UX graduates: You don't need a UX job to do UX

I recently spoke to Marc Majers on his excellent UX Pathways Youtube/podcast - a show where Marc talks to UX folks of all kinds about how they got to where they did and advice for people trying to do the same.

While we talked a bit about what's difficult about creating good user experiences, stakeholder management and understanding the big picture and minute detail; the question I wanted to explore further here is about the age old question of how to get into the UX industry.

There are currently, and always have been, few entry level or junior UX jobs. Across the board, companies have done poorly at creating pathways into the work - if you look at job advertisements at any point, they are overwhelmingly for seniors. This makes it difficult for graduates, whether from a university program or a professional short course, to figure out how to 'get into UX'.

My advice on this one has been the same for years - no matter how well or poorly the industry is going and whether hiring for UX is going up or down.

Think about what you like about UX and why you wanted to learn it in the first place. UX work can be diverse and some of the things that people say that they love include:

• understanding what people want and need
• making things that are easy for people to use
• making things that are delightful for people to use
• empowering people to achieve something themselves, instead of relying on someone to help
• breaking down complex problems to find (appropriately) simple solutions
• finding interesting ways to address new or complex problems
• helping organisations to listen to their users or customers more consistently

These are all broad aspects of having a UX mindset - of wanting to understand and improve things for people.

Now, while I know I say 'things' way too much in day to day life, I say it deliberately here. I didn't say systems or apps or user interfaces. That's because there are loads and loads of places where you can apply what you love about UX.

If you already have a job, consider how you could apply a UX mindset to your current role. Could you do a small amount of user research or testing (or even just talk to customers or users more often)? Could you identify small changes that would make people's experiences better. Could you make a process more efficient? Could you make a service more friendly?

When looking for a promotion in your current field, are there some roles that would allow you to be more user-centred than others? This is a great way to retain the skills you've built and stretch with your new UX skills.

If you are new to the workplace, look for roles that seem to have some opportunity to be customer or user-centred, in good companies with teams that can support you to grow. I've seen too many new UX graduates take 'UX team of one' roles because they want a UX job, only to end up just taking direction on how to design screens, or burning out because they have actually don't know how to do the role yet and have no support. It is much better to work with a supportive team and build your skills gradually, than take a specific UX role that you will fail at.

If you think about the core concepts of being user or customer centred, you'll see that they can be applied in many situations. Where have you used a UX mindset in non-UX work?