UX and Product career articles to help you create your UX portfolio, navigate your UX job search, and tell your story

At some point in your UX career, you'll likely feel pressured to decide if you want to be a UX generalist or a UX specialist. How do you know what's right for you? When is the best time to decide? The world needs both UX generalists and specialists. Ultimately, it depends on what you want. What are you skilled at? What do you enjoy doing? What types of companies and team structures do you thrive in? Your answers to these questions will help you decide if and when you should consider focusing on a specific part of UX. 

Stop trying to make your UX case study a certain number of words or make it fit on a single page. Instead, you must think like a designer and determine whether or not the case study feels too long. Subjective? Yes. But design is subjective and though we have best practices, trying to apply rules such as number of words a case study should be simply doesn't make sense.

Asking for feedback about your UX portfolio is crucial because you've been staring at it for so long, you probably missed some key details. There's a right way and wrong way to ask someone to review your UX portfolio. When you do user research, there's a lot of time spent planning, before you ever conduct the research. The same goes for UX portfolio feedback, you need a plan.

"What did you do on that project?" ... being able to explain what you did on a project is crucial not only for creating a portfolio but for interviews and performance reviews too. By documenting each UX project you work on throughout your career, you'll have a detailed record to refer to when you need to write a case study, update your portfolio, or prepare for UX job interviews.

If you want to stand out to UX recruiters and hiring managers, you'll likely need to have a UX portfolio.  Don't be templated to put all your projects in your portfolio. That will overwhelm the user of your portfolio. Instead, choose projects for your UX portfolio that reflect your skills and experience.

Developing a professional UX network can be crucial to your career. It can lead to job opportunities, knowledge sharing, and life-long friendships. Networking does not have to feel like a sleazy activity or chore. You have the choice to redefine what networking means to you.

If no one will hire you, how are you supposed to get UX experience? How will you ever add more projects to your UX portfolio? The solution is simple, you find projects. Not all UX practice projects are created equal. Learn how to find UX mock projects and use this step-by-step process to solve them in a thoughtful manner so you can stand out.

Recruiters and hiring managers spend seconds scanning your resume to find out crucial information about your skills and experience. If that information is hard to find, it could cost you big time. Even if you are not a visual designer, you must consider the design and content of your resume. 

UX job titles are confusing and mean different things are different companies. The title "UX Designer" at one company will mean something completely different at another company. Instead of wasting time trying to figure out what to call yourself, focus on developing core skills. Job titles will change. So focus on strengthening key skills, because these will be with you no matter the title someone gives you.

It's not enough to know the software, trends, and talk the talk. If you want to stand out as a professional, grow your career, and be able to influence and impact your team and company, then you must develop skills that go beyond the basics.

The format of your UX portfolio can make or break the experience that recruiters and hiring managers have when using your portfolio! You must step back and consider the full experience of how people will experience your content from the first interaction to what you might present in a job interview. 

Developing a professional UX network can be crucial to your career. It can lead to job opportunities, knowledge sharing, and life-long friendships.

People keep telling you to "tell a story" about each project in your UX portfolio. But you still aren't sure HOW to write an actual UX case study. This article breaks down the 5 step process to write a UX case study for your portfolio.

Be honest, did you consider the UX of your UX portfolio website? What you write about each project is equally important as how you present it visually. Recruiters and hiring managers are judging you on your projects and the UX of how you actually present them in your portfolio.

You wouldn’t launch a product without doing some Q&A and gathering some feedback, right? The same applies to your UX portfolio. Use these 10 questions to critique your UX portfolio and identify high-impact changes you can make immediately to help you effectively showcase your skills and stand out.