Hello everyone, I’ve recently observed a surge in the number of young professionals reaching out to me and my colleagues on LinkedIn for advice on landing jobs in UX and other related fields. While I appreciate their eagerness to learn and grow, I’m interested in hearing if anyone else has had similar experiences. One trend that I’ve noticed is that after answering their initial set of all, 5+ questions, they often follow up with another set of 5+, and then another. While I’m happy to help, it can sometimes feel like I’m talking to a chatbot rather than a human being. I am happy to answer a few questions, but it’s been getting excessive, and I’m curious to know if this is a thing. I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to kindly encourage these students to try to answer their own questions before reaching out for help. I believe that by doing so, we can empower them to develop their own problem-solving skills and gain a deeper understanding of the industry.
Seems harsh but just ignore them.
I don’t think that’s very compassionate—I remember being jobless for almost a year after college and I think getting the right questions answered can really help. Getting a job is about survival and I don’t believe in messing with peoples money and livelihood—my issue is giving advice but also setting healthy boundaries. You give people a mile and they take 10…
You don’t owe everyone a response or multiple responses just because they reach out to you. You can give people advice on what questions they should ask you and what questions they can figure out themselves, but 99% of people will ghost you because unfortunately they’re not reaching out in good faith and to learn. They’re hoping for a referral. If you think that there are people who genuinely need help and just don’t know how to get it, consider writing a notion blog or something with answers to common questions and resources and sharing that with people.
please know that some of these are actually homework. they are assigned to ask industry professionals questions or do informative interviews, when they aren't actually interested. and most likely that there are prompts or guides telling them to ask smaller set of questions in waves to increase chance of people replying.
Helpful context-the people doing this are out of school though, so are they taking a boot camp or somthing?
yeah bootcampers or career services after grad
I mentor a bit on ADPlist. I set aside a couple 30 minute blocks per week (you can do as many or as few as you’d like) and when someone reaches out on LinkedIn I send them there. If my slots aren’t filled up, they can book time. If not, then they can browse the hundreds of other designers there and find one with an open slot.
Do you get paid for this?
No. I do it because I got into UX from reaching out and talking to random people on LinkedIn, so I figured I should make myself available to do the same periodically. I’ve met a lot of really cool people through it as well, and have also used the site to reach out to more experienced folks for advice. I’ve also been able to reach out to people for referrals a couple years later, so I think of it as networking.
A large part of the reason I was able to break into UX after years in a dead end print job was because 1 person decided to respond to me. I went from 38k to 65k (LCOL) - which was a huge deal for me. My then CEO announced a paycut the day before I signed on my first home. I broke into tech right before the market went cold. Granted. I started reaching out only AFTER I spent 6 months straight studying and creating my portfolio after work. I had a degree in graphic design and always had an eye for it, but hadn’t been putting it to use outside of the occasional freelance branding jobs. So all I really needed was experienced eyes to confirm I had something, and I got that from at least 3 different product designers. One wound up leading to a referral and I’ve now lead 2 major projects and will be shipping the 2nd in a few weeks. I’ve grown exponentially in the last year. This past Friday I had a junior designer reach out to me on LinkedIn. It’s an opportunity to come full circle that’s I wasn’t expecting to have so soon and I’ve been thinking about how/what to say in reply. You waste more time scrolling through social media than you’ll spend helping a handful of ppl not lose their homes and cars and have food to eat. I might’ve lost my home before I even got it without this career change, and now I have the opportunity to grow my comp more than ever would’ve been possible in my previous industry. Help people. The rest is up to them! 💫
This is a wonderful story and it’s great things turned out favourably for you. I believe in paying it forward and helping people break into this industry too. I also believe that each individual has their limits and when asking for advice people should be contentious of the time they’re asking of the other person. I can understand where the OP is coming from. I also get unsolicited outreach and have done for years. I’m happy to answer questions but there are times where I might have a lot going on. So if I answer a set of questions or request, which is then followed up by a bunch of others it can feel taxing. In those moments it’s important to understand your own personal limits. Unlike 10 or even 5 or so years ago, there are really abundant resources to help understand this industry. It can be helpful for those seeking advice to ask for some direction but continue to build their own knowledge from there and have the courtesy to be mindful of what/how they ask advice.
Thank you and I totally agree^^! Oddly enough I had reached out to someone else a few weeks ago and yesterday we got on a call. We were on the phone for 3 hours! It is so true that each individual will have to decide which person to give that amount of time too, but for whatever reason out of the 8,9 ppl who were also asking them random questions they decided to respond to me. I think the quality of the questions asked is a great way to gauge if it’s worth your time and last but not least it is ok to say no, or I don’t have time but thx for reaching out. Nobody owes anyone their time, but if you are in a position to give it every now and then, do it and do it wholeheartedly!
Personally, I ignore people with questions that can be easily answered with Google (they're ultimately unlikely to succeed in my field if they can't do basic research.) There are more structured, scaled and efficient means of providing support -- there's tons of blogs, YouTube videos answering common questions that don't require a bespoke answer. There's lots of Facebook groups to help people break into UX, where the same questions are asked ad nauseum and the histories may be freely searched. For people asking for help, I usually point them to: https://storage.googleapis.com/uxcoffeehours.com/site/index.html It's actually a superior resource, because they can get a conversation tailored to their individual needs. In rare cases where I see someone who's materially invested in UX + asking questions I'm specifically able to support, I offer to meet 1:1. Because these often end up involving numerous hours of career support afterwards, I am very careful to limit myself. It's harsh: but 95% of people I hear from who want to break into UX are never going to be able to. In this climate, I'd say more like 99%.
I pretty much stopped typing out all answers if they ask me things. I used to help a ton but at the end of the day it’s your time and you should be in control of it. It’s okay to say no or even not respond. Whatever you need to do to make it so that your ability to support other folks is sustainable and enjoyable to you. I think that’s the ultimate key there: you HAVE to be enjoying this, otherwise it’ll eat at you really fast and burn you out. For me, what that means is that I’ll respond to a few requests these days and I’ll set up a 30 minute chat. It’s much easier to talk that way and in the long run, much more sustainable because it’s easier for you to set a limit on yourself. No more of this “it’ll only take me 5-10 minutes to respond, I should do it.” It’s now a commitment that makes it easier for me to compartmentalize my time: so I have enough time to do a 30m chat this week? No? Then sorry, I can’t. I try not to judge newbies on their types of questions either. UX is big and complex and while there are answers online, they rarely cover many of the nuances that your questions may have. So I pretty much just evaluate based on my own time whether or not I’ll take it. Plus, it’s much more fun to meet people virtually and get to chat with them rather than answering bulleted lists like you said.
The requests to connect and messages are getting to be overwhelming. I can’t give folks jobs in my group, unfortunately, so I just pass them the link to our careers page. I wish you could customize a short message that new grads could see before they burn an In Message - I’d pin it to my profile but most of them never check that before reaching out.
I used to help but there are too many requests these days. Also, I don’t think they know what to do with all of the answers. If I have time I send some links to online resources.
You sure they aren’t trying to get you to click on a virus link and hijack your crypto, this seems oddly specific and targeted considering your employer. Be careful, Reddit is full of this spam fake interest and pretend to be your friend crypto scams. Don’t click any shady links or open files.
Tech Industry
16h
3269
Asians - what are your thoughts on asian female white male ?
Tech Industry
13h
1044
How common is it actually to earn more than 300K TC?
2024 Presidential Election
13h
447
Heartwarming peaceful protests
Tech Industry
5h
988
The end of Backdoor Roth?!
India
11h
478
Who are these retards asking for dictatorship in India?
Yeah that’s a tough spot. I understand where students are coming from but it’s tough when someone might have to answer what is wrong with my portfolio to 10 different people. Maybe you could try deflecting if they keep bombarding you with questions. Like, “Hey, I appreciate your enthusiasm but I am getting a lot of questions from mentees. I can recommend checking out “X Podcast” where they have covered this topic in the past. I’m sure there’s a better way to phrase it but maybe just have a 1 or 2 podcasts or youtube channels that you can redirect them too. Almost like a soft way of saying, hey this already exists online if you look for it?
I wouldn’t even be mad at 10 people asking for a portfolio critique—it’s the ones who ask multiple sets of questions when I answer their first 2 sets… Thanks for the tips by the way, certainly helpful