Vancouver UX Avengers

🗣🔊 Calling Hiring Managers for Design in Startups Hello everyone, I'm working on a project that is aiming to improve the way small companies hire UX/product designers, and create more opportunities for junior/intermediate designers! And I'm looking to gather as much information as I can. If you are: - A hiring manager seeking to hire your first UX/product designer - A solo designer/in a small design team at a startup And you are eager to share your experiences toward creating a better process, I'd love to connect with you! Please drop a comment or send me a message 🙂. #UXDesign #ProductDesign #UXAvengers #HiringProcess #MoreJobs

The scarcity of junior and intermediate UX/UI design jobs doesn't make a lot of sense...🤔 Hear me out. - 🔨 Junior designers generally focus on the executional side of things. This means creating interfaces in Figma, conducting the user research, etc. once the direction has been decided. - 🔍 Seniors designers focus on product strategy and collaboration with other teams using their understanding of the business, market, and user needs. So seniors/leads decide on the direction and tasks, and let juniors/intermediates carry them out. This also means that most seniors will give feedback to help iterate, but they are not actively creating artifacts in Figma. This is an oversimplification, of course. Check out Intercom's Product Designer Job levels chart for a better understanding! https://lnkd.in/gPSTcCni ❗ And here's why it doesn't make sense — doesn't every single tech business need somebody to build their interface?? Who's doing it if they have no juniors? Are senior designers forced to also do junior design work, or worse, treated like a junior designer? 🚩 And the ultimate problem: if there are no junior/intermediate jobs now, then there will be no seniors to hire in the future. There has got to be some misunderstanding somewhere. I believe there are huge opportunities for us to create more beneficial scenarios for BOTH businesses and the design ecosystem. I'd like to start some discussions around this topic! Are you a company trying to hire their first UX designer, or have a small design team that you are trying to expand? I want to hear from you and learn what you're looking for! Or if you have any insights and input for the situation, let me know what you think! #UXAvengers #UXDesign #UIDesign #ProductDesign #JuniorDesigner #IntermediateDesigner #Jobs

In the past couple weeks, we've learned some great insights about job search, networking, and skills development for junior/intermediate designers. Thank you Felix Tin, Gui Ferreira, Kate Shevchenko, Jarell Alvarez, and Eric Joseph Lee for kindly sharing your experiences! But that's just half of the puzzle. To bridge the gap between the design industry and education, we also need to understand why the hiring processes are the way they are (I get the feeling many people will have a lot to say). Stay tuned for the next steps...👀

Hello community, Are there any experienced designers who are willing to participate in our mission to close the gap between the industry and education/training? We have some lovely junior/intermediate designers who would love some HONEST and CRITICAL insights and guidance in terms of job search and skills development. If you have directly hired designers, been part of the hiring process, or recently secured a junior/intermediate position, we would love to hear from you! More importantly, if you are just as frustrated as we are about the existing structures, we want to work together with you to make a change. Please comment below or send me a message if you are interested. We are eager to take action 💪. I will also reach out to people directly. #Vancouver #UXDesign #ProductDesign #UXAvengers

The gap between the design industry and education is getting crazy... After chatting with many people last week, it's become clear to me that this gap is causing junior/intermediate designers' future to look very bleak. Designers aren't trained in the right areas for junior/intermediate roles, there aren't any opportunities for experiential learning, the hiring system is flawed, and we keep doing the same things instead of trying to fix the problem. And all of this are made 10x worse by the layoffs 😢. But I believe there is something we can do about it if we try hard enough! So moving forward, closing this gap will be the main goal for UX Avengers. Like any problem we solve, we will start by gaining a deep understanding of the problem space. We will take a closer look at existing practices, including education, activities designers do to gain more experience, hiring process, etc. That being said, we need people in the industry who are willing to provide real insights. If you are an experienced designer who has experience on the hiring side, and are passionate about solving this problem, please comment or send me a message! I will also start bugging people 🙂. #Vancouver #UXDesign #ProductDesign #UXAvengers #SeniorUXDesigners #UXManagers #UXDesignLeads

A reminder that our first kick-off meeting will happen in less than an hour at 2pm PST! Meeting details are on the discord server: https://lnkd.in/gG_ZiVvX

We'll be having our virtual kick-off meeting on Tuesday (Jan 9) at 2pm PST (find the link on our discord)! If you're interested in joining but can't make it to this one, let me know. I may have another one at a different time or we can meet one-on-one. And if you haven't already, join our discord server. We'll be having most of our conversations there. https://lnkd.in/gG_ZiVvX

Hello fellow avengers 👋, I hope everybody had a chance to recharge over the holidays. I’ve had some time to marinate my thoughts and goals for the group. And I’ve gained a clearer image. So hear me out. There are 2 things I want to achieve with this community. 1️⃣ ‘UX the crap out of our problems’ Vancouver UX Avengers will be a group where we utilize our design skills to solve our problems TOGETHER. This means that for each problem we tackle, we will do our research to understand the problem space, think about it critically, ideate for solutions, test our plans, and execute them. Oh, and iterate at any point. So at the event/activity level, you can expect a lot of workshopping as a group. And I want to keep track of our work and design skills applied. Anything that we come up with will be shared across the community. Some areas I want to explore are: 📌 How do we keep ourselves mentally healthy on this journey? This is a topic I’m very passionate about. 📌 How do we navigate through the junior/intermediate levels with a shortage of junior/intermediate positions? 📌 How can we more effectively obtain job opportunities? There may be more depending on interest. 2️⃣ ‘Us against the world’ I’m really hoping to foster a culture similar to one we had in high school/university with our friends. We pool our resources and help each other out for no reason other than we care for each other and we share the same struggles. I rather us be friends than simply professional connections. That being said, I believe we need a discord server for this type of interaction. Join here: https://lnkd.in/gG_ZiVvX I will make announcements on LinkedIn but the majority of activities/interactions will likely be on discord. So make sure you're in it! This is my vision for now. I feel like this is a community we don’t have and can be helpful. But it can all change as I get feedback and iterate (I am a designer and I am not attached to my ideas 😂). This is all new to me. I’m honestly not sure how this will turn out, and I'm sure it will be messy in the beginning. But I can guarantee that any work we do together will be better than what we can individually, and you will have fun and meet some great people 🙂. So join the ride! P.S. You do not need to be in Vancouver to join. #UXDesign #Vancouver #Community #VancouverUXAvengers

Wow I was not expecting this many people to follow UX Avengers... It sucks to know so many people are struggling, but I'm also excited about the community we can build and support each other! I will gather my thoughts and post my ideas for this group next week on Jan 2. Feel free to let others know if you think this group may help them. In the meantime...PLEASE unplug from LinkedIn/job search (I'm sure it's been toxic for many of us) over the holidays. And take some INTENTIONAL time to yourself and your close family/friends. Don't lose sight of the love and support we have ❤️.