How to develop critical thinking and a healthy network as a junior in the emerging UX space — Design leaders play an important part in our careers; they are our holy grail when it comes to thought leadership, and they keep our LinkedIn feed entertaining and educational with tidbits regarding design and UX. “These people have the credentials, we can trust their words.” And with that, we spend…

Why it will make your career in UX short-lived, and why specialising will give you a long-term edge — Among all the stories I hear during my coffee chats with other seniors and mentors in the design space, I find the stories where people are successfully employed in the UX industry, only to lose their edge immediately after their first job to be the most tragic one. “I’m passionate…

Because let’s face it, you probably can’t get one because you suck. — Update: Back to the first version after winning a battle against censorship. Enjoy. Before I switched to private mentoring, I had loads of 1-on-1s with juniors with the same problem: The inability to get their first job in UX. The common story line starts with them having already searched for…

Buying courses and learning more won’t get you the job, delivering designs will — What is the key success metric of an employable designer? This has been a question that I have been asking myself as a hiring manager and something my mentees consistently sought my perspectives on. “Do you think learning more and buying more courses will make me more attractive to hire?” …

Insights, takeaways and a resource of why some portfolios are objectively better than others. — Last month, I asked my readers to submit their portfolio for a screening done by me. I’ve gotten a whooping amount of portfolios, so it took a lot more time than expected. Out of the 138 portfolios submitted, 125 was screened. If you’re part of the 13 that I didn’t…

More valuable advice from a designer / ex-hiring manager that has been through 100+ interviews and gotten 15 offers in the last half a decade — I got a lot of heat for my last article dissing the language I use, my imperfect grammar and my very controversial opinion on portfolios and what junior designers should focus on. People have different opinions — and that’s perfectly okay. …

Observations from a start-up designer — With the Meta lay-offs recently, my LinkedIn feed is filled with empathetic professional influencers reaching out to those affected by layoffs to hook them up their next role. Knowing the LinkedIn algorithm, it’s probably going to stay this way for another 3 weeks. …

Sincerely, every design hiring manager out there — Want me to screen your portfolio? Details here. We are designers. We are supposedly the creatives that will help solve problems with creativity. We are the jack-of-all-trades; adaptable and witty, ready to take on any task. And yet, we can’t make unique portfolios even to save our lives. “What is up with all…