of which for a real live client. The job fair was rough, as the big companies I wanted all gravitated toward my classmates who had design or development experience before the program, but it introduced me to the teams that would ultimately become my first and second UX jobs.

landing

The job landing part was hard. I cold applied to dozens of roles and received automated rejections or, worse, no replies at all. And the two companies I’d met at the job fair? Both rejected me on my first go. One said, “Hiring freeze.” The other said, ”Not enough experience.” Oof. (I did also get offered one job that I turned down because I knew it was really the wrong fit for my baby UX skillset, but that is a story for another time.)

To my surprise, a few weeks later the “not enough experience” company called me back. I had made a great impression, they said, and they wanted me to interview for a research operations role. They’d been interested in my agency experience and producer skills and thought I could easily help them coordinate vendors, recruit participants, manage clients, and the like. I wasn’t excited about the admin-sounding work, but I realized it would be a—paying!—job at a real UX agency with big clients. Plus they promised that, assuming all went well, I could learn the ropes of research and eventually promote to Researcher.

This time I made it all the way through the onsite and landed the role. I took it. I did the Research Producer role for awhile then indeed promoted to Researcher. I learned so much in that first job and am forever grateful they took a chance on me.

A note on Luck + HUSTLE

Looking back, I know I got lucky.

A major reason why bootcampers struggle—and why many companies hesitate to hire them—is because a bootcamp is not enough education. A 10-week program can only teach the tip of the very tip of the iceberg. I was lucky that one of my instructors had a research-specific background (you don’t get to pick) and was able to help me go deeper on UX research methods than the normal UXDI curriculum. I was also lucky that both the first and second companies who hired me were familiar enough with GA to know where I’d need help ramping up. Their support made my career possible.

That said, I helped my luck by (1) hustling my butt off and (2) not letting perfect be the enemy of good enough. I didn’t let rejections from dream companies deter me; I was too hungry for work. I took the best opportunity available to me at the time and then kept hustling to make myself the most attractive candidate possible for companies down the line. I’ve done this in every role I’ve held by striving to always do my best work and by building authentic relationships.

My path is just one of many into UX. You might consider grad school, a different bootcamp, an apprentice program at your current company, or something else entirely. Whatever path you pick, I assure you that starting out (or over) will be challenging. You’ll need to hustle. You’ll need equal parts self-confidence and humility. You’ll need to introspect deeply and spin a story so compelling that someone will give you that first job—and your next job, and your next.

For me, the winding road worked out: I now get to do work I love every single day. I hope you get there, too.