Barriers to getting a Job in UX as faced by Women — Second Part

My mother and her siblings swimmed well. I mean, they knew how to swim well. Yet, they didn’t have a teacher who taught them swimming — they didn’t take swimming lessons.

They had my grandfather, who would throw my young mother and my aunts and uncles in the mighty Ganges. The young ones would try their best to stay afloat, while my grandfather kept a very careful watch from a distance(even though you might be thinking he was a heartless person, I’d strongly disagree). The young ones learnt swimming in the strong currents and deep waters of the most important rivers in India. They learnt it fast, and they learnt it well. They learnt it well-seasoned.

Point of this story is — people figure out strategies and how to do things, and determine what works and what doesn’t work, when they are deep into the circumstances, and then they also know how to do something, even when they haven't done that thing before. Maybe the method would be different, than traditional ways of doing so, but the thing would still get done, and in the process, we might find alternate perspectives and ways of navigating a terrain.

[By the way, the first part of this story lies here: https://medium.com/@koyelranu_68089/barriers-to-women-jobseekers-of-getting-into-ux-first-part-b9a49efd2385]

So, let’s see how the biggest chip in a job search process was used in the navigation:

Networking:

Picture Courtesy: Taylor Vick on unsplash.com

Jobseekers are often told that getting a job is dependent on “Who you know” rather than “what you know”, that every job application should happen with someone referring you for it. Even though all participants were found to be aware of this piece of wisdom, and heavily invested into the idea, and channelized all their efforts in networking, for people who got the job, as well as for people who did not get the job,

• Networking is NOT seen to land them with a job opportunity. It could be possible that the perceived value of networking in landing you with a job, is not seen to work when it comes to junior/entry-level positions, OR it’s seldom seen to work when it comes to women trying to get a foothold in junior/entry level positions. We would know more about this with a greater sample size, as well as sampling in other segments.
• A crucial factor in networking is who responds to networking advances. Participants mentioned hearing crickets in many cases when they reached out to people to talk about UX. This was found to be more so the case, among women who are also PoC. Considering that we tend to empathetic towards people “in the same boat” (struggling with similar challenges) and homophily (being attracted to people who are perceived to be similar to us), experiences in this factor would be variable based on who the jobseeker is.
• Networking is also a heavily time-bound and time-intensive process. Women in their 30s and 40s have to invest a lot of their time and energy in caregiving roles, on top of the jobs they might be having. Following up with connections once made in LinkedIn, having ‘coffee chats’ and investing in developing relationships were all things that participants knew they should be doing, but regretted in not being able to do as much. Reaching out to people and hearing from them when the opportunity window of applying to job has already passed, also happens quite frequently. As participants mentioned — they understand that (already employed) people are busy.
• The contrast to the above, were especially younger women — women in their 20s — who might be reaching out to a lot of people with a specific agenda they have in mind — ask for referrals or job opportunities. Unfortunately, amount of efforts invested were not found to lead to proportional returns.
• However, networking was found to be invaluable in providing mentorship, in directing towards learning resources in terms of how to do well in interviews, providing contacts that could help a jobseeker, evaluate the arsenals to landing a job (resume correction, portfolio evaluation, channelizing to helpful resources), as well as specific issues when one is already employed/in a job. In this context, being previously employed imparts a certain level of value and leverage, that an unemployed woman with no previous job experience in UX, would find hard to access.
• What works in networking is investment in developing resource-rich relationships — that friend you have in tech, reach out to her. That person you saw on LinkedIn who said they are willing to help out — listen and reach out. All participants agreed that reaching out to people has no alternatives. If one faces silence, it signifies time to move on to the next person, and not take it personally.

How’s networking supposed to look? What kind of networking builds in relationships and resource-rich networks for women jobseekers?

Picture Courtesy: Chris Montgomery in unsplash.com

Although everyone agreed networking is an essential part to get the part done right, not everyone had an idea of how it’s supposed to look beyond requests for “coffee chats” or “tell me about your typical workday” requests. They knew that everyone is making them, to everyone, already employed people are probably fatigued by these requests to talk about their typical workday or coffee chats.

Participant #15 (a young PoC woman in her 20s, who got a job through sheer hard work and heavy-duty cold application + networking) describes how she used to do networking before, and how she would do it differently today, if she were to start all of this again:

Being ignored as part of the process. Not everyone is a jobseeker and not everyone can afford to pay attention. But sometimes it feels personal. Yeah.

I had no idea of what user research slash UX was. All I knew is that it was aligned to what I was interested in, and that they asked for a psychology background. So I reached out to… I guess, like 30+ people on LinkedIn asking, “Hey, Do you have time for chat or if you could connect…” I realized that it’s a numbers game, which is so annoying, because they’re extremely busy, which is totally understandable.

Out of that 30 + people, 3–5 people got back and was like — “ Okay, I could spend time with you”. At that moment, I also realized that I should be asking follow up questions to the connection, and make that relationship full rather than one sided. But that’s something I learned later on in line.

I’d say — Don’t even try giving up networking. Learn as much as you can — learn from others — make most of your connection. In 2018, and 2019 — the people that I’d meet, I would never follow up with them again. I’d just be like — “Oh I talked to them once. That’s it.”

Now, I can never do that — I need to follow up. I need to make the most of our connection. I can’t just talk to them once. These are relationships you’re gonna make for the next few years. So I would send them podcast episodes that relate to something that they would be interested in… it’s basically like making friends and making sure that the friendship or relationship that you have with the connection, is valuable. In 2019 I didn’t do that that much. I was also a student. I didn’t know any better, but now I’ve learned (pauses)… that in general — ‘Here are the different things to make a relationship valuable’.

And that it’s a two-way street rather than a one way street.

What works?

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As for what works, participants had different ideas:

• People who didn’t have a PhD thought that having a PhD attributes greater advantage to getting a job, or rather, getting a foot in the door in the job world of UX.
• People with a PhD thought that their PhD is holding them back from getting a job in UX, in them being stereotyped as misfits. So this segment would say not pronouncing their degree would probably work.
• A background in UX design is usually thought to be being advantageous to people getting jobs in UX, be it UX Design or UX Research or Product Management. If one doesn’t have a background, having an overall idea of UX design is thought to be advantageous. As one participant mentioned in how it could bring in some leverage room for jobseekers:

“You need to understand how UX sits within an organization and be quite savvy to those differences, so that you can position yourself. That question of fit — how you fit with their organization always comes up. So you kind of need to understand that a bit.”

• Demonstrating competence: In lieu of industry experience, this is a major tool on which participants would lean on heavily — to land them some leverage in the game. Demonstrating competence could be done through several ways — through evidencing soft skills like communicating about research, or how you do up your portfolio, resume, and cover letter and how you talk about past non-industry experience should work. Communication and Articulation Skills are seen as crucially important tools. For people who got the job, learning the lingo of UX and using it to talk about past experience is emphasized frequently.
• Customizing and Rebranding Yourself: Writing & customizing the cover letter, re-working the resume, fine-tuning the slide deck or portfolio and re-branding yourself as per each job applications was deemed to be strenouse, time-intensive, but advantageous in the journey of the jobseeker.
• A more ‘outgoing’ personality: A massive majority of the participants believed a more outgoing personality helps in interviews. If someone doesn’t have that, then they need to put on that mask of having a jovial, outgoing personality. In the end, making a connection with the interviewer/team is deemed to be very important (“An interviewer that can’t connect with you, isn’t gonna hire you”), and only the “right” personality could land one there.
• Being inquisitive, curious, learners: Immersing yourself in a learning process, and recognizing it as a required and temporary part of the journey is thought to be essential. Learning is thought to be a lifelong process. Jobseekers point out the importance of complete immersion in learning as much as one can, so that one doesn’t drown out in a sea of jobseekers. That’s viewed as important, to be taking one places.

Picture Courtesy: Kevin Wolf in unsplash.com

• Knowing someone: Knowing that special someone — that someone who could facilitate your entry to a company, to getting a job in UX, with all other factors being deemed not important — is thought to be a major chip in the block. In other words, participants talked about having resource-rich networks. Participants also talked about how having a human inside who could bat for you in the times of machine-administered job application process is actually a huge deal.
• Cold applications: Participants mentioned — It’s a numbers game. With cold applications, comes rejections (sometimes rejections don’t even come but radio silence does the proxy), but then, they pointed out there’s not much options out there — giving up is not an option.
• Being in the USA: This part was interesting to observe, from both ends. As mentioned earlier, a massive majority of research participants were based in the US. This segment would talk about how the job market appears to be a formidable fortress in spite of the growth in the UX job market, and them investing so much in the process. On the other hand, people who were not based in the US, would say being in the US is definitely advantageous if one is a jobseeker in the UX. According to them, the job market in UX is in a ideal scenario right now, if one is based on the USA.

Helpful Digital Platforms

Categories of Helpful Digital Platforms and how they are used

Helpful Digital Platforms in these stories could be grouped into three, in terms of their use-cases:

1. Job Board + Networking: Those used to look at job listings and networking, and know about companies, e.g. LinkedIn, Slack, Glassdoor etc.
2. Forums + Networking + Learning Resources: Those used for online forum discussion and support, and learning resources, e.g. LinkedIn, Slack, Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, etc. As Participant # 10, (a woman in her 40s with a Masters degree and extensive experience, got a job after 3 months of strenuous job search) mentioned, job networking sites, like LinkedIn was particularly helpful to learn the lingo and finding clues from people who made it:

I’d also research on LinkedIn — I’d look at people that were in the position that I wanted to be in, I would look at their LinkedIn bio, because there’s a lot of clues as to how you should frame yourself how you should define yourself. And they give the jargon…the key words that you really need to start incorporating into your own spiel. So that was part of it, too, is how do I talk about myself?

Also, I felt LinkedIn was giving me more quality information — as far as who was hiring.

3. Track & Stalk Applications: Those used to stalk and track job applications, that is, whether it was looked at by a human. e.g. Excel, Smartr, etc. A lot of participants were particularly frustrated by the fact that they wouldn’t know whether their application was even looked at by a human. So, sometimes participants would find a way to do that.

As we glean through these examples, we can see that:

• Jobseekers do not just use job portals look to find information about other jobs, but networking is a prime need fulfillment, as are finding learning resources.
• Whether or not their application was looked at by human is a need felt by everyone, and that’s mostly unmet through traditional jobsearch platforms.
• Trying to stay connected and up-to-date with endless amount of information, learning resources and webinars in UX is a common strategy among jobseekers, and the use of digital platforms are reflective of that. At the same time, this help could easily get to be challenging, as Participant #1, a PhD who wants to branch off to UXR, and a new mother explained:

I honestly feel like …that it’s almost like an overload of resources that I have, which is a good problem to have, I guess. But it’s also like, Where to begin? There’s so much information, so many repositories of advice and recommendations and this and that, it’s, it’s kind of overwhelming, like, when you first start, you’re just like, Wow, there’s so much information. Yeah. Where do I begin?

• Keeping track of job applications is found to be an activity that’s not engaged upon by everyone — for some people, just seeing the numbers could be triggering and they don’t want to be reminded of the number of jobs they have applied. For others, they try to keep a copy of their process for their own learning along the journey, and use the job search process as a project. As they say, job search is akin to having a full time job.
• The ‘Fear-of-Missing-Out’ is a common strain in the stories of women jobseekers. Some had decided to switch off this “help” — stop visiting certain Facebook groups, or put a timer on their phone to stop ‘doomscrolling’. With all the help that digital platforms present themselves with, some help are not perceived to be that helpful.
• News of other people making it, while they can’t (as of now) also add on to mental health struggles, as a consequence of which, some jobseekers or users (of these platforms) would stop visiting them altogether.

Digital Platforms could use this information, do more intensive and exploratory research on it, to help build themselves, or add features that meet the needs and pain points of jobseekers.

So What Can We Do About It (a.k.a. “Here Comes The Recommendations”)?

Picture Courtesy: Brett Jordan on unsplash.com

1. Offer affordable, accessible, authentic and industry-approved training programs/certifications that can reliably train entry-level candidates. As Participant #13 said: “Somebody should take the responsibility to teach the right content to people instead of overcharging. Somebody should call them (bootcamps) out.”
2. Have clear guidelines as to what is required in job candidate in various stages of hiring, instead of shooting out conflicting information.
3. Develop better domain knowledge as to job roles & requirements, among hiring teams & recruiters and train them in DEI to enhance communication with jobseekers coming from various backgrounds.
4. Develop features in, or build job portals that would tell the job applicant whether their application was looked at by a human.
5. Provide access to free, and paid resources for mental health support and build resilience in job portals. Humans do tend to lean on to sad music on bad days, as well as happy music to feel better on bad days. Job portals could really leverage this particular need of users and provide tools to manoeuvre into this terrain accordingly.
6. Have more internships/apprenticeships/ shadowing opportunities, that could compensate for the lack of training/onboarding for entry-level/junior roles.

What are some advice from jobseekers to jobseekers?

Picture Courtesy: Priscilla Du Preez on unsplash.com

The following are the advice of those jobseekers who got a job after traversing through similar path that other women jobseekers are going onto:

1. On Honesty being the best policy when it comes to developing a personality:

Participant #10 (woman with a Masters, in their 40s, got a job after 3 months of strenuous and focused investment of time and efforts:

I don’t think it’s one type of personality (that works…). There are all different types of teams. It’s a matter of you connecting with that team that’s interviewing you — so try to connect with the hiring manager, and make sure that you are able to explain your experience and fit. I think it comes down to having practice and being comfortable, because once you’re comfortable with your own material, then you can just be yourself, you don’t have to be worried about how you’re coming across and it just comes naturally. And you’re more relaxed, and you can just be yourself.

And then they they’re going to pick up on that, that honesty, how you are as an individual, and they’re going to be interested in and wants to get to know you more.

2. “Know that it is hard, and that it’s going to be hard. Do not give up”.

Participant # 7, a young PoC woman, who landed a job after much hard work, emphasizes reaching out and keeping strong:

Keep going. Be confident and just ask for what you want and tell people what you want. Because there’s no reason to shy around what you want. People aren’t going to be upset at all, if you’re tell them: “Hey, this is what I need. Are you able to do that for me or not?”

It’s hard. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard.

But there are big strides being made in the industry as a whole. They know there are not a lot of entry level jobs. And if you’re really drawn to this work, then put that perspective out there to companies, and that would really affect it.

I know people that look like me always have a harder time, no matter what. But you’d have to keep going.

3. How a company treats you is reflective of how they are going to treat you later:

Getting attached to particular companies was observed in a massive majority of participants, which they would advise against, for better mental health.

Corollary to this process, interviewing is an occasion to get a better view of company culture, and how your time would be, as an employee there. Amid of all of these tests of identities and selves, women jobseekers would advice not to give up one’s self-respect.

Participant # 12, a non-US-resident, who had landed a job recently, reminded a process that almost everyone around the world is subject to: ghosting and lack of clear communication as to what is happening. She was talking about how attached she had gotten to a particular company, and what that experience taught her:

[….] it was really a company that I really, really, wanted to be a part of because I loved what they stood for. But they just did not respect my time at all. And I think that was a lesson to myself — that the way in which a company interviews you tells you how they’re going to treat you. So, no matter how desperate you are for the job, you need to respect yourself at the end of the day.

WHAT NEXT?

Any phenomenon always has multiple viewpoints.

It’s the job of research to see things from multiple viewpoints, deploying triangulation of data and methods, which always attributed better validity and reliability of data. For a cinephile researcher like me, engaging into finding the Rashomon Effect is always a delicious idea.

Poster of the Film Rashomon. If you haven’t seen it already, you must see this. And then, it doesn’t harm a rewatch! Picture Courtesy: IMDB.

So next up, I wish to correct for the limitation in this research study by seeing the things from several other perspectives:

1. I want to do In-depth Interviews with men jobseekers, which would lend a comparative analysis into the situation.
2. Interview Hiring Managers — the other key player in the game — and see what are their needs, challenges and viewpoints with regards to the same situation.

If you are interested to talk to me about this, or have some questions or comments, write in at koyelranu@gmail.com or on LinkedIn.

Till Later!