How to unconventionally increase your chances of getting a job as a newbie designer

• At design meetups, I keep hearing the same story:

‘The market is terrible, applying is exhausting.’

• While these struggles are real, I discovered an unconventional path that worked for me and wanted to share that with you.
• This article that you’re about to read and enjoy is based on personal experience.
• This article is of 2 parts.
• Part 1 — My story of getting jobs as a new designer without applying for it.
• Part 2 — Principles behind the unconventional approach.
• I would recommend to read the ‘My story’ part first and then the principles as you will have a deeper understanding compared to just reading the principles.

Something you should know about me — I’m extremely delusional and naive in some aspects of life. You will know what I’m talking about soon.

Part 1 — My story of getting jobs as a new designer without applying for it

You’ve heard of product discovery, Have you heard of internship discovery?

• In January 2022, while I was in my final year, I participated in a bootcamp called 10k Designers. As part of a group of 4 people, we were working on a UX research project for a company called FITTR
• I really wanted to get into this company because it’s about fitness which is something I’m passionate about, the founder is ripped and I was thinking if I get into FITTR, I would get to work out with him, get ripped and improve my product design skills along with it.
• I decided to post the group project on Linkedin and..

Link for this project will be mentioned in the end of this article. For now, enjoy this story

Fanboy moment

• We got on a call and our group were offered an internship. It felt unreal.
• My mental model regarding getting a job at that point of time — It is easy to get a job, I don’t understand what my friends are complaining about. (Don’t hate me, I told you guys I’m super naive)
• After my wonderful internship period with FITTR, I had decided to come to Dubai to look for a job mainly because I love my moms food (Gordon Ramsay, You are no match)

Looking for an internship/full-time job in Dubai

• I assumed it would be easy to get an internship in Dubai based on my previous experience.
• Started applying and I got rejected and ghosted left and right. This reminds me of my experience on tinder.

Cries in single and unemployed

• Then I thought of working on a personal project on my own and I believed this would get me a job into a company of my choice since it worked last time.
• I wanted to join Careem as I had scammed them when I was in school. I worked on a personal project and was confident I would land an internship. I was so delusional, confident, obsessed that I told my mom Careem is going to call me after I post my work on Linkedin.
• I posted my personal project related to Careem on Linkedin and..

Link for this project will be mentioned in the end of this article. For now, enjoy this story.

• I was obviously devasted since nothing happened even though I put my heart and soul into this project.
• Few days after posting this project, A company called Hala insurance reached out and I was offered an internship 🕺
• Unfortunately after 4 happy months, the company shut down and I was back to square one - broke and can’t afford to eat chicken whenever I want ☹️
• On my last day, I walked into few companies in DIFC and got connected with the head of product of a company called Xpence. ( Remember this as this particular connection plays an important role in this story)

Jobless again, now what?

• I didn’t have the energy or the internal inspiration that I needed to work on a personal project so I decided to just apply to jobs but just kept on getting ghosted left and right.
• I decided to go back to India to look for a job there as the job market for newbie/junior designers is 100x better compared to the market in UAE.
• I started applying and got one freelance project mainly because of my Careem personal project.
• After 3 weeks, I felt homesick, missed my moms food and decided to come back as the chicken tastes 100x better here.

Still jobless, what now?

• I tried the Linkedin ‘Open to work’ feature and a founder reached out to me.
• Founder said he loved my careem article and I believe the careem article helped me get the job contract for 3 months.
• Had a good time, my 3 month contract ended and back to square one.

Back to square one once again, I’m tired.

• After grinding daily for months, even on weekends, I was exhausted. I felt drained and was super confused about everything.
• I dealt with self doubt, imposter syndrome and even questioned if design is something I wanted to do.
• I decided to do an MBA course, product management bootcamps, etc to see if I wanted to switch.
• Even after doing all those courses, I still felt drained and unsure of who I am.
• So I decided to do nothing for the first time. I stopped caring about my own career and it felt new and crazy in my head.

Eat pizza, play fifa

• Since career was no longer my concern, I got into a nihilsitic phase.
• So I just kept ordering pizza from talabat 3 times a day and just kept on gaming for weeks. I had even lost the motivation to hit the gym.
• Ordering food using the talabat app was so easy as all I had was tap on the button (There is no OTP required)
• As the weeks passed, the ease of ordering became my downfall. I was gaining unwanted weight due to my frequent indulgence.
• That’s when a clever idea struck me: what if I removed my card details from the app?
• This way, I’d need to manually enter them for every order, introducing a bit of friction to my food cravings and I should be able to lose some weight as I’m really lazy.
• Smart as I am (yes, I’m speaking about myself in the third person), I attempted to remove my card details. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped. I had to ask my friend working at Talabat for help.
• This is when the ray of light struck, got my inspiration and finally got my energy back.

The comeback arc 🦇

• I spend 2 weeks trying to figuring out why talabat users couldn’t figure out how to remove their card details and decided to go deep into it.
• I decided to post my talabat personal project and..

Link for this project will be mentioned in the end of this article. For now, enjoy this story.

• My design project got reviewed by the design director of Swiggy who happens to be my favourite design youtuber of all time

This was an insane feeling to get your project featured by Sapta!

• I did get a couple of offers from certain startups thanks to the talabat post getting viral but I wasn’t interested in those startups due to personal reasons.
• Remember the head of product I met long back?
• He reached out me to regarding an internship opportunity and the rest is history. I’m currently working as full time product designer and loving it here!
• I can finally afford to eat chicken anytime I want. Is this what success feels like?

This is my story so far. I will share my principles behind my unconventional job strategy so that you can create your own story and break into the design industry!

Part 2 — Principle behind the unconventional approach

Principle 1 — Always work on personal projects.

• When you’re starting out, you’ve got nothing to lose. The best way to get better at your craft is to work on a project you find meaningful and enjoy the journey.
• I learn so much when I work on a personal project and get feedback on it from amazing mentors on ADPList for free!
• If you’re passionate about design, you probably already have project ideas in mind — if not, this is your sign to start one

Principle 2 — Choose exponential returns over linear returns (if you’re lucky)

• When you apply for a job opening, you’re competing with 1000 other designers. It is going to be even harder if you’re starting. The return you get at maximum is linear meaning you’re going to get the job which is good. What is the alternative?
• Work on a personal project and share your work online. The return you get is exponential.
• Personal experience — I got freelance projects, jobs because I shared my work online. Think of how my careem article got me projects.

Got this email few month back even though the careem article was published 2 years ago.

• I’ve seen this strategy of posting work online help my friends get interviews and jobs.

Principle 3 — Trust your intuition, Create your story. There is no better time ❤

• If you have something you genuinely believe is a problem, go ahead and solve it.
• Worst case — you get criticized (which is actually good because you can learn a lot)
• Best case — You get more job offers and boosts the reuputation of your personal brand!
• I see both the above cases as win-win situation.
• The reason you’re reading this is because I trusted my intuition. It’s time for you to trust your intuiton.

“Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary” — Steve Jobs

Other things I did not mention

• While I worked hard, I have to admit luck made a huge factor as it’s hard to predict if your work will get discovered by the right people or not.
• None of this would be possible without the help I received from specific mentors on ADPlist. I will write an article on how mentors can help you accelerate your growth someday!
• I was lucky to be in a situation where I only had to focus on getting a job. I was staying with my parents so I didn’t have to worry about paying the bills.

Links to my projects mentioned in this article

• I intentionally did not want you to read my projects as I felt you would miss getting the overall picture. In case you’re interested in checking out my earlier projects, you can check them out below.
• FITTR project — https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/ux-research-the-worlds-largest-fitness-nutrition-community-4757a26b98e9
• Careem project — https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/careem-banned-me-from-the-app-so-i-analysed-their-food-flow-to-join-their-product-team-d83c8e7e093f
• TALABAT — https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/from-frustration-to-convenience-a-redesign-of-card-removal-and-talabat-pay-experience-40f42f86dd53

You’ve reached the end of this reading experience

• Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you had fun reading the article.
• I would love to get feedback on my writing as this is something I’m trying to get better at.
• Feel free to reach out to me if you wanna discuss about what type of personal projects to work on or just want to vibe and chill.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

• Here’s to trusting your intuition and creating your story 🥂