News

On Wednesday 14th April, UX Australia, partnered with Mags Hanley and Aquent Australia ran the first Women in UX meet up of the year. With over 190 registrants and 66 participants, it was an evening full of questions, learnings and connection enjoyed by all.

The first half of the program was a panel of three amazing women from Aquest – Rosie McAlister, Kate Verran and Monique Richards.

Each person gave their unique insights into job seeking in UX; 

• Rosie talked about understanding the market, the gender pay gap of 12% and what her clients are looking for
• Kate’s focus is on the candidates – she discussed researching the market, building a business case for your career, and telling stories that weave the two together to get the roles you want 
• Monique talked about owning your worth when you negotiate for a role; by knowing your worth, asking for it and following through on your plan

After the panel, the participants went into two breakout rooms.

• Room 1 was led by Aquent. The team focused on the Personal Brand Toolkit, a way to position yourself in the market creating a brand that is authentically yours, and then showing it consistently in your CV, work portfolio, website and social media.
• Room 2 was led by Mags Hanley, discussing Knowing Yourself – benchmarking yourself in 4 areas; Practice, Strategy, People and Business, so you can work out what your next steps are in your career; whether it is seeing where you need to grow to move into a role, or identifying where your strengths are to help you position yourself in the market.

We reconvened after the breakouts to talk further; we discussed:

• Titles in design and whether you need the title to get the next role (no – though your need to describe explicitly you doing the job)
• Training for accessibility, 
• Salary negotiations for career changers
• Stakeholder engagement
• Getting 1-2 years of experience as a new UX designer via freelance work as well as in an organisation
• Breaking into the Australian market if you are from overseas

It was lovely to see the level of engagement and willingness from the participants and the speakers, to provide support and their knowledge to the group as a whole. Registration was free and all attendees received the meetup recording and relevant assets post-event. 

The next Women in UX meetup is scheduled for Wednesday, May 12. Registration is free, keep an eye on our socials & fortnightly newsletter for announcements.

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This news article is written by Mags Hanley. You can connect with Mags on Linkedin.