Want to stand out in the competitive user research job market? Identify and focus on your unique wheelhouse! Your previous experience and current passions authentically differentiate you and your career story.

How do you find this career-changing sweet spot?

First, take stock of your experience and the things you love to do — even if they seem unrelated, at first blush, to your career goals. Then, focus on companies or work that falls within or supports those areas.

For example, I spent years as a Design Director working for major banks. My "non-UX research" experiences included working with wholesale, retail, and commercial banking products; credit and loans; and wealth management, financial literacy and employee communications (CSR, DEI, HR, payroll, and training and development). Channel experience ranged from cards to ATMs (hardware design), Olympic event marketing (exhibit/merchandising design), the bank of the future (store/fixture design), and more.

When I decided to switch my career focus to research, highlighting those bank experiences helped me land research work related to this expertise. Early in my research career, I confidently took on multiple fascinating projects studying accounting platforms, payment products, expense services, etc. The financial foundation continues to provide a terrific competitive edge. As it turns out, almost every organization has a need for something related to payment processing, collection, or distribution.

Here are some other, more direct ways I capitalized on that proficiency:

• The ATM and store design experience translated into my real estate and product design wheelhouse.

• The training and development competencies deepened my love of teaching and eventually led to the Ask Like A Pro user research workshops.

Are you leveraging your previous experience and current passions to help your career journey? Or are you shooting in the dark?

For this edition of our jobs newsletter, we included related domains/passion areas that further illustrate the concept as it relates to our featured open positions. After the list, you'll find additional benefits of this approach. Want to feature an open position next month? Please let us know!

1. User Researcher - Government Recruitment Service London - government, service design, security, immigration, policy

2. Jr. UX Researcher - FreshlyFreshly - food-tech, hospitality, nutrition, SaaS, logistics, transportation, health, environment

3. User Experience Researcher - KnockKnock - real estate, lending, home swap, home repair, brokerage firms

4. UX Researcher - TikTok - social media, short-form video, dance, comedy, education, influencer marketing, media

5. Junior User Researcher - Transformation - Shutterstock - stock photography, video, and audio, creative marketplace, licensing, royalties, content creation, media

6. Senior User Experience Researcher - Ford Credit - automotive industry, B2C, transportation, finance

7. UX Researcher - ServiceNow - SaaS, digital productivity, consulting, B2B service design, multiple domains TBD by client assignment

8. Sr UX Researcher - Uber Eats, Membership - Uber - transportation, food/hospitality, B2B, advertising / marketing

9. Senior User Experience Researcher - Gem - recruiting, tracking systems, diversity and inclusion, automation, forecasting

10. UX Researcher - The Mom Project - recruiting, tracking systems, B2B, B2C, diversity and inclusion, university and professional orgs, online marketplaces, biding/negotiating

11. UX Researcher - Woebot Health - mental health, chatbots, digital therapeutics, symptom monitoring, episode management, patient and provider marketplaces, clinical validation, psychometrics

12. Director UX Research - LinkedIn - recruiting, networking, social media, community management and engagement, talent development, mentorship, career development

13. Director of UX & Market Research - Udemy - education, online learning, global marketplace, learning and development, corporate training, certification, B2B, B2C

14. Senior UX Researcher - Drizly - food and beverage, alcohol marketplace, retail, personalized content, delivery, inventory management, e-commerce

15. Senior UX Research Strategist - The Washington Post - media, journalism and advertising, technology and software, government and public services, content creation

In sum, packaging your wheelhouse of knowledge, experience, and passion into your career story will help you:

• Organize your job search/business development endeavors

• Focus your time and energy

• Clarify your message

• Attract the employers/clients you truly want to serve

• Deliver more value to your employers/clients and at a deeper level

• Position yourself as an expert

• Stand out from the competition

Unsure where your user research skill competencies fall in comparison to UXR job levels?

Check out this Research Skills Matrix created by Rohan Irvine.

Events

Last week we held an Ask Like A Pro Alumni Mixer titled “Accessible Research: Considering People with Disabilities” with Sheri Byrne-Haber (disabled). The session was extremely well attended and received. In addition, the ticket sales grossed $2,656.08. The net proceeds will all be donated to the GAAD foundation, whose mission is to disrupt the culture of technology and digital product development to include accessibility as a core requirement. You can access the replay here.

Exciting news —we’re teaming up with Bitesize UX to bring last year's popular hands-on workshops back! In these live streaming events, participants practice "how to" conduct a card sort in the context of a real project. Note: These sessions will be capped at 65 registrants. All registrants will receive a recorded replay.

• Register for our August 26th at 3pm PST / 6pm EST session here

• Or the September 7th at 5pm PST / 8pm EST session here

Speak up, get involved, share the love

• Follow me on LinkedIn for more UXR tips and UX discussions

• Read about Curiosity Tank workshops (the next live workshop series begins September 19!)

• Participate as an On-Demand, or as an Observer, for less!

• Register for Michele's General Assembly classes (next class is September 2. Use discount code ronsen-2021 for 25% off!)

• Forward this email to someone who you think might enjoy it. Better yet, sign them up here. It will be the gift that keeps on giving.

• Ask us questions related to user research. Seriously, bad research keeps us up at night!

And that's a wrap!

We try to alternate between a theme and UX/UXR jobs, events, classes, articles, and other happenings every few weeks. What do you think? We're constantly iterating and would still love to hear your input.

Stay curious,
- Michele and the Curiosity Tank team

PS. Check out the “Is Ask Like A Pro right for me?” webinar to see if our workshops may fit your needs.