You probably don’t work in UX
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👋🏻 Hi, Scott here.
You probably don’t work in UX, even if you’re a UX designer.
This isn’t about your skills or talents. Rather, it’s about the application of the work that you do. Allow me to explain...
An industry is where the money gets made
The required macroeconomics course that worked for my college schedule was held as a summer night class in a basement lecture hall with insufficient air conditioning. So I nodded off through quite a bit of it. 🥱
But I did pick up a few things. One was that economics is astrology for people who are incapable of imagining a world outside of capitalism. Another was a basic understanding of what constitutes an industry: it’s where the money gets made. In econ-speak, an industry is an area of economic activity. Think: energy, manufacturing, retail, finance, healthcare, publishing.
In my life, I’ve made money in the telemarketing industry (sorry), the construction industry, the film industry, the sports industry, the retail/fashion industry, and the education industry, among others. And, of course, the tech industry.
At the start of my present career, doing marketing, marketing writing, interface writing, and information architecture work for a mobile app agency/startup, I was working, broadly, in the tech(nology) industry. We made and sold apps, and we made apps for other people, and until our ill-conceived pivot into the oversaturated point-of-sale system market, the work often didn’t fall into any particular industry outside of tech itself.
UX is a niche industry, if it’s one at all
Today, I make some of my money in the UX industry, such as it is. UX is where my money gets made. I sell sold a book, consulting services, courses, coaching, and a community to people interested in UX topics. I work in the UX industry because my peers and competitors work in the UX industry. I work in the UX industry because knowledge about UX topics is the primary material of the products I sell. UX is a pretty niche industry, and we’re unlikely to get our own NAICS code any time soon.
Most of my customers, on the other hand — current or aspiring members of UX, product, and content teams — work in other industries. For them, UX is how the money gets made, not where. A UX designer at Lyft works in the ridesharing industry. A UX researcher at Best Buy works in the retail industry. A content strategist at U.S. Bank works in the banking and finance industries.
Acknowledging your industry can provide career strategy clarity
Who cares, right? Well, this distinction resonates through many common themes in my career coaching work:
- Experience with UX and product design processes, software tools, and methods is not the only kind of relevant experience you can emphasize in a job application
- Big tech companies are not the only kinds of companies who need writers, designers, and strategists
- Your networking options are not limited to other tech, UX, or content people
- You can design a more effective job search strategy by focusing on specific industries in which you have experience, training, or even just a strong interest in
For some people I’ve coached it’s been helpful to shift the focus from “breaking into UX” or “breaking into content design” to how to do more of the kind of work you want to do at the kinds of places you want to do it. If that work ends up coming with a capital U, X, C, or D in the job title, great. If not, no worries! You’ve still made progress.
Exploring a new discipline doesn’t have to mean you’re starting over
This focus shift can be especially helpful for people in the mid-to-late stages of their overall career who would like to do work with more of a design, research, or strategy flavor to it. Traditionally, we talk about those folks as “transitioning” or “pivoting” — words I use as well, and am going to start to be more thoughtful about — from one thing to another. This pivot is often further framed, sometimes by the individual themselves, as a big, difficult, transition that requires “starting over” or “leaving behind” their education or experience.
But that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, you’re likely to have a shorter, easier road toward UX and strategy work if you stay in, or return to, the industry in which you have the most experience. (I had written “Unless that’s in NAICS 311111, Dog and Cat Food Manufacturing” in an earlier draft here before I remembered work I did for a company that does exactly that!)
Sometimes all that’s needed is to find a different employer in your current industry, or perhaps even just a different department in your company, that has embraced the disciplines that have come to interest you. If nothing else, you’re likely to shine a bit more in interviews if you can demonstrate actual interest in what the company does.
If you’ve been telling people you work “in tech” or “in UX”, that’s all well and good. But I invite you to pause, if just for a moment, to consider if that’s the whole story — and if it’s not, what have you been missing?
✶︎ ✶︎ ✶︎
Scott Kubie (he/him)
Director, Content Career Accelerator
scott@contentcareeraccelerator.com