Notes from a UX Lab Meetup

One of the best meetups for UX designers in New York is the UX Lab, whose events are consistently interesting and helpful to the community of professionals in the UX space.

Last night's gathering, titled Open Forum: Your UX Portfolio with Switch was organized by Sean Paul Echevarria, one of the founders of the UX Lab. The format of the meetup was structured as an open Q-and-A session with Switch's Tara Lynn Connelly (Senior UX Designer), and Benjamin Grohe (Product Manager). In case you haven't heard of Switch, it's a mobile job search app that works a bit like Tinder: you swipe left for jobs you're not interested in, and swipe right for jobs you are into. Check it out here:

Some of the questions that were asked during the session included:

• How to improve my UX portfolio?
• How many projects do hiring managers want to see in a portfolio?
• Should I target recruiters or product managers when applying to a job at a tech company?
• How much detail should I include in each portfolio case study?
• What kind of portfolio should a UX researcher have?
• Do recruiters and hiring managers dismiss a portfolio if it was built with a template like Squarespace?

I took a bunch of notes, and wanted to share some of the takeaways with anyone who couldn't make the event:

• If using a template like Squarespace, make sure to customize the styles so it doesn't look like all the other people's websites that use the same template. Presentation matters, and hiring managers/recruiters see so many portfolios that they recognize when templates are used. Create a custom brand for your site: change the colors, fonts, background images, logo. You get bonus points for originality, so anything you can do to set yourself apart visually will increase your odds of making it to the next round.
• Aim to include 3-4 UX projects. Each case study should be a story that follows this pattern:

1. what was the problem you solved?
2. what kind of information/research did you use to solve the problem?
3. what was your solution to the problem?
4. how did your design help deliver value?

• At the beginning of each case study, start out with a 2-3 sentence summary with bullet points, then give the reader the option to dive deeper for more details.
• When submitting a portfolio for a job, tailor what you send so that it's relevant to the specific company/job function.
• If you don't have a lot of UX projects under your belt, do a few hackathons or a case study on an existing product showing how you would make one of their features better.

One of my favorite ideas from the evening came from Sean, who works at Jet.com. The idea is to pick an existing product (for example Jet.com's web app), find one feature that you think could be better and propose a solution. Create a mockup design of the solution, test it on some people at a coffee shop, document your assumptions and findings, and put together a case study with all the artifacts and key insights. In the meantime, place an order on Jet.com, and save the shipping box. When you are done putting together the case study, mail it in the Jet.com box to the head of UX at Jet.com!

I love this idea of doing something different from the typical resume/portfolio submission. In a way, you have to empathize with the hiring manager who gets bombarded with dozens of portfolios and resumes, and think "how can I make my submission more surprising/ fun/ unexpected than the rest of them?"

It's another opportunity to practice UX: how to make the hiring manager's experience of looking at your material as pleasant and delightful as possible.

Thanks again to Sean and the UX Lab for organizing the meetup, and Tara and Ben of Switch for hosting us and sharing their insights.

For more inspiration on putting together a design portfolio, check out Rachel Berger's excellent Medium post The Myth of the Portfolio Piece.

How to make the most of Meetups

I recently started going to various tech and design meetups in New York, as a way to meet new people in the digital product space, learn some new things, and expose myself to information that will help me navigate my career as a designer. If you’re not already on Meetup.com, sign up on their website, find a few groups you are interested in, and start going to events.

I am not an expert at networking by any means, but I’ve developed a strategy that makes the meetups feel productive and enjoyable. Besides the obvious (get there on time, bring some business cards, carry a small notepad), I wanted to share my list of tips for making the most out of these events based on my experience:

• Go alone. I know this sounds scary, but when you go to an event with a friend, you are less likely to break out of your comfort zone and talk to someone you don’t know. Each time I’ve gone to a meetup by myself, I am forced to meet new people, which has been surprisingly fun and rewarding.
• Find a person to talk to. Walking up to a group of people who are already engaged in a conversation can be intimidating. What has worked for me is to show up a little early, put on my name tag, and then scan the room for people who are standing (or sitting) alone. It’s much easier to start talking to someone who is by him/herself. I casually approach this person and say something like this: “Hello! What brings you here today?” or “Hello! Do you know if there will be pizza at this event?” This approach always works to get the other person talking, and pretty soon we are chatting away about various things (“what do you do?” “is this your first meetup with this group?” “what other meetups do you like?”, etc.). Keep it light and casual.
• Take notes and pictures. I like to snap lots of photos of each presenter and their slides, and write down interesting quotes. I later use these photos and quotes to post something about the event on social media, and make sure to tag the meetup organizer, presenter, and location host. This helps increase the meetup’s visibility, and my own.
• Say hello to the presenter(s). At the end of each event, some people line up to chat with the presenter(s). If you enjoyed someone’s presentation, make sure to tell them so. You don’t have to go on and on, but I think anyone who spent the time to put together a 15–20 minute presentation would appreciate your kind words.
• Exchange business cards. The main point of these events is to meet other people, so don’t be shy about asking people for a business card and also offer yours. After I leave the event, I write notes on each business card about the person so I can better remember some details about where we met and what we talked about.
• Follow up. If you did any of the above tips, you would have most likely met at least one or two people at your meetup. The next day, invite these people to connect on LinkedIn, and follow them on Twitter, Medium, etc. Your network will grow organically over time, and this will be good for your career. It is a well-known fact that people tend to find jobs through other people they know or have a connection to.
• Keep at it. When I first started going to meetups, I was pretty open to going to any event that sounded remotely tech- or design-related, even if it wasn’t totally relevant to my particular design work. Virtual reality designers talking about the future of VR? Customer experience insights from marketing pros? Squarespace web designers offering project management and workflow advice? Sign me up. I think of this time period as an exploration that will take my career into unknown directions, and I am enjoying the journey.
• If you’re not naturally extroverted, it might take going to a few events before you start to feel relaxed and confident in your ability to do small-talk and schmooze in a way that feels natural. Best of luck, and I hope to see you at a meetup in the near future. 💯

Advice from a UX recruiter

In mid-July, I watched a recruiter give a presentation to the UX class I was taking, about what he looks for when hiring for UX jobs. I thought his presentation was very good, and would like to share his insights with others out there who may be looking for UX work and want to make a good impression. Here is a summary of his advice to us:

Recruiters look for:

1. An online portfolio — always keep it up to date, and get rid of work that is too old (older than 3 years = too old)

2. Presentation of portfolio — make sure it looks good, and is easy to navigate. This is pretty important if you are looking for a job as a UX designer

3. Process — show your process, not just the finished product. Wireframes (“a must”); annotated wireframes showing the ‘why’; user research, use case scenarios, journeys, sketches, site maps, paper prototypes, interactive prototype

4. Resume — highlight General Assembly class. Don’t lie about your experience or responsibilities. Don’t embellish your role in projects.

5. Tools — Axure RP, Balsamiq, inVision, OmniGraffle, Visio, Illustrator and Sketch

6. Product Design Experience — desirable — native apps, web, mobile apps. Highlight native mobile app experience (tablet)

7. Web portfolio can have UX and art direction examples, but navigation should be easy and clear

The Interview

1. Interpersonal skills

2. Communication skills — listen closely to the question and answer succinctly.

3. Confidence and humility- traits he looks for in a person

4. Motivation — why do you want this job? Don’t say “for the salary”

5. Critical thinking — why did you make those decisions at your past jobs/projects? Be prepared to defend design choices, and admit when you don’t have the right answer.

6. Follow-up — send a thank you note within 24 hours (email is fine). Tell them you want the job. Be specific… reference something specific from conversation. Be personal, don’t send the same thank-you note to all the people in the same company (bad etiquette). Be excited about the job, and tell them why you are excited about the job, because you’ve done the research and you’ve thought about cultural fit. Be presumptive in your thank you note — “I look forward to meeting with you again.” Send email thanks right away, but also paper note.

7. Don’t ask about work/life balance in first interview, it’s a red flag that says that you are maybe not going to put in the time at work. Ask instead “what do people love about working here?”

8. You should think “My goal is for them to make me an offer, and then I decide if I want to take it.”

9. Don’t talk about salary, until you have been offered the position. If the hiring manager asks you what your salary expectations are at the first interview, be vague and delay having that conversation until further in the interview process (2nd, or 3rd interview at the earliest). You can say something like “I’d like to focus on the job opportunity and what I can offer”, and “I’m not really focusing on the compensation at this point, but if you decide to offer me the position, I am confident that you would make me a fair offer.”