 Here's seven secrets to getting hired in a top tech company as a UI UX designer. Let's go. The first one is Resilience. So we all know that UX is a very popular field and that means that there's a lot of people competing for junior positions and a lot of people say it's overcrowded but my opinion is I'm not scared of competition and I don't think you should be either. Just because other people actually want the job doesn't mean that they can destroy your dreams and change your life. So we should never be afraid of competition but what it does is it drives us to make ourselves better. There's got to be more people so you need to stand above and beyond the competition and that's why the first one is resilience. That means that you need to put more effort in to make your portfolio shine above everyone else and that means actually doing a lot of work. I mean going above and beyond in everything you do, I mean spending more time actually studying and it means that you know you need to stand out above everyone else and that's why I say resilience because there's going to be rejections. You're going to have to apply for more jobs, you're going to have to compete against more people but if you actually have the resilience within you can do it. Don't let other people destroy your dreams. The second one is Specialise. So I say this because I noticed as soon as I got my first job which was in fashion other fashion opportunities started opening up for me. Once everyone knew I worked in Vogue or I worked for a certain fashion e-commerce brand then I was then kind of specialised in that box and so if you really think about the first job that you want so you want to work in the automotive industry say for Tesla or a car company then you're going to find it easier then getting jobs in other car companies. I actually found it a little bit harder to then switch and go into banking but then when I actually managed to make that move by showing resilience and finding a job that wanted to hire me with no previous banking experience then all the other banks started opening up for me because I guess it took the I guess the fear for them, it was a safer bet they knew that I already experienced in banking. So when I say really think about the first job that you want and choose the industry that you are interested in maybe take a little more time getting that job but then you will become specialist in that and you'll be able to move around to different roles within that industry. The next one is Data Driven Decisions. So as a hiring manager when I'm looking at portfolios I want to see that people are making decisions not just based on hunches because to be honest I've been wrong so many times on my career I think a certain tester is going to win or a certain thumbnail is going to look better and the results just prove me otherwise and it's quite humbling. So as a designer in your portfolio you need to show that you're making data driven decisions. That could be whether you're doing surveys or whether you're testing there to a large group of people maybe doing some AB testing but statistics don't stand out and as a hiring manager when I see in your portfolio you're applying that you're actually listening to your users and you're applying that on the decisions that you're making you're making alterations to your designs based on those numbers and decisions then that will make you stand out above everyone else because you're actually applying science to your design and in my personal opinion user experience and user interface design is quite like a science it's less of an art so it's less we're guessing what people you users want maybe in the early stages of sketching but as we become more refined to me design becomes a science so showing data in your portfolio will make you stand out. So the next one is contribute to the design community and by that I mean start producing your own content and this could be in the form of attendant networks and events or even in the form of making some articles online sharing your actual design process by contributing to the design community you're going to start to be respected in your field as a professional you could make icon sets you could put them out there's lots of figma templates you could make you could then people love reading articles especially on LinkedIn start sharing some of the stuff that you produce because then you're going to actually be a valid valid member of the design community and it's amazing how many people I met through going to events that stay with you throughout your career and then these can unlock opportunities later that needs me naturally on to the next one which is networking and personal branding so the one bit of advice I would give to my earlier self if I could go back 10 15 years I would say you're going to work for someone else for eight hours a day but for that extra hour or maybe the extra half an hour before and after work spend some time on your personal brand this is actually going to be more important to you later on in your career than having a job is because once you have a personal brand then even if you lose your job then no one can stop you because you own that content and that's going to continue it could pay you in the form of ad revenue it could pay you back in the form of a promotion like once you have an audience you can then make great content for them you can make courses you can make books you can make audio books and people are going to really value that content and get something from it because they have a relationship with you that you've built over years through the form of a youtube channel through the form of consistently publishing on LinkedIn on medium articles and this is also a ties in with networking as well by promoting yourself you're going to find it easier to have a network people are going to be more open to you they're going to feel like they know you because they've watched your content and you're going to be able to go your LinkedIn quicker you're going to go to events and people know who you are but the biggest bit of advice I would give to myself going back is spend time on your personal brand every day treat it like a job but treat it like a job you're working for yourself no one's telling you to do this that's why no one else is doing it because you don't need to do it but honestly to me I'm getting more opportunities now 10 years later after starting my personal brand than I ever did even at the highest level because people know about me not about the companies I work for because of my personal brand so really early stage designers stock in on it don't be shy it's going to be terrible at first but you'll build up quality over time get on LinkedIn get on youtube start making content the next one is continuous learning and self-development so as I when school stops a lot of people stop learning but this is something that you need to instill in yourself and that's a thrive for learning more I love audiobooks and of podcasts and also courses online you know where we work in design maybe the tools have changed about five or six times in the last 10 years we need to keep constantly on top of our game to be able to be some of the best designers in the world and that's having a face for learning as well when you start learning about the history of the design even other things that are interesting around design then you're going to be a better designer you're going to know what the latest trends are you're going to there's psychology there's a lot of psychology in design a lot of branding in design once you start to learn all of these different things I love like Gary Vee's audiobook see it's not just about design but he teaches me about how to promote yourself how to network how to sell products really but as a designer where we can use a lot of these influences and we can improve our own way because it's not just about a design work but you're also selling your design work to people in the wider company yeah you're selling it to customers a lot of these psychological things that go into selling stuff I've learned from a continuous learning and to be honest the best money you can spend in your career is on yourself and improving yourself so make learning a part of your lifelong journey and you'll always be in the top 1% and then a key thing you need to have in your portfolio is demonstrating your problem-solving abilities as a hiring manager when I'm looking through case studies what I want to see is a bit of adversity and I want to see that you've adapted to that adversity by changing a little bit later on changing your design maybe were there any when we need to highlight in these case studies not just the easy path through and everything went well but were there any challenges that you overcome were there challenges that something you designed went wrong people intestine didn't didn't like or didn't use it how you expected and then did you go back and make those alterations this is what's going to make you stand out above everyone else in your portfolio because not everyone likes to show these challenges and not everyone thinks I should show things that go wrong I want to show the perfect path but by showing adversity and we all know the truth because every day things I designed they go wrong people don't use them how I'm expected and as I said before it's very humbling to be a designer and we should show that as part of our learning path in our case studies because it's going to make us stand out do all these things and you're going to look and hopefully have the best chance of getting the job if you want to learn more about yo-yo ex-design watch the next video