10 tips for landing your first job in product design
When starting a new career, try giving yourself as many tailwinds as possible.
Tip 1: Base yourself in a tech hub.
If few employers in your area are hiring product designers, you are playing your career on hard mode. Your end goal might be to work remotely, but you are limiting your overall number of job options. Even internships can be competitive, so make sure you do everything listed in this post to give yourself the best possible advantage.
BuiltIn.com has a list of tech hubs across the US, in addition to job listings. You can use their salary tool to get a general sense of what each local market pays. Obviously, comp varies greatly from company to company.
Unless you are a recent grad from a well-known school or have recently interned with a well-known company, be prepared to start off your career with a salary level at or below whatever average salary is listed on BuiltIn. Do not expect comp levels similar to what you might find on Levels.fyi. The market does not yet know your talent potential.
Depending upon your financial situation, be prepared to temporarily lower your living standards. In 2012, I moved from rural eastern North Carolina to Washington, DC to start my career. Lacking any savings, I lived in a group house in Virginia with three other guys and commuted about an hour and a half each way to work. I used Craigslist to find a bedroom for rent. Today, you might want to try Facebook Marketplace.
Tip 2: Don’t try to start out as a specialist.
Cast a wide net. Start out by labeling yourself a “product designer,” not a “UX designer.” There are way more generalist “product designer” roles available than specialty roles like UX designer/researcher. You can specialize after you have a few years of real work experience. Also, in terms of specialists, UI designers are far more in-demand in 2022 than UX designers/researchers. It is really hard to find talented UI designers.
As a junior product designer candidate, your portfolio should highlight both your current UX skills and UI design abilities.
Tip 3: Create a LinkedIn profile tailored for tech recruiters and hiring managers.
Add a professional headshot. Keep it basic. Don’t do anything quirky in your photo. And don’t spend a bunch of money hiring a photographer; my own headshot is an iPhone selfie with the living room background removed. Here are some additional tips related to LinkedIn headshots.
To optimize the rest of your LinkedIn profile, I would recommend following the advice in this article on Skillcrush.
Always approach your LinkedIn profile as a design problem. Imagine you are a hiring manager. When you look at a profile, you are seeking to determine if the individual’s experience and skills are a great match for your team’s current needs.
Tip 4: Create a resume tailored for tech recruiters and hiring managers.
Don’t do anything fancy with your resume layout or design. Just keep it black and white and easy to scan.
Tip 5: Build a portfolio website designed for tech recruiters and hiring managers.
Similar to your LinkedIn profile – always approach your portfolio website as a design problem.
Never force an employer to search through a large number of projects to find your best work.
The best product designer portfolios I have come across usually have the following qualities:
- Quality is given preference over volume. All of the portfolio pieces are of similar high quality.
- The portfolio is focused. The portfolio specifically highlights UX and UI work, not graphic design, animation, or illustration.
- The portfolio is easy to navigate. The project examples are logically grouped and the client or stakeholder is well-indicated.
- The design process is described. The candidate describes the why, how, and, ideally, when of the creation process for each portfolio piece.
Don’t design and code a portfolio website from scratch. Use an off-the-shelf solution:
Tip 6: Set up a product design blog.
The point of a blog is to help employers understand how you think through product design problems.
Don’t worry about setting up and maintaining a custom blog on your portfolio website.
Write posts on Medium or LinkedIn about your product design projects or relevant topics. Link to your Medium or LinkedIn blog from your portfolio website.
Also, don’t spend too much time working on your blog. If you write 3–4 short blog posts before you land your first job, you have done more than enough!
Tip 7: Customize your intro email and cover letter.
Craft a powerful opening statement.
Many candidates do not lead with a strong opening statement in the intro email or cover letter. This is a missed opportunity. First impressions matter.
Here is a real opening line by a candidate that grabbed my attention:
“I graduated from [university] with a Bachelors in Design in 2012. 3,000 applied, 30 got in, and only 19 of us graduated on time.”
Spend thirty minutes tailoring the body of the letter to the position and company. If you use the same intro email and/or cover letter for every job application, you are doing it wrong. Cookie-cutter applications usually end up archived, especially at startups and small companies.
The best intro emails and cover letters answer two basic questions for the employer:
- Are you the best fit for their team’s current needs?
- Are you interested in working on their team and their problems, specifically?
Make it easy for the hiring manager. In your intro email or cover letter, explain, as briefly as possible, how your background matches key requirements and expectations listed in the job post.
Impress the potential employer by making it apparent you have carefully researched and are excited about the possibility of working with their team. Get creative. Talk about some feature in the company’s app or on its website you think is well-designed. Basically, show the employer you are willing to put in effort just to get an interview.
Read your intro email, cover letter, and resume out loud before EVERY submission. Details are significant! This should take five to ten minutes. Typos and similar mistakes could cost you an interview.
Tip 8: Prepare for your interview.
Keep in mind that most interviewers are trying to answer a handful of key questions:
- What drives this candidate?
- Does this candidate care about the type of design work they will be doing at our company?
- How successful has this candidate been in the past?
- Does this person have the technical competencies in the area(s) of design we need them to possess?
- How does this candidate think through difficult design and task management problems?
- Is this person likely to make the team stronger?
Make it evident you have thoroughly researched the company and are excited about the opportunity.
Competitive applicants have clearly read about our company in advance, checked out our products online, and can effectively summarize what we do as a business.
A design intern I once hired went the extra mile during her interview. She referenced insights from a blog post written by one of our senior designers and asked me to explain how members of our design team contributed to a logo redesign we recently completed. This is the level of preparation that will lead you to success.
Be prepared to describe your design process.
Who was the user? What problem were you solving for the user? Describe your design process. What tools did you use? How did you receive feedback from users and stakeholders? What might you do differently next time?
Whenever possible, tell engaging stories.
Talk about specific design projects, challenges, and successes. Pull the interviewer in and get them excited to hear more. Listen to the way Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, tells the story of a design challenge he faced while studying at RISD.
Get the interviewer talking.
Find out key design problems the team is facing. Then ask questions that reveal “you understand their wants and needs.”
Tip 9: Send a follow-up email.
Send thank you emails. Applicants who take a couple of minutes to write a thank you email often stand out. The best follow-up emails I have received mention a topic the candidate and I discussed on the phone or in person. It is also great when the candidate shows excitement for the team and position.
Here is an excerpt from a great follow-up email by a design intern applicant:
“Thanks so much for carving out some time today to speak with me. I really enjoyed learning more about Industry Dive and the company’s design work. Before the interview, I was browsing around the company’s social media and noticed the recent logo update. It was really cool to hear about the design process behind the change and the decision factors leading up to the final design. Looking ahead, I would love to contribute to these design projects and the needs of Industry Dive and their clients.”
Tip 10: Don’t spend countless hours creating personal portfolio projects or studying on your own.
Yes, you need to understand the basics of product design. Yes, an online portfolio is really important. But, don’t spend all of your time on these activities.
Time-box your product design education. Bootcamps, online courses, and internships can be useful time-boxed ways to gain exposure to the basics of product design.
Time-box your portfolio creation. Spend 2–3 weekends setting up your first portfolio site.
After you understand the basics and have an online portfolio with 3–4 case studies that showcase the very best work you can currently do, focus all your efforts on getting paid freelance work or landing job interviews!
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