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Career Services in Coda! [Katie Rivard]
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Career Services in Coda! [Katie Rivard]
Career Services Orientation

Lesson: Understanding the Grind

10 minute read
The saying goes, "Looking for a job is a full-time job". This is especially true when switching careers and choosing a new path to follow. It requires a lot of work, time, concentration, and can be draining.
While the job application process can sometimes feel fruitless, it's important to keep grinding. Your hard work will pay off in the end. The job hunt may start off slow, but it will continue to pick up as you keep applying and perfecting your process to craft the proper deliverables for the right job.

Every Application Is An Opportunity

With every application you send out—and every interview that you land—you have the opportunity to improve your job search methodology.
This is an approach that
Grace
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adopted early on as she moved from UX Academy coursework into searching for her first UX job.
“I don’t want to say that I used any interviews as practice, really, because I would have been honored to get any job,” Grace clarified. “But it really proved how much practice does make perfect. Had I had more interview experience, I think I would’ve gotten an offer even sooner.”
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Grace hiking near Mount Rainier in Washington, USA.
And for Grace, this process also included learning more about how to merge the full story of her UX Academy work with her background in writing.
“When I started researching Content Design and UX Writing more, I found that it’s a sub-specialty of UX Design, with talented designers from all sorts of career backgrounds — many of which looked a lot like mine,” Grace shared. She built her elevator pitch around this concept and fine-tuned her resume to fully reflect the user-focused and data-driven work she had been doing for years.
After working through interviews with nine different companies, she was offered a position as a UX Content Writer at a rapidly growing startup.
Grace’s story isn’t unique in the sheer number of applications and interviews you might have to send out before you ever receive an offer.

Job Searching Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Don’t underestimate the amount of energy and self-motivation required to stay focused and invested throughout the process.
To keep your eyes on the prize, here are a few tips to remember when you're experiencing burnout, fatigue, or frustration:
Finding a job should be a full-time effort, but not require full-time hours
Keep a consistent daily or weekly routine
Set aside certain hours of the day to work on application materials and apply to jobs
Don't compare your self-worth with your ability to land a job. There's more to life than just work
Try to focus on quality over quantity
Your first job might not be the "dream" position you were seeking, but it will open up roads closed before
Most people looking for jobs experience the same issues. You're not alone in this journey
Never stop learning. Continuing your education after graduation from UX Academy can help to open up new opportunities as well

Focus On Finding Your Ideal Fit

While you're required to apply to at least five jobs per week during your time in Career Services, often people submit ten or more applications per week. You should focus on finding jobs that match your skills and desired company culture.
For
UX Academy graduate Divya
⁠
, it was the pivot to narrowing down her criteria, rather than “applying to anything and everything” that finally made a difference. After three long months of job searching, she was still unemployed.
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Divya with her paintings at a pop-up show in Chicago.
“I was exhausted and felt hopeless,” she shared. “So, I took a one month break, visited India and came back to start again with a fresh perspective. This time I made a list of my own requirements and stuck to applying to jobs that fell only within that criteria.”
Before her journey into UX Academy, Divya had worked as an architect and interior designer, and she knew that her ideal role would incorporate more on the visual design side of things. Additionally, she imagined herself thriving in a work environment that was:
Fully remote or hybrid
At a larger corporation, where roles and workloads were more defined (rather than a startup setting)
In the healthcare or e-commerce industries
To Divya’s surprise, after narrowing down her search to be more aligned with her strengths and desires, she landed eight interviews over the next two months. Of those interviews, one was for a Product Designer position at Ulta Beauty. After two rounds of interviews, she received a job offer.
Like Divya, you might find that you need to step away and reevaluate how you’re approaching your job search.

Make A Plan To Stay Focused and Motivated

As you continue this process, keep tabs on your mental health and well-being. Job seeking can be incredibly stressful, and you might want to make a plan to help yourself keep focused and motivated. Some practical ideas to help you stay on track include:
1. Make a plan for rejections
If you receive an outright rejection after an interview, know in advance how you want to respond. For example, you could send an email thanking the contact for their time, and asking if they have any feedback. Or treat yourself to a walk outside, a fancy latte, or a simple reminder that “this rejection is not everything.”
2. Stay organized
Organization is a powerful way to counteract job search overwhelm. When you track the date that you apply to each job, it’s much easier to spot trends on what kinds of companies you’re landing interviews with and how long you can generally expect to wait for an interview. Tracking job applications can also inform you when to simply cross off jobs because you haven’t heard anything for months.
3. Utilize positive mantras
Motivational mantras are a great way to retrain your brain to stay focused and positive. A few job-specific mantras that might be useful are:
“I don’t have to be perfect to get the job.”
“If I am the right person for the job, I will get the job.”
“Today is just one conversation in my career.”
“I will bring the best version of myself to this interview.”
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It's not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. Designers with years of experience go through the same motions when looking for new positions. But if you conduct the required work and continue grinding your way to a new job, it should result in something fantastic and life-changing. Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint, to the finish line.
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