Land your first job as a UX writer
UX writing is a hot, new(ish) field and people want in. But it’s not really something you get a degree in and even if you did, companies are looking for experience, leading to the all too familiar catch 22: how do you get experience when no one will hire you without experience? But I say, that if you can write and you’re a quick learner, you break in by finding the company that needs something else that you have and no one else does.
Finding a job is like dating: both partners have to get a feel for the other and decide if it’s a fit. Unfortunately, many job seekers — especially women — take the one-sided approach that they are courting the potential employer, that only the candidate needs to impress. Which is of course, part of it. But only part. The other part is to decide whether you like the company, whether you want to work there. Whether the role they’re offering is actually what you want to do.
Like in dating, each interviewer and interviewee is looking for something a little different. I can’t tell you the number of interviews I’ve been invited to, simply because my resume was unique — not necessarily better, but different. The first apparent incongruity that jumps out is undergraduate studies in journalism and graduate studies in neurobiology. Huh? I’m telling you I’ve been invited in just because they wanted to hear the story, i.e., what the hell I was thinking.
UX writers who are starting out come from a variety of relevant backgrounds like journalism, psychology, copywriting, content writing, journalism again, and more copywriting. These people clearly know how to write. But even without one of these titles you can learn to write. I would argue that the second most important thing you need is a transferable skill set that is unique to you and that a hiring company uniquely needs.
My first gig in UX writing was for a genetics product — they were interested in my background in science as least as much as in writing. Whodathunk that genetics would have been my golden ticket into UX writing? But just like that, because I came from a genetics lab, I got experience in UX writing and now I’m an actual UX writer.
So what makes you different? What can you do that no one else can? What can you write about better than anyone else? What lessons have you learned elsewhere that you can apply to your UX writing to take it to a level someone without your life experience can’t? Answer those questions and then find the company with a product in that space. Find the brand that needs you and begin your happily ever after.
