Career Services in Coda! [Katie Rivard]

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Career Services in Coda! [Katie Rivard]

Resume & Cover Letters

Lesson: Requirements in an Application

30 minute read

While job descriptions can vary dramatically from one company to the next, they usually all follow a pretty standard structure:

An introduction to the role and the company

A description of key job responsibilities

A statement of what the job requires (sometimes called a “person specification”)

The process for how to apply

The introduction typically focuses on who the company are, what they’re currently working on, what problems they are trying to solve, and then a brief outline of the position they’re advertising for.

But the core of the job listing really falls within in the responsibilities and requirements sections. It’s important to read these closely, and make sure you understand thoroughly what’s being asked for.

Responsibilities

This section specifies what you’d be doing from day to day if you are hired to the role. For junior UX/UI design jobs, the responsibilities tend to be quite similar: they will center around understanding the UX/UI design process, producing designs for a digital product, and working collaboratively with the wider team.

Although there will be lots of similarities, it’s still important to carefully review the responsibilities for each job application you submit. There might be something slightly different that you need to address in your cover letter, or even an additional responsibility that you have perfect experience for. But overall, just ensure that you are equipped for the role before throwing your hat into the ring.

Requirements

“Requirements” is where the list might become slightly muddy. Each company will have their own specific requirements in respect of things like education level and amount of experience. Let’s break down some of what you’ll see in “Requirements” sections, and cover how they may impact your candidacy for a position.

Education level

Most companies advertise for candidates with a Bachelor’s degree in a design-related major. This might include human-computer interaction, industrial design, graphic design, or even psychology. However, in reality, the lack of UX design degrees in traditional universities means that it’s often hard to find designers with these credentials.

While education level will be listed under “Requirements”, most companies will regard this as a “soft” requirement. This means that, if you have an outstanding portfolio of design work, the degree you have (or don’t have) needn’t have much effect on your acceptability for the role. Successful designers come from many backgrounds, including journalism, pharmacy, management, and architecture, and everything in between. So don’t assume that not having the advertised educational background will eliminate you from consideration—it probably won’t.

Also, while UX Academy isn’t a degree, it is a course that’s been designed specifically to equip you with the skills for a junior design role. While some companies may still favor traditional design education, more and more companies are looking to hire from programs like ours, because graduates tend to have skills that are matched to today’s market.

Experience level

Most junior design positions ask for anywhere between 2–5 years of experience. This means hands-on experience—working on projects, alongside product teams, to create a variety of digital products.

However, just like education level, this is often a “soft” requirement. If your portfolio shows excellent work, and you use your cover letter to articulate what you have to offer, employers may well overlook a lack of industry experience.

The key thing to focus on here is “hands-on” experience. While you’ve worked on a number of great projects in UX Academy, your education doesn’t end just because the course did. Keep working on your skills, and keep taking on new projects so that you can showcase a great variety of work in your portfolio and demonstrate all your talents.

Standard design skills

Most design job descriptions will include a set of standard skills requirements that match with the job responsibilities. These typically include:

An understanding of the UX design process

How to use design tools like Sketch or Figma, and prototyping tools like InVision

The ability to lead the creation of product designs

Although lists like this are usually self-explanatory, it’s good practice to review each requirement and ensure you are comfortable with the expectations.

Collaboration and communication skills

No employer wants to hire someone who’s difficult to work with. For this reason, many specify certain collaboration and communication skills.

As a designer, your ability to communicate—both verbally and in writing—is important to conveying design concepts, demonstrating your understanding of a product, and selling your vision to colleagues and clients. In a fast-paced industry with many remote working relationships, effective and efficient communication is also essential.

One term that often comes up in job descriptions is “Agile” (or “SCRUM”). This is a methodology that helps tech teams build products. Although you might not be familiar with the terminology, you've actually been following a similar process within UX Academy: building small features rapidly, and iterating to improve upon them as you continue to build out the final product.

If you have the ability to sell yourself, work well with colleagues, and articulate your design process, collaboration and communication skills shouldn’t be a problem for you.

Bonus skills

This section is often the most tricky to handle. It can either set you ahead of the competition, or place you behind other candidates. Bonus skills are those things that aren’t strictly required to be able to fulfill the role, but would be “nice-to-haves” from the company’s perspective. Hiring people with extra skills could either save the company money on additional staff costs (using one person to do more work), or help speed up progress from ideation to implementation.

Bonus skills can include the ability to develop your own designs using code, known as “front-end development”. This usually refers to having a working understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. For some companies, this may be a hard requirement. Others will see it more as a bonus skill that will help you communicate well with engineering teams. Before applying to a job, ensure that front-end skills are listed as a bonus skill, rather than being absolutely required.

Other bonuses may include the ability to use software like InVision Studio, FramerJS, or Principle. These aren’t yet essential tools of the trade, but they are up-and-coming apps that can enhance design work through animation and high-fidelity prototypes.

Similarly, some employers may ask for branding and identity design skills as bonuses. Here, you can emphasize the logo and brand design elements of your UX Academy capstones, and of course reference any other branding projects you may have in your previous work or education background.

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As you begin to find jobs you are interesting in, always pay careful attention to the responsibilities and requirements to ensure they match your abilities. If you don’t have programming knowledge, don’t claim to! Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in a pickle later in the interview process.

Always be transparent about what you’re capable of doing. But equally, don’t be scared off from job opportunities just because you don’t meet every listed requirement. If in doubt, throw your name in the hat, and present your work and resume to the best of your ability. Remember—you have to be in it to win it, and you never know who else is applying!

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