News

Our latest Women in UX meetup was on Wednesday 13 October 2021, focusing on the current job market and how to position ourselves in the time of the Great Resignation.

Hosted by UX Australia and myself, Mags Hanley, this meet-up was in conjunction with our sponsors Aquent with the wonderful Kate Verran and Rosie McAllister providing their insight into the market. We were also joined by Mel Randall talking about her experience positioning herself for a lead designer role at CHE Proximity.

We started off the night with Kate and Rosie talking about the current job market. Kate discussed the lack of working holiday visas, people returning home with the borders opening and lack of immigration, leading to a shortage of experienced designers. There has also been a hesitancy in Sydney to move due to lockdown, meaning more roles in the market.

There’s more willingness to move at the moment - inside and outside of the organisation. She asked us to consider whether you want to put your hand up for more responsibility and leadership at your current work  - many employers are willing to promote from within. 

When thinking of a new role, Kate discussed being deliberate about your choices; looking at skills and career progress, and support from mentors and team. You want to have made the right choice after this bubble has burst – can you really do the job?

Rosie re-iterated the gaps in the market with very few people with IT and development skills migrating in the last 2 years – the market is SO busy. Because we are all online now the quick customer journeys and changes that were made to support businesses in COVID, now need to be optimised, our skills are needed more than ever.

If you are a hiring manager, there are three points that Rosie makes; 

1. Move fast, if you like a talent go for it and offer quickly
2. Candidates have more motivations than money, ones that matter are days off, working from home, and training 
3. Remote work is an option to fill positions  - if not, why is it not?

Kate then talked about positioning tips; 

• You need to consider the types of leadership you do and how you can focus on your type
• If you are a senior what’s your level of responsibility with team deliverables 
• Are you focused on team growth and strategic leadership, or senior practice and team leadership?
• Make sure you have case studies with your strategic programme management and team growth
• Are you focused on setting up a practice in an organisation including service design and CX?

The opportunities may be in your organisation, so put your hand up to do the work where there are gaps. Have conversations with your manager and HR to see what opportunities there are in the organisation, find out what skills are needed to move forward

If you are looking for a new role 

• Be clear about pitching yourself 
• Focus on the type of work you want to get 
• Be realistic about what you have under your belt
• This bubble will burst, so use it to get the step-up you can right now 
• Change role for the opportunity, rather than the salary only

Mel Randall did a case study on her career journey culminating with her current role as Lead UX designer at CHE Proximity. 

She started with “Is this her dream job? It’s pretty close”

She identified what’s important to her about a new role;

• A place where I can use my skillset
• A place where I can continue to learn and share
• A place where I’m inspired to do my best work
• A place where I can have an impact
• Flexible work-life balance

Mel’s career has not been a straight A-B path- it’s a mess. Starting in the 90s, she moved from print design into web design, worked as a freelancer and as a design director and expanded her skills into front end development. She did a large piece of work with Myer as a front end developer – started as a 6-week contract and 2.5 years later was still there.

There was a lot of buzz about UX, so Mel went to Academy Xi for the transform course. She contracted ‘her butt off’ in UX to get experience, and then worked with a coach (me), to re-evaluate what was important to her. During this time she began freelancing at CHE Proximity moving between senior and lead roles. They offered her a FT Senior role and went back with a counteroffer at the lead role. She had 30 min to talk to the hiring manager doing the equivalent of a UX case study for the manager to present her case. She focused on three things:

• The breadth of her experience 
• Her skills as a T-Shaped designer 
• The impact she could make on CHE

Moral of Mel’s story

• Understand what you’re looking for
• Understand what the business is looking for
• Never stop upskilling - continue to collect those balloons! 

Lastly, I did an exercise with the group focusing on positioning – understanding your current positioning within your organisation and industry, and combining it with your career vision to identify how you want to be known.

There are three stages;

1. Done – What have you done in your jobs or the industry?
2. Seen – Are you seen for what you’ve done (writing, talking, presenting, teaching)?
3. Known –  How are you known?

By understanding this, you can work out if you need to change your Known to get the role you want, either by changing your stories or expanding your experience.

Thanks as always to our partners Aquent, Mel Randal for sharing her story and Annabelle and Jasmine at UX Australia for hosting the meet-up.

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This news article is written by our Women in UX partner Mags Hanley. You can connect with Mags on Linkedin or magshanley.com