 And this AMA is with me, Chris and Aneta. Aneta, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm doing great. How about you, Chris? I am also doing great, excited about our conversation. Okay, so thank you for joining whenever you are and wherever you are. So let's start with first introductions and I'll go first. I'm Chris, a product designer. I quit my head of design job in 2020 and started a UX education company called UX Playbook. Helping designers level up whether it's building a portfolio, learning fundamental UX frameworks or supercharging their career growth to managing their first team. The idea is to take you from zero to unicorn designer. And then today on the call, we have Aneta. How are you doing? Tell us about yourself. Yeah, pretty excited also about our conversation. This is a pretty important topic, I think. So yeah, but introduction, my name is Aneta. I'm a UX designer in Vips Mobile Pay. This is a FinTech organization in Nordics and I work in the SME segment. So I work on products for businesses. Besides this, I am an architect turned UX designer. So I studied architecture and urban planning as well as graphic design. And then I actually did a UX bootcamp. So that's also interesting. And I finished, I got my first UX job after two months, so I was pretty, pretty lucky. After hours, I tried to also help designers grow by mentoring them, but also doing some educational content on LinkedIn, but also on Instagram, on my account, ux.aneta. And right now I am also working on my first ever educational product. So I'm the new beginner here with this topic. I know it will take some time because I do it after hours. But yeah, I'm super excited about this and some demographics. I'm Polish, I'm living in Norway. So here I am, super excited for our talks and thank you so much for having me. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, we always introduce this live with a problem. So according to Nielsen and Norman Group, the number of UXs has increased from 1,000 to 1 million between the 1980s to 2017. They predict the profession to grow a further 1 million from 1 million to 100 million with UX professionals by 2050, which is absolutely crazy. However, there's a 71% less job openings for UX designers from last year to this year. So that means there's going to be more and more designers. There's going to be less jobs overall because who can hire that quickly. So designers will be fighting for the same roles in the job market and it'll be even more competitive. And I know you had a thought about this in terms of junior and seniors, Aneta. Yeah, I think this is a great introduction because I've been also observing this that the market, no matter which country, actually is quite competitive and there are actually less UX jobs, especially I haven't seen any junior job for a long, long time, both in Norway or in Poland. So I don't know how it's going in other countries, but I think that it's a sign that maybe if you really like to think about upskilling and actually trying to brush up your skills to that level of a mid-designer, trying to do as much as you can to actually be more than just a junior. Because of course the experience matters for some, but the skills are ultimately the most important. So I think that's my one thought to add to your introduction. Yeah, great. And before we continue, I want to encourage folks to ask questions as you hear, things that come up in your mind. And if you've just joined, leave an emoji or just comment where you came from. So I'll be checking the chat during this live session. So we want to address as many questions as you can. So we're just going to have a couple of topics and then just dive straight into the Ask Me Anything. Okay, so let's talk about the outcome. So that brings us really about this topic, about what you said. Are you a junior or a senior UX designer? How do you tell? How do you upskill and everything associated with that? So by the end of this live session, folks should know how to level up as a junior designer. Okay, so let's address what's in the room right now, which is the difference between a junior and a senior. Would you care to tackle that question first or do you want me to take it up to you? Yeah, I can start. So I think the first important thing to maybe start with is to think about the companies, actually, because at the beginning, actually, it all depends on the organization and what type of setup they have. For instance, there are some big brands that they share some career levels, even online you can find. I think I've been looking at Figma article recently and they've shared like a whole skill mapping for different levels. So I think this is a great inspiration, but it's also a sign that organization, they're setting up this structure and they have their own definition for a junior versus senior designer. Although that's one thing, another thing there are skills and also our own experiences that are also blended within this structure, but it's worth remembering that sometimes you can be a senior in one organization and in another organization you could be a mid designer or maybe a junior designer in one and a mid designer in another. For instance, let's talk about startups, right? In startups, you can probably very quickly progress with your title, right? But is it just about title? I'm sure it's not. So about the skill set, of course, there are a lot of things, but maybe you would like to comment on this one, Chris. The startup title of junior, senior, head of design, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, and also that the companies actually they have their own setup and this title actually is directly related with the internal communication with other folks many times. So that's one thing, this title thing. Another thing is the skill set. Of course, this is connected, but we can distinguish them as well. Sure. So you mentioned skill set and title. Yeah, let's just the title thing first. Yeah, you're quite right. Different companies have different ladders and title expectations. So you could be hired as like the head of design at a two person company. Yeah, right. And are you doing head of design stuff? Probably not. You're probably just executing. Yeah. So it depends on where you get hired. Maybe being a junior at Google might be a senior somewhere else. So really hard to measure what a title means based on which organization. So I completely agree. And then, yes, there is the skill set question. I could go deeper into the skill set question if you want me to. Yeah, go on, Chris, to hear your thoughts. Yeah, so I think, well, okay. It's actually not the skill set question, but I would mention something about skill sets. So let's just level set in terms of, I'll give a definition of what I think a junior mid and a senior does. And then we can move forward from like either you're free or what skills. Okay, sure. Okay. So for a junior designer, you're typically touching on a small part of the product, usually paired with someone more senior so you're, you know, someone's overseeing that stuff. You spend most of your days in design tools, taking in requirements. Most likely you're implementing someone else's process. You're still not really getting, no, you're still getting the hang of like basic UX laws and design principles. And really you're in execution mode. You're focused on the craft. So if that seems like you out there and you're like, oh yeah, I'm doing all these things. That might give you a hint on what the level set is. Okay. And then there's the mid-level. Okay. So you've realized that workshops speed up the process of design. You continue to experiment with process improvements. You've built up a toolbox of UX frameworks that can be applied to specific problems. So you've collected these kind of like mental models of how to solve problems. You're getting to know the development process and try to figure out how to best collaborate with your engineering partners and others. You're actively involved in research, validation, and the definition of the problem slash solution. You're project managing and you're increasing communication outside of the designer. So you'll really focus on this collaboration element as a mid-level. If you fall into that, then congrats. And then we have the senior. Okay. The one that folks want to get to, which is you're driving your own design process from definition to validation. You've built up great project management skills and you frequently communicate outside of your department to get the job done. You're providing mentorship to mid, junior, or other folks as a part of your role. You're more of a holistic thinker. So you focus on like the system design, not just the feature, but you can zoom out and see the bigger picture. You're in the room when stakeholders are talking about product strategy and you provide insights to their conversation. You're actively involved in hiring, recruiting new designers into the team. So those are kind of my definitions. I would love to hear if you agree, disagree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I pretty much can agree, I think. I think we can talk about different topics where we can find those differences. Let's say how people lead projects or how they actually execute in the project itself. And you've really mentioned a couple of interesting things. I think juniors are super focused on the execution and on pixels and also on their own development and kind of figuring out which method I need to actually use right now. I think this is also a common question I'm getting. Like what should I do right now? What is the next step? There is this guidelines needed from the senior person. They're also more strict about the process and you mentioned about the scope. Definitely, for my experience, it's mostly the smaller scope rather than bigger because there are so much new things going on and it's so overwhelming when you start out. So even if you start, for instance, in a new organization with a solo designer, for instance, it can happen. Then it's still like you try to do your best but it's super overwhelming. So that's why also this level of impact is different. Whereas with senior people, it's more about, as you mentioned, the systems mentoring as well but also the scope. Also, they are more focusing on impact. Whereas juniors, I think they're more focusing on outputs. Okay, I need to make this mock-up. I need to talk with users to get insights. And whereas seniors, I think they're better with connecting the dots. So, okay, I have this insight. What can I do with the insight? Who should I follow up with? Who should know about those insights? What about the business? How I'm connecting this all together and is it really the thing that we should focus on right now or should we reframe the project problem statement or maybe the question that we're asking? For instance, when we are interviewing users, it's also like juniors can think, okay, I need to interview five users. Whereas senior designers can think, okay, I have talked with five users, but it's not enough. I need to follow up with this user archetype or this user role. I think it's also about that seniors work more autonomously. They are driving a bit those strategic decisions. Of course, this depends on the organization as well. And there is also, I think, more often happens with seniors that they are better at presenting and storytelling. That's definitely, of course, also connected with projects. But I think there is also something about the mindset. At least when I was thinking about this talk today, I was like, okay, for me it was also a mindset shift during this whole career, I think. When I was starting, I was trying to just get the outcome pretty quickly. Like I wanted to become a senior tomorrow. I wanted to work in a good organization right straight away. Whereas with senior, right now after five years in UX design, I am definitely not rushing so much. And I think I am more patient and I am not so much focusing on the title or what will happen tomorrow if I'm going to become, I don't know, if I will have a different title, but I am more focusing on learning and getting experiences and solving great interesting problems and trying to pick out opportunities. Yeah, great. I don't know if you can hear me please, but you are stuck on my camera by the way. I don't know if this is my internet. Am I missing? Yeah, how is your Wi-Fi? Because you've also stopped. Are you there, Anessa? Do you want to drop out and come back in and I'll help answer the questions and keep this thing alive? Okay guys, some technical difficulties from her side. Oh wait, you're alive. You're moving now. Can you hear me? Livestreams, god. Okay, so she's going to drop out and come back in. So let me address some of your questions. And from what Anetta said, in my perspective, the difference, if I was to boil it down to one point, the difference between a junior and a senior, for me, is handling this uncertainty. Not to say that seniors have all the answers. They really don't, but they're just super comfortable with working with what they have based on one intuition, two experience, and three, the skills they've built up. To be like, okay, well, this is super messy. How do I take this from messy to a bit of clarity? Or at least enough clarity to move forward. Whereas potentially a junior will be like, I'm stuck. What do I do? Not saying that all juniors are like that, but if you are super comfortable with the I'm stuck phase, but you can rally folks and convince folks to get around that I'm stuck, then I move forward. That's a really good thing to have. Welcome back. Sorry, we lost you there. You were super fuzzy, but what was your point? I just addressed the question real quick. Yeah, no. Sorry. I don't know if this is my internet or what's happening, but sorry for this. No worries. So the difference, I love your explanation. Can you help us kind of like simplify because everybody loves simplification, what would you say be like a difference? Like, are there some main differences? Like, you know, can you kind of take it high level for us? What's the main couple of differences between a junior and a senior? What are the high levels? Yeah, I love the question. I think from like, let's maybe address first the mindset. I think this is a key part. And I think it should be highlighted because it's like, it's like, it's such a, like difference and usually progress within our careers. Like when we start and we are so stressed and we want to get the results pretty quickly, become a junior, get the best job, get the best portfolio, you know, get the best offer and all of this. Whereas when we are progressing, we are like, okay, I'm fine with this. I just want great problems and great folks to work with, you know. So that's the first thing. Probably another one with the mindset is as well about how people think about projects, processes and how to actually lead projects, which is directly related with the output we produce as designers on both of those levels, juniors and seniors, right? So as you mentioned before, and I also did, that juniors are more focused on the small scope and on the outputs, mock-ups, pixels, insights. Whereas senior designers try to think more holistically. They are trying to connect dots. They are trying to be, you know, think about the benefits for the businesses, for the users in like a real, real outcome oriented way. So probably these are the things. And maybe the third thing is that for more senior people, it's much easier and more natural to actually help others. Because when we are junior, you are mostly trying to help yourself. So you are saying, okay, I don't know what to do. And panic, you know, that type of things. At least this was for me when I was starting. And we are trying to, you know, find guidelines and I don't know, Google, or maybe, you know, reach out to folks like us. For instance, what should I do when we work alone, or we are maybe a bit intimidated to ask people in the organization. Whereas with senior people are going more outside because they already have some knowledge. And also it's a different level of confidence and comfort. Because I think seniors are starting realizing that, okay, I might not know everything, right? But that's fine. I will learn, I will check, I will figure this out. Whereas with juniors, they are more like keeping everything inside. And at least it was for me. And this is my observation from conversation as well. That it's like, or so scared to say, okay, I don't know, or I really, like, I don't know what should I do right now in the project and how to actually explain my design decisions. Whereas with seniors, they are like, okay, asking questions, they are being very open with this and connecting people as well. So I think these are the three main things, the buckets, from my perspective. The mindset, the output that we produce and the who actually will help. Is it more ours, us, or is it more like other people? Yeah, that's an awesome summary. When you went out of the room and came back in, the one thing for me was just like handling uncertainty. So I think that goes into your mindset bucket where you're just like, and you just mentioned that just now, which is like, I can figure it out, right? Based on a bunch of things I've done, I can figure it out and rally people around the idea of like, oh yeah, this guy has his shit together, but probably inside a senior. It's like, I don't know how to do this, but I've just got to do it anyway. Whereas maybe a junior, for them it'll be like, I don't know how to do this, and I'm just going to actively panic and try to, I don't know, like panic other people, right? So, yeah. That's a good one, yeah. So mindset, output, and helping. So I think the other one is, yeah, is huge, is like soft skills. Yeah, that's true. That's a big one actually. Yeah, that's a big one. I'm not saying that juniors don't have soft skills, but the senior has built up a different set of soft skills, right? And so, let's move on to like, I think you spoke about it quite eloquently, but I just want to mention three things to level up juniors from seniors, I believe this is kind of one of the things. Like what skills do we develop? Okay, so let's just focus on the soft skill bucket and specifically what you need to do. Okay, so the first one for me is build influence within your organization. Ooh, what does that mean? That's a big one. That's a huge one, yeah. So it's, again, it falls into your helping others bucket. Start by being kind to others, listening to their problem, offering help and providing value outside of your design team or your design org, right? You're grabbing people for one-on-ones like engineers or product managers and asking how can I make your job easier as a designer, right? Because of course, you're probably not the easiest person to work with or your organization is probably not easy. So then you're taking on other people and their own problems. What do you think about that? Am I right there or anything to add? Yeah, that's actually a very, very good. You are very much on point here, I think. And I think this is a very huge topic, actually. I think this is also one of the things that we try to do when we join your organizations, for instance, that we try to get to know the people and we try to set up those one-to-ones and actually kind of trying to understand what are the roles, what those people care about in the organization, what they're building and all of this. So I think this is pretty much very important and we actually do it by building relationships, right? By actually listening to people. And I think sometimes when we... Maybe it's not with everyone, of course, because people are different. They come also from different backgrounds. So it's really... It varies who actually has what type of soft skills. But I think most of us, when we start, we are trying to protect this design kind of silo, in a sense. I don't know if you know what I mean, but I mean that we think that, okay, no one understands design. So I need to educate and throw this knowledge to others. But it's actually, I think after... Yes, I understood that it's not about this, because we are hired as designers, juniors, seniors, no matter what level, to actually do our job. And we have some specific skillsets, right? I don't know. We can visualize things pretty quickly, for instance, right? We might be also good at discovery, right? Figuring out what actually people need. But we don't need to force others to learn about this. And we don't need to protect design in a sense, even though the maturity can be different in all of this. But if we actually start to listen to people and connect us with others and trying to guide you how I can help you, exactly what is your goal, how my project can help your project, your product development, then this mindset and this atmosphere as well changes, I think, in a sense. I don't know if I have shared my thoughts pretty clearly, but... No, no, really clear. I think so. You mentioned that there was this design silo, right? And so helping others, we know to empower folks outside of where you are in terms of where you're sitting, what team you're on, and just kind of helping friends. But then I think there's also another thing that a lot of designers face in maybe maturity of the design org within the company. Let's just say it's a low maturity one. And I've seen this a lot. I don't know if it's just because I've been working in Asia for God knows how long, but there's another soft steel that I really think is important to level up, which is speak up, right? Yeah. And speak up for other designers, for the design, speak up for the users, speak up for the experience of the product holistically. I mean, your opinion should be through the eyes of the user and hopefully backed by data, but start looking into qualitative, quantitative data if you can get that. So you want to be sure you know what's going on and help others understand that. That's kind of your kind of job, right? So try to call out that assumptions and hypotheses, maybe from the engineers, maybe from the product managers, maybe even from the CEO. Question folks about the intuition because having a little bit of intuition is good, but if you're just building product on assumptions, then that's also bad. So as a designer, it's your job to speak out and try to connect those dots, right? And I don't see this enough in juniors. Maybe they're like, no, they feel attacked or whatever, but for me, speaking up is super important. Yeah, I totally agree. But I think it's when you start, it's like you're so scared and overwhelmed that it's so intimidating to actually speak up for many. And I think actually if you actually do this in theory, one small thing, but in practice, maybe big for some, it can really make you be visible in the organization and actually, oh, that's a bold person. I want to talk with him. So I think that you are very much on point here that we should open discussions, we should question things, we should think through what others are saying because to be honest, the fact that many product teams work on assumptions in most cases, and they're not like, I don't know, confronting this with users, it's a fact in many organizations, I'd say. It's not only in Asia, you know. It happens in Europe as well. And I've thought that in America as well. So I mean, I think it's natural that you can't be statistically significant always or never, it's about balancing. And I think this is also another probably skill of maybe seniors that you just try to balance within the constraints of the project. Okay, I don't have a time. We have like a short deadline. There is a business goal. There is a pressure from top. And someone is telling me that I can't do user interviews. I mean, I can do it. You know, you figure things out. I mean, you don't need to do 20 interviews. You just want to get a little even in some points. I think the balancing things comes handy in this case as well with speaking up, which is definitely a key thing. Yeah, and the last one for me is like how you up skill. And you mentioned this as well. Ask better questions, right? Yeah. I think it's a key one. I think learning how to ask questions and asking better, right? So asking better questions, finding out the why and read in between the lines. So if someone gives you a response, don't take it for face value. It's like, what are they trying to say behind that, right? Sometimes a requirement or request might be not the best solution. So we need to figure out how to help and what is the best one, right? Like if a product manager comes to you with like something and if you just take and execute it, then maybe that's not the best way to serve the outcome or what you guys want to achieve, right? So sometimes decisions has to be made with multiple trade-offs and you also want to understand that as a designer, right? To understand what's at stake, what are the considerations, how urgent is it, how impact is it? It's like the why, what, how, where, who, right? Like those are the easier questions if you don't know what to ask, right? But it's really just to start asking and practicing before saying yes, just be like, oh, but why, right? Treat these requirements and kind of things that get handed to you as work conversations and also like user research. You're trying to understand what that person in your org is asking you and what you're doing, right? So you don't need to say yes or no. You just need to say why or help me understand what you're talking about, elaborate, and then to find out more information about the thing. So I think asking better questions in all sorts of walks of life, not just in your career, will actually help just help you so much because you really understand what's coming at you versus taking it at face value. Yeah, absolutely. There's so much on point. That's a really, really great point. I think because it's not only in our careers, right? It's like how a question can help us also outside. And actually, you reminded me right now. I remember I was on, there was like a lecture in Oslo here on site. I think it was last year. It was run by Ryan Ramsey, this guy who wrote the book about business. And I remember he was talking about business design. Of course, this is something that, oh, it's something that I always want to learn more about because it's like you never know enough about the business and how this is all built. What is the business strategy and how to get, reach this stage with your design circle. I remember that he mentioned about the coaching thing because sometimes when we ask people questions like, okay, why, why? We were a bit like squared that we are like very, because they are like, I don't know how to explain this, but basically they're like, it sometimes depends, of course, probably on our tone and how we structure the question, but if you are just asking, okay, but why, why? It sounds very like overwhelming for another person and we probably want to be more in the conversation. I remember Ryan said that coaching technique, which really resonated with me. And it was about, okay, if someone is coming to you with, okay, listen, you need to do this, this, this and that just for tomorrow or no, for yesterday. Then you are like, okay, that's interesting. Let's talk about this. And you already start the conversation from a different way and then you can proceed with that also. I think that can help build also the positive conversation. And you mentioned in the beginning about being kind, which I think is really, really also resonates with me. And I think that creating this positive atmosphere is also very, very much appreciated and it can make an impact also on the outcome of the conversation. So the tip from Ryan that I remember was quite interesting. That's good. Yeah. I've been using this and it's quite good. Yeah. Okay. So it's like, oh, that's interesting. Let's talk more about it. You could say, oh, help me understand where you're coming from. Exactly. Can you tell me more about this? Yeah. Elaborate. Okay. Let's grab a coffee, right? Or whatever, like just kind of sidebar it and not just blindly say yes or no. And also why maybe that's triggering for them. Yeah. Like you're somehow being offensive. Right, right, right. Oh, that's a good tip. That's a great tip. Yeah. We have actually spent a lot to speak about the differences. Oh, yeah. So I want to be cautious of like the questions. Yeah. Okay. So well, luckily I think there is a question about our next topic. So let me go into it. So right now we're talking about the difference between a junior and a senior designer. We've just spoke about the high level differences, how to level up. And then next we want to address this question that I'm going to read on this document because I think someone had it. How do senior portfolios differ from junior slash intermediate level portfolios? So I think this is a great introduction to our topic, right? Because we were like, okay, well common mistakes juniors make. I think that naturally, if we tell you the common mistakes, then hopefully seniors and intermediate levels don't make this, right? And it's more junior. So would you like to kick us off, Annetta? Yes, I love it because I actually did talk about UX portfolios yesterday. So I'm fresh with my minds and insights. So of course, as always, this is my personal perspective experiences, but it's also based on the research that I did last summer. So I was interviewing hiring managers from all over the world and actually they gave me a couple of juicy insights that I think you might find valuable. So I think the test key difference between junior and senior portfolio is that juniors are mostly focused on showcasing the process, the framework itself. So they are showing like problem, user research, ideation, testing, for instance. And they're like, okay, and they are even writing this in the headings. Which can be okay, which can be not okay. I would say it's more not okay because these are very visual parts of your portfolio. So it's like a powerful place. So I would use it differently. And that's probably the most common thing that I've been seeing. Of course, to add to this, there are a lot of things. I did the same. And also I was showing everything. This is another thing. Let's overwhelm the hiring manager with everything what I have done in this project. Because let's say that I am doing UX bootcamp. And I did the UX bootcamp myself, even though that I finished two design degrees, they were not directly related with UX design. So I did this bootcamp and we were learning different frameworks in a very speedy way. So then in a project, I wanted to just show everything. Because, oh yeah, I was practicing the value proposition canvas. So I even showed this. That was to this extent. And we don't need to do it. Because when you are a senior, usually you try to say more about the story. And the story comes from the learnings and insights from the project. So I think this is the key difference. And when I was interviewing hiring managers in the summer, one guy told me a really, really interesting tip. He told me that the biggest difference that he's been seeing in the portfolios is about layering. And I think this name layer makes sense here. So the seniors are much more skilled with like they know what to show and what to not show and what to not talk about. And that's why he used this word layering. Whereas juniors, they're just, you know, they're opening and showing everything. There is no like levels in the history. No, this is just flat. Whereas seniors like, okay, I don't need to talk about the value proposition canvas. I mean, well, who cares? Or I don't need to talk about five user interviews. Who cares? I mean, let's talk about the learnings. Let's talk about the juicy things that actually make an impact on the progress of the project, you know. These are, in a nutshell, the first thoughts from my side. What do you think, Chris? Oh, I am 100% on board, right? Showing each project. Let's just say you have three or four projects and showing your process, your design thinking process. Even as you said, labeling it like empathize, define, ideate, prototype test, right? It's not a cooking recipe, right? That's not how real design typically gets done. That might be how you get taught in a boot camp because you want the ideal thing. You don't want to forget a phase because you're learning, right? So that makes sense. But that's typically not what happens day-to-day, right? You might even just ideate and test without prototyping or defining or even empathizing. Like, that's some of the real thing. So, yeah, instead of adding everything, you need to be concise, purposeful, intentional about what you're showing me, which is what you just said. And one thing I heard that was very interesting, you need to aim for thoughtful reduction, right? Come on, that's a good one. You need to be cut. If it's not useful, just get rid of it, right? So thoughtful reduction is what you're striving for. You can document it all out, right? But after that, then like any good author or writer, they just start cutting the stuff that doesn't make sense, reorganizing it, telling an anecdote, right? So not saying you can't document it in that level of detail, but I don't want to read it. I have two minutes maximum to look through your case study. So make those two minutes count, right? Yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, it's not everything from the project is so interesting to show and talk about. And it also not adds to the story. And sometimes also, you know, projects tend to be also bigger. And it's like, we don't need to talk about everything and every user flow and problem that we've solved in the project. It can be just one piece from this, and maybe this project should be divided into five different case studies. That's also another thing. Right, right. Exactly. Do you have another juicy insight for us from your research? Yeah, so there was layering. And I think the one, another one that was juicy was about zooming in and zooming out. So like, when you're, you know, like, yeah, you know, so, okay, should I right now zoom in and show the details? Or for instance, in my mock up, or should I zoom out and actually talk about the user flow, the context, the business goals, maybe the problem statement, and kind of try to onboard the user, which I'm talking to user, which I'm talking about to read there. And this is probably the hiring manager. That's what we all hope for. Right, so I think this was also a good one that the zooming in and out and layering these, I like to, I think that just like makes sense. Yeah, I have, I have some more like tactical things, but I love that the layering of what, to show what not to show what adds value. And then the in and out, right? They, when you, I don't know who's done this, but when you do like an app critique at like the fan companies, that's exactly what they want you to say, right? Can you zoom out and think about the macro problems and the market, the product, the user, and then can you go into the micro, the micro interactions, the copy, how the flow works. So that's actually the whole point of doing app critiques, because it's not something you worked on, so you don't really know. So you're actually going off assumptions, but let's just say you take Google Maps, for example, and then you just have to critique it. But what do you do? The framework is like zooming in and zooming out. And that's kind of what you should be doing on your portfolios as well. So that one is absolute gold and super juicy. Love it. Yeah, so I have some, but they are things that everybody knows. So I'm just going to quickly like list them out. Go on. For example, don't just include visuals. I think that's key, right? Like they want to see a thought process, but a lot of people just share any behalts and dribble portfolio. That will not cut it, right? The other is just doing that again, where on the other side, which is like giving me everything, but also like if it's a lengthy portfolio, big blocks of text are super intimidating. And think about the cognitive load that you're putting the reader through, right? So I'm not going to read your academic and journal paper. That's just not going to happen. So cut it up, right? Like make it palatable. Like when you create content on LinkedIn or if you read LinkedIn content, the reason why you follow some of your favorite creators is because their formatting is so on point and it really naturally flows with your eye. So they're designing their content to be consumed. Think about it like that. It's not just, you know, 12 sentences in a block like that, right? Break it up with visuals, do columns. Think about how to strategically place content, right? And then things like not including a CTI on your homepage. What am I supposed to do? Lead user to the right place. What's the desired outcome, right? So there's another big no-no, which is like one. So there's two extremes. Showing too much personality or showing not enough, right? Yeah, that's a good one. The too much personality is using like crazy ass fonts and colors and just like just overwhelming. And you're like, I'm like this like butterfly. And then the not showing enough is just like I'm a robot and I'm every other student that's come out of UX education, right? And like, yeah, like neither like one may stand out, but it's just like annoying to use your, your going form over function. And remember the content is supposed to be consumed, not a playground for your imagination. And then the other is just like, well, you know, you don't stand out at all. You're not memorable. I would have never remembered this if I read it twice again, right? So both are kind of, you need to have that balance. Yeah. I think the balance is like a key word for many of our parts of our job and portfolio as well. But it's a good one with the personality part as well. Like also like there is this topic with the personality and like about me section. Should I show my photos with my puppy or not? This type of things. And this is actually a tricky question, I think. And I also was talking about this with hiring manager in the summer. And to be honest, I think it's of course good to balance, as you said, and how to balance. I think, you know, no one cares about your puppy, although they care about you in the context of the organization and the problems and goals. So if there's something connected, let's say that you are applying to, I don't know, my company is FinTech. Yeah. And you're interested into some payment life cycle and you're a crypto or whatever, all those things. Then you can talk about this. And of course, if you show your puppy in a fun way, I think it's also like a nice glitter. But it shouldn't be definitely the main point. But yeah, that's tricky to balance because some people also, I've heard from some that, you know, there are biases as well in the world. Some sometimes maybe you can consider, okay, I am not going to show my photo. You know, these are the things that happen in the world and we shouldn't forget about this. Although I of course don't agree with this, but this is what can happen because how hiring managers, I'm not a hiring manager, right? But I am, when, you know, when people, when we as mentors or when, for instance, I was hiring, for instance interns last month in my organization, when I was reviewing, it was a bit of a different approach than my colleagues were doing this. So the biases, the preferences are also different. So sometimes it's hard to like fully optimize. Yeah, and exactly, exactly. It's like the preferences of whoever built that process. And it's also over time, right? You inherit this process from your ex boss or like however the company has evolved like culturally and best practices that they've built up. So every company is kind of slightly unique in that way where, yes, they might follow like the, the Google interview style before and morphed it into their own, but they've taken inspiration from, you know, different organizations made it their own. And so it is a kind of a minefield now to navigate. So there's a question actually from one of the audience. What helps you stay encouraged in the job search given the terrible state of hiring and massive layoffs? I had a doubt where I've had doubts before, but it seems to only be getting worse, especially with no experience. So how do we help him or her stay encouraged during the job search? Yeah, that's a very good question. And I totally understand why people are asking about this. This is very natural because you're in this process. We are getting discouraged and demotivated because we are getting rejections. So it's very natural. I think the first thing is definitely, because it's all about the mindset actually, you know, you're basically changing and of course, checking your situation, right? Like what, how long you can like handle this search? I don't know what is your, you know, like personal situation. This is also something that you can figure this out, like map it out as a designer and think about like, okay, I have two months to look for a job and then I need to do something else and prepare Plan B. So I think the mindset is a big one. There is a book called, or just, yes, the book called mindset, I think. And there are some stories from some, you know, people from sports that they are talking about the growth mindset, which you really, really changed the way of thinking. But in this context, it's also worth asking yourself, okay, am I doing this long 10? Or do I just want to try it out? Because try it out. I mean, you can do it in a variety of ways. Of course, it's still difficult to get an internship, to get a freelance project and so on. But if you really want to play it long 10, then I think you will change this mindset a bit and then you will try to be more positive that the first thing, this is about yourself. And I think the second thing is definitely getting some support and maybe some even group of like community, other people, maybe like set up a mastermind with other people who are also looking for a job. You don't need, I mean, mentor is cool. You know, definitely this is someone that can motivate you. They can, you know, help you get on the right track. Then even sometimes within those relationships with people, you can get a reference for a position or even for the conversation with others. So, but sometimes it's also hard to get this mentor within like this. Like, you know, there are so many of us here trying to do our best and share whatever we can, but it's also everything, resources are limited. So the fed bucket would be to go to your network probably. And you know, like for instance, even right now, I am interviewing users for my organization and this is actually a very specific case. We, you know, people are too busy in those businesses. So it's really hard to get contact with them. And so I am using a lot of my network trying to reach out. Okay, do you know someone like this with this criteria? And you know, there are different ways of reaching out to people to get the feedback, get just, you know, like, oh, you are doing great. Just a motivation like coaching think or even like, okay, maybe let's go to meet some people on this tech talk and you will meet our maybe let's let's me introduce you to my my colleague with a designer, you know, these are those small bits and pieces that can make an impact on your career. And if you will just sit in the room and you will close and you will not go out. I think this is the worst. Because it will it's like closing yourself in this room and the silo and not going out and asking for help. It's definitely something that even makes it more negative impact on yourself. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, mindset support and network that was a great summary of it. And I would also say that like job searching or getting hired, it's a skill in itself. So you have things like interviewing, how to build portfolios and stuff. And also the job market has changed in a way that a lot and a lot of people are going for the same job. Yeah. Maybe some from university, some experience elsewhere. So yeah, like the competition is crazy. So you actually have to approach your job search way more strategically now than you have ever been. You know, I don't remember who taught people how to find jobs, but there seems to be this like in we've inherited a legacy like legacy system where it's like we have a CV, we make a CV and then we just send it everywhere. Like I don't know who decided that was the way we kind of found jobs. So, but we still do it. But apparently now it's no longer working, right? So we have to figure out like what works and what doesn't. And it's about, I think, for example, I would hyper tailor your message. So let's just pick like five companies that you actually have a realistic shot at getting into. And then those five companies also fall into like things you love about them. They align with your values, they align with your previous skill set, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Things that actually like you care about, right? You just don't want any job. You want a job that hopefully you can stay and learn and build awesome things, right? And then like from there it's like, okay, well, how do I reach out to these people? Like how do I make it so I immediately am one of those people they shortlist, right? Is it building a website for them when they didn't even ask? Hey, I just improved your website or like, like whatever, like go above and beyond. Because like if you're spending time doing your job search anyway, and it's kind of not getting you anywhere, one thing I heard from I'm running this job sprint cohort and one thing I heard from one of the participants, he was like 300 jobs in like, you know, X amount of time. It was a long time. It was just like, yeah, clearly something's broken, right? So we need to kind of reeducate the folks who are finding jobs, whereas like it's not just about your CV and your case study and just send it out. That's like, that's super old school, right? Like it's not going to work unless you're from top three schools in the world and you've had internships at Google or whatever, right? So there's also kind of re-strategizing how you think about that. And then for you to stay encouraged, you also have to kind of gamify it a bit, right? If that works for you, like what is these micro rewards that you can give yourself or wins that you can celebrate along the journey of finding a job? Because that just makes it more pleasurable, right? Yeah, that's a good one. You encourage, yeah, like you encourage yourself by actually going through the journey, right? Not necessarily like, oh, I got a response because you might not get any responses, but like, can you make it so the journey of getting the job, let's just say if you're working on a UX thing and getting better at that, that to be also part of your job search. For example, if you want to get better at web designs, like how many websites can I design for those companies that I want to approach? Then you've designed 10 websites, you've applied to 10 places. It's also like a level up ability or chance. Yeah, that's a good one. I really like about the last one about like rewarding yourself. That's a very, very nice one. Sorry, go on. Yeah. No, I just wanted to shift gears because I think this is a really good question and it's like kind of internal dynamics and organization dynamics that someone asked. What is the right thing to do and when is it right to do or is it right to do to go with the flow of the team as a new and junior designer on the team? Here's an example they gave. How to continue advocating for real user insights, design processes and not to begin with UI without disrupting the agile flow as a junior designer on the team. Clearly this person is worried that I'm a new kid on the block. Do I go with the flow or do I not go with the flow? What the hell do I do? Any insights, Annetta? Love the question. Love the question. This is the reality. I think I would definitely go with the flow in a sense that of course, I think we should be empathetic and think about others and what they are actually trying to achieve by behaving in this particular way. There's something that maybe first of all let's try to learn about the situation because there might be some reasoning behind certain decisions and all of this but it doesn't mean that you can't propose something and that you can't ask about something. I think it's even like it might be even easier for you to actually when you speak up actually reverse this to make it as a question instead like that you want to learn about something while you try to propose also a different way of thinking in the team that I think will open the conversation much easier and maybe it will be also easier for you to speak up because when we are like, no, I do not agree. It sounds also very like confronting and very intimidating for the whole team and sometimes it's like, okay, we are fighting now. Right? So it's right. I remember, you know, I was in a workshop. It was like a from this improv course whatever and they were telling me that okay, you should like start with yes and then proceed not with no. This is probably another one. But I think that asking questions just out of the curiosity perspective, you know, have you thought about this or, you know, this type of things can maybe help and then you can just go with the flow and then really you can ask about whatever, I guess. If you really phrase the question in a good way. Yeah, I really like that. Exactly. Another thing that I would add would be you don't need permission. Like, you don't need permission to get real user insights. You don't need permission to test your wireframe. Like, you know, you can go with a flow and if you kind of disagree with that, you can do that stuff as well and be like, hey, look, I just did this thing and this is what I learned from it. Like, show that outcome. Like, why, like why ask for permission just ask for forgiveness. Right. Maybe it's better. Like, so go ahead and like kind of do what you want to do. Like, without like step like overstepping. Because like, let's just say that you ask and they say no and then you still do it, then they might be pissed off. But if you don't ask and do it and go the extra mile and then come back and be like, oh, I did this as well. This is what I learned. This actually made it better or worse or I don't think we should go in this direction. That's something good to take on the table. Right. That's just like, oh, well, what's up? Right. And we're talking about how we level up from being a junior to a senior. This is how you do it. You just go do the thing. Right. There's, yeah. Like they could say, like, yeah, I just, just go do it. And yeah. And another thing to add another question to add on this. Okay. And I feel like these are kind of connected in a sense. So the question is what to do if a senior designers feel somewhat threatened by your enthusiasm and decide design thinking approach rather than combining forces and working together. I think it's kind of linked. Yeah. It's linked. Yeah. It's like also building relationship. Let's grab a coffee and what's up? What's going on? Like, I think it's just, you know, it's like being a human. I know that people are very different and I also, also we have different energy levels during the day and during the week, month, year and whatsoever. We have also personal stuff on going and who knows who this person is going through. You know, there are all those things that we think about and be mindful about the conversation, but also about ourselves in a sense of energy management, for instance. But yeah, I think it's more about understanding them and also not like thinking, okay, I need to figure this out. I mean, you don't need. I mean, this is a process. Like, I mean, some conversations will fail. You will not speak up always, maybe, you know, it's like just give yourself the permission to just go and do your best and, of course, try to do your best, but also try to balance. I think, yeah, this can also help. Yeah. And so this senior designer feels somewhat threatened by your enthusiasm and process or approach. So, I guess, yet again, to my last point of how you would, I guess, sell them, persuade them, convince them, get them on your side, combining forces is like showing that you have enthusiasm, which you already said, right, and your approach, which you already said. So, actually, the answer is in the question where you're like, okay, well, why don't you just use your enthusiasm and go with your approach and show the senior designer that this might be a better way to do things, or at least a more interesting way of doing things and see what happens, right? Like, you might not need to convince them to do this. If you go do it without them asking or without them saying no or being combative or anything like that. But there's another point that we should address here, which is like someone feeling threatened. Yeah, that's a big one. Obviously, yeah, obviously she's or she or he had clues about, yeah, someone being threatened. And it's not nice to feel threatened, but also to be noticing that someone's threatened. So just, you know, hold your hands up, be like, yo, I'm just trying to help, right? Like, you know, if you see that, that is, I don't know. So there's this concept of like the more hard questions you have, the actual better and faster you will grow. Because, yeah, at the other side of the hard questions, asking the hard questions or having those hard questions, you know, the result solution outcome to where you want to go, right? So it could also be having that. I know you're a new member, but imagine if you just completely misunderstood that they weren't threatened. Right. And they're like, how done would you feel? And you've just been like kind of tippy towing around this person. So is it a good point to actually speak to this person on like a friend level as an person, build some friendship, build some rapport and figure out how they feel about certain topics before jumping into that assumption about them getting threatened. I don't know. And also, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. There is no one. Yeah, there is no one the right answer for this. Definitely. There can be another thing that following up on your what you said in last words that you might want to get this person on board and actually together. Let's try it out together and figure out if this actually would work. If the person has motivation and time to help. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, let me throw you Anessa, do you still have time? Yeah, absolutely. One more question? Okay, cool. Yeah. Let's pick one more question. Okay. Just a quick one. Someone said about our portfolios. Just a quick one, which is how do we do this? Should we not write case studies? I keep hearing about how my case studies should not have detail, but hiring managers don't have time for detail. What's the short answer for that? Yeah, that's confusing. I mean, there is, I don't think there is a short answer for this because it's it's like from one point, it's like we should not overthink probably those portfolios and then we should just iterate and just learn as we go. And another thing, it's so confusing because exactly those people are different. So there's no like one perfect formula for how to portfolio, but I think the key is in the balance as we we've spoken about this just a couple minutes ago, right? It's about balancing, okay, a bit of a detail and a bit of a holistic approach and when in this case study his story you will do it. It's for you to decide because we don't know the projects. I don't know the projects that you are working on. So I remember there is probably maybe if that might help like the two like most common approaches of structuring portfolio is like you either start from this like, you know amazing effect like the solution part. I think it's like this mean top pyramid thing like that you are trying to get the juice in already like straight away and then you are talking about okay, this is how I did it and or you can start from different parts and build like this, you know, this curiosity during the story that you are trying to festival like this talk about okay, this is how the process looks like because I have I had this goals, I had the problem what did I did next, what were the outcomes and learnings and based on those learnings I did that and this is the solution. So I think it's the balance and as well as the visual part that you were talking about Chris before right the visual hierarchy playing with this and actually designing your portfolio as we always say as a product but also approaching this as a designer so the research part design this as a designer both the content visuals layout everything but also the experience so think about onboarding your reader right your reader don't know anything about doesn't know anything about your project I mean you can't like throw something out of the blue and just say nothing like where's the context right and of course because the time limitation and the behavioral patterns of hiring managers are very specific because of the situation on the market but also we are just humans as well you need to optimize for like okay for hiring managers of course for the local company and so on but also okay how much time they might spend on this and how I can make those key things pop up in my portfolio but yeah that's a tricky one we are just probably giving some tips on how like the I don't know tools methods approaches and I don't think we can answer to this like with one one one right answer because there's probably no one one right answer for this one yeah and if like one person is giving you the go ahead it's like preference it's super pro like we said the right like the hiring process a preference of people with inside with x amount of best practices or whatever okay so let's go to our last question and I promise as well as the last one no working in a company yeah no actually this was someone who asked you I'm just gonna ask it but you feel free to add clarity yeah working in a company for two years how do I approach a promotion how do I become a senior designer yeah that was a good one I think this is a common dilemma I had this myself as well when I was like mulling over okay where in this senior title will come or will it come or should it come or where I am with my skills yeah I think self-awareness comes fast handy like actually realizing what are my skills and because the title is a second thing as we said about we were talking about this in the beginning of this life that titles are very informative for the company and in one organization it can be called me designer in another senior designer so that's also something to take into consideration but your seniority comes of course mostly from your skills second experiences and all of this right maybe it's worth to evaluate your skills and kind of try to be intentional and aware of okay this is what I do because when you will be aware you will be much more comfortable to talk about this with your manager if you want to get the promotion and of course the promotion is not up to it's up to you but it's actually you need to do it together right it's not if you want to get it because you just want it right you need to show it you need to tell yourself you need to work in a way that it will convince a person that you actually want it and you actually need to probably say that you want to get the promotion because that's another one and we take it for granted that it would happen naturally because you know businesses are so cool and people are so cool and interested in your career I mean sorry not sorry but they are not like fully you know like it's like the reality we are just humans I mean like there are a lot of stuff going on in businesses so that's why I think the reminder about our growth and actually taking care of our career that's probably the first step that I would say it's you know being self aware of your skill situation experiences what you have achieved in your organization maybe start doing a work journal right list of achievements what I have done start showing up start speaking up right start to be visible in the organization and of course start the conversation with the hiring manager if this is even a room for this you know there are a lot of different organization and it's also it's up to the organization how if they can give you a promotion or if it and also what is your goal is it just about the title or about the skill sets or about new responsibilities or maybe about the salary right so these are the different things that you probably need to be aware of that and yeah that's great yeah I think you should yeah include all those things so for me a quick story which is yeah yeah so I came back from Mexico so I was working in Mexico for about a year and we were working a team of 20 designers and I came to Vietnam back to Vietnam to build the design team here right that was kind of one of the goals but because of business constraints we couldn't really hire folks and you know things were just slowed down like instead of being in a team of 20 I was in a team of like two or three and I was like ah I want to do more how do I how do I level up and how do I you know just make more impact right so that was kind of my like why so then I devised a plan and it was like okay well if I want to prove that I can do something that I say I want to do let's just say more responsibilities XYZ right I have to somehow prove it okay so then I developed this thing called the brag sheet and then folks probably know exactly what you think right it's a list of accomplishments that hopefully has measurable kind of impacts and then I categorize that so it could be like project work it could be like hiring it could be like culture stuff it could be like you know whatever the category that comes out right process stuff education stuff so it's like oh how did you help the team first okay so you have to record the things that you did in order to back up your argument right then you have to say so do that first and then you have to say well what do I want like senior title regardless right but like what do I want to do if I got what I want let's just say right yeah it's like okay well how do I add value to the organization how do I do this how do I do that so you know let's just say for me it was like from a UX lead but I wanted to manage the office in Vietnam so development and all this stuff so then I was like okay well here's all the stuff that is aligned with that like everything I've done so then finally I said okay well here's how I can help here's the proof that I did that in some capacity already and then here's what I want right and then that was basically it right so yeah it was a great conversation because everything was kind of set and laid out in front of my manager and I had but I already said like oh so when do we have a performance review when we have a performance chat and like those were like incepted while I was building my case right so you just have to prepare as you said right prepare everything that you need to gain that confidence and then and then that's proof and then figure out what you want and then finally just be like okay I'm ready to chat about this but your manager should never be surprised that you're gunning for something different or level you should be like hey I'm working on this you know what my goals are we spoke about this like I want to be a senior in six months how do I get there right also communicating that way is really important so yeah yeah exactly like asking okay so let's prepare plan how should I do it what type of responsibilities I can take on to actually prove that I am senior designer yeah exactly if you if you don't know then the best thing is just to ask right like what's gonna happen what's the worst that could happen really and your manager should be 100% behind you right they of course have some things that they need to check off their list but they should be like yeah sure I would love if you like you know yeah grew really fast and look over this and do this do that like I mean that's kind of the job of a manager to you know build people up to their potential yeah okay so we have been going on for a while so before we close up Annetta I would love if you have anything to share like products what you're working on or like where can people find you anything you want to plug at all yeah as I said I don't have any products I'm working on one and it takes a lot of time you probably know it even more than better than me but of course I love meeting new people and new conversations so please reach out to me on LinkedIn or on instagram ux.annetta if you want to chat or you have any questions I'm always happy to have a conversation so I think yeah that's the main thing and you know don't hesitate to become a designer I think it's a great profession and it actually can make an impact on your any other career that you will have even if you changed it from the design to anything else the skill set that we are gaining as designers are just so powerful I think absolutely agreed so I just posted your LinkedIn and your handle on Instagram in the chat so anybody just click through and you'll be able to find it there okay so for me ux playbook that's always the plug we're having a huge Black Friday sale and it's already started so get 40% off with the code fryyay you can find it all on my profile but basically it's the year's best deal so you might as well get it for a cheaper price and it's like the only time this year that that's how much discount there is I'm not going to oversell it you guys could just check it out but I want to thank you Annetta for this insightful conversation it was great and hopefully some folks took away on how to level up I think we spoke a lot about soft skills mindset you know like just so much so go watch the recording guys but yeah really thank you again for coming any last words from you any last drops of wisdom yeah I mean first of all thank you so much for having me it was a pleasure to chat and I think this is a really very very important topic we should talk more about our skills and also be more aware of them that's another thing and the third part is probably about the selling thing and actually showing the skills to others that can lead to some sort of promotion or leveling up in your careers so these are probably my last words and again thank you so much for having me also we really enjoyed it so alright guys thank you very much for tuning in and we'll see you in the next LinkedIn live whenever and wherever that might be alright peace out bye