Fearless Stories — A career shift from PR to UX
Leyang Pan is a Stockholm-based UX/UI designer. He currently works at Stravito — one of the top 500 startups in European AI Landscape. Stravito provides a knowledge management platform for market researchers.
Intro
Hi Leyang! Let’s get right into it! Would you like to introduce yourself a bit, and tell us why you choose to become a UX/UI designer?
Leyang:
Hi, I’m Leyang, and I work at Stravito as a user experience designer. My idea to become a designer started from a project in one of my earlier jobs at a PR agency, where I was in charge of an interactive webpage project. Back then I was doing a lot of work-related to interactions and user experience, which inspired me in this new career direction. Considered that I also have a big interest in art and my academic background in tech, I realized that a UX designer is what I wanted to become. So then I decided to pursue a master’s degree in this field and started training myself towards this goal.
Applying for the role
Sounds interesting that you shifted your career towards UX! And how did you finally end up landing the position there at Stravito? Do you want to share your preparation and interview experience with us?
Leyang:
I am the kind of person who gets nervous easily, so before the first interview, I thought about how I should talk about myself and which of the past experiences I wanted to mention as highlights. I wrote them into a written outline and practised to myself several times. Also, I spent some time browsing the company’s information so that I could raise relevant questions during the session.
The first interview was generally casual conversations, where I had the chance to tell a little more about myself and get to know more about the job. After passing the interview, I was invited to a design challenge where I was asked to sketch a solution for a given problem, then presented it and explained the thoughts and rationales behind (it was remote and I had several days to work on it at home).
Moving to the work-life
How big would you say was the jump to being a full-time designer?
Leyang:
There was indeed a certain level of overwhelmed feeling for me in the beginning when everything was unfamiliar, but I think it’s just a natural stage that most people go through, and it quickly gets better when you blend further in. Doing an internship before you take a full-time job definitely helps you bridge the path in a smoother way.
Do you think your past university experience in KTH has helped you in the current job?
Leyang:
To a certain extent yes. I think it helped me mainly in terms of e.g., how to better handle team collaborations and doing design presentations.
How would you describe the difference between today and when you joined?
Leyang:
As a designer, one major aspect that I think I have become better at is finding the sweet spot between user needs and business goals, which was much more challenging to me when I joined. Everyone in the UX field knows “user-centric” — so did I when I graduated. It certainly holds true as a mindset, however, when being in a real-life business, I need to take more factors into consideration — which also have a huge impact on what would be an ideal solution to a certain case. They could be goal prioritization, resource, marketing strategy, or the “buyer needs” when the product is organization-facing (which sometimes differ from “user needs”), etc. So making a smart “compromise” is the key. Now I feel more confident compared to when I joined, but I am still learning it every day.
As an employee, the differences would be, for instance, understanding more about the business, different teams’ functionalities, and being better at communications. Those aspects are contributing to my design work as well.
Do you also have some tough moments during work?
Leyang:
Of course, I have those tough moments. Especially when I lack inspiration/ good ideas to solve tricky problems, and in the meanwhile deadlines are waiting. It happens to everyone sometimes I guess. (You are not alone!) So I think just try to get used to it, accept it emotionally, and believe in yourself that you’d get better over time.
Helping Future Generations
Is there anything in those learnings that you could’ve prepped for before joining?
Leyang:
There are of course many things which I think I should develop myself further on, no matter if it’s when I joined or even today. On the other hand, for most of those things, I think one just learns over time as they work more. So there are not any particular “regrets” personally — you can never get 100% prepared.
If I could go back, probably I would develop more communication & presentation skills, I guess.
Would you like to give some advice to recent design graduates and newbie designers applying today?
Leyang:
Design is a broad topic. Within UX design, for instance, there are many career opportunities that go under this umbrella but differ very much with each other (e.g., tech-focused vs aesthetics-focused, research & experimentation focused vs application-focused, and so on). I would suggest putting some dedicated effort thinking about what path really suits you and what aspects of design you are really interested in. This also includes the span of job responsibility — for some jobs it would be quite specific to a certain area, while some are very general and you are expected to do a little bit of everything (e.g., in a startup). Doing more research on recruitment websites would give you some good inspirations and new ideas that you haven’t considered before. For those in school, it also helps build up a good study plan and determine where you want to develop yourself at an early stage.
In general, try to figure out what you want yourself and strive for the best, but no need to over push or stress yourself too much — recruiters have different tastes, and there is so much to learn in your working life in the future as well. The learnings will come gradually and it’s a natural process. You can’t learn all of them beforehand and always be 100% prepared. So, take it easy :)
