Why ‘Persona Hacking’ is the Key to Land a UI/UX Design Job

The UI/UX design job market is tough with increasing competition from an influx of career changers during the pandemic. However, most people are hunting for jobs ineffectively simply because they use an overly broad and simplified approach — submit tons of applications and hope for the best. This is not only exhausting but also soul-crushing because candidates are not targeting the right jobs. So what is the right way to land a UI/UX design job?

In this article, we will dive deep into the most common mistakes of UI/UX design job search and the best way to actually land a UI/UX design job — by learning how to “persona hack”.

Photo by Nasim Keshmiri on Unsplash

Common Mistakes of Candidates Trying to Land A UI/UX Design Job

There are tens of thousands of jobs waiting be filled every day — even when the “economy is bad”, there has never been a day with 0 job on the market. While the rate of competition fluctuates depending on the number of jobs available, one fact is undeniable — some people are getting jobs while others are not. So what are people who are not getting jobs doing wrong? There are several common mistakes candidates make:

Not Having A Clear “Persona” of Jobs or Companies

Most candidates follow this predictable job search approach:

1. Search keywords for jobs on the internet
2. See relevant jobs pop up
3. Submit resume (and/or portfolio if one is a designer)
4. Wait for a response

While this approach seems logical, one important step is missing — vetting. It might sound strange for a candidate to be vetting jobs when they are desperate for a job. After all, beggars can’t be choosers, right? Not exactly.

If candidates skip the crucial step of vetting companies or jobs, they are essentially wasting their time. A simple look over popular job boards will show us that an average job gets hundreds, if not thousands of applications. Are all of these applications real competition against each other? Not at all — because so many candidates skip detailed vetting, most jobs receive ineffective submissions that get eliminated right away.

What candidates should be doing is to create a “persona” of jobs or companies right away when they initially browse these jobs. Nowadays, with the advent of AI, this process can be a lot less time-consuming than before.

Not Having a Clear “Persona” of Themselves As a Candidate

On the other hand, many candidates also don’t have a clear picture of who they are as a professional — a.k.a a persona of themselves as a candidate. Why is this important? Because when one has a clear picture of the hiring “persona” of a company, one needs to match it with one’s own “persona” to determine if there is enough overlap.

What are my top hard skills ? What are my top soft skills? What are the highlights of my past experience that might be relevant to my future role? Do these skills and highlights show up prominently on my resume and portfolio? These are some of the main questions that can help a candidate build out their own “persona” that should remain crystal clear as they navigate the job search process.

To land a UI/UX design job, one has to master an important soft skill called “persona hacking”, which is the synergy between the “candidate persona” and “job persona”.

What Is “Persona Hacking”

So what is “persona hacking“? It is a matchmaking process between the candidate and the job, but instead of hiring a matchmaker, candidates have to do it themselves.

A matchmaker for people looking for relationships usually does the following:

1. A client comes in with their own list of qualities and what they look for in a partner
2. The matchmaker search databases of people and see if there are enough overlaps in another person who listed their qualities
3. When the match percentage is high, usually around 70–80%, the matchmaker makes an introduction.

On the other hand, most job candidates apply to a job when the match percentage is very low, usually around 20–30%. No wonder they get rejected and face constant disappointment.

How to Successfully “Persona Hack” to Land a UI/UX Design Job

In order to successfully “persona hack” your way to land a UI/UX design job, follow these steps:

1. Build your own “candidate persona” by understanding your strengths
2. Create a “job persona” every time you consider applying to a job
3. Calculate your “match percentage” by comparing overlaps of the two “personas”
4. Create a rubric for when to proceed and when not to proceed depending on the rough percentage match
5. Consider other influencing factors such as red flags in job descriptions, salary expectation mismatch etc.

How to Create Your “Candidate Persona” to Land a UI/UX Design Job

As we mentioned earlier, creating your “candidate persona” requires you to answer the following questions:

What are my top hard skills ? What are my top soft skills? What are the highlights of my past experience that might be relevant to my future role? Do these skills and highlights show up prominently on my resume and portfolio?

By knowing these answers either by self reflection or working with a portfolio and career coach, candidates will have a crystal clear picture of where they stand in the job market and what jobs to target.

How to Create A “Job Persona” to Land a UI/UX Design Job

Every job posting is different — some are better-written than others. Luckily, we have artificial intelligence to help us sift through verbal redundancy and highlight what really matters. By following these simple steps, candidates can expect to vet jobs much more effectively than they have before:

1. Create a spreadsheet with job links from your initial peruse of job postings, highlighting keywords if you can
2. Ask AI to summarize what each job looks for
3. Highlight keywords from AI summaries and compare keywords/phrases with manual scans
4. Ask AI to do a rough comparison of what the job looks for vs. what you offer as a candidate — generate a rough percentage if you can

Of course, don’t completely rely on AI because we still have a much more sophisticated brain (as of the date this article is published). Make sure you do a manual check of this process yourself as well.

Filter Out Jobs with Red Flags and Requirement Mismatches

Once you’ve gone through the “persona hacking” process we mentioned above, you will have the initial batch of jobs that have been vetted. But don’t forget to refine this vetting by further eliminating jobs with the following problems:

1. Jobs that stack too many skill sets that are from different jobs into one — for example, requiring a designer to fully code (doing the job of a developer) is a red flag. But requiring that designers have basic understanding of coding languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript isn’t.
2. Jobs that offer salaries lower than what you require
3. Jobs with time commitment or geographic location requirements that don’t match what you desire

Back It Up with An Outstanding Portfolio

Job searching shouldn’t be a soul-crushing process once you’ve mastered the art of “persona hacking”. While it can still be a lot of work, your work will be much more effective than it has ever been before.

One thing to keep in mind is, without an outstanding portfolio (not just a good-enough one), no amount of “hacking” can land you a UI/UX design job. So while you perfect this soft skill, make sure to back it up with hard skills that show up on your portfolio.