How could a design mentor help your career?
A design mentor is someone with years of experience in the design industry. They could have a strong background in UX Design, UI Design, Content Design, User Research, etc. A design mentor could help you to guide your career pathway by giving feedback, moral support, sharing knowledge, and teaching skills.They were once a newbie like you, venturing into a new field or new career chapter of life. They could help you to avoid making career mistakes and assist you to move closer to your career goals.
In this topic, our mentor Ines Anic, a User Researcher at Kry/Livi Sweden, will highlight how a design mentor can help with your career growth and development.
- Reviewing Portfolio and CV
When looking for jobs/in the hiring process, A design mentor can look at a CV and a portfolio and share tips and ideas that can help mentees get hired. Their feedback will be especially valuable if the mentor has had experience interviewing candidates, or has been a hiring manager themselves - because they can then share deeper knowledge on what the hiring managers are usually looking for. Sometimes these are not intuitive.
- Strengthen Negotiation Skills
The lack of experience (within the industry or in general) and imposter syndrome often make it hard for entry and mid-level ICs to properly assess their seniority level. If they can not assess their own seniority level, they can not confidently ask for promotions or present themselves well in the hiring process. A design mentor who has been in the industry for a couple of years, or has simply had a chance to work in larger organizations will have a lot more contextual knowledge and will be able to help the mentee more accurately assess their level of seniority. Tied to this, they can help in pay and title negotiations.
- Get Access to an Industry Expert Knowledge/Perspective
Candidates often have very different backgrounds (this is especially true for researchers) and a design mentor can help a mentee zero in on what makes them special/stand out as a candidate. Very often a mentee will think some aspect of them is a weakness. A mentor with a rich experience can help them spin it into a straight, or even a selling point.
"I have had a mentee with an academic background struggling to find a job as a user researcher. His academic background was seen as a potential negative by hiring managers in companies he was applying for (who are all working following the Agile system). I suggested he add a few lines to his CV to prove early on that he is knowledgeable and able to work in an Agile environment. He landed a Sr. User Researcher position after that." - Ines.
- Highlighting Career Path Options
A design mentor could help you choose which path to move in your career by sharing different paths within your area. This is something a manager should do for you, but at times you might not be well-informed by your managers and clueless of your potential career direction.
- Evaluating your Technical Knowledge
A design mentor can help evaluate the level of skill/knowledge and provide pointers to growth, or simply provide a vote of confidence to the IC. This one is more important to entry-level ICs, people looking to switch careers, or ICs working in small startups who might be managed by people who do not possess a lot of knowledge of one’s domain. (For example, a designer being managed by a CEO or a PM rather than a lead designer). Again, this guidance should ideally come from one’s manager, but often it does not.
- Identifying Important Skills
You can’t do everything all at once. The best way to grow is to focus on 1-2 skills we want to get better at, that will maximize our output, confidence, or earning potential. A mentor can help identify which skills one could benefit most from acquiring.
- Sharing Resources
It’s simple, but the internet is so big and there are so many boot camps out there. It is hard to know which resources are worth our time and money. A design mentor can help to filter the best resources for your career.
"If not for mentorships, I would not be working as a user researcher today. I have my dream job thanks to my own hard work, and the time and energy dedicated to me by my mentors. If you are lacking support in your professional development, look for a mentor! The right person at the right time could change everything."- Ines.
Book a 1:1 session with our top global design mentors and experience the impact of mentorship in your career yourself!
Contributor:
Ines Anic (ADPList Mentor)
User Researcher at Kry/Livi
ADPList Profile: https://adplist.org/mentors/ines-anic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inesanic/
Editor and Writer:
Farah Radzi
Content Marketer and Writer at ADPList
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/famr/
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