Why you need a UX Mentor

As a Junior level UX designer, sometimes you need more than just digging for resources on your own and doing design challenge after design challenge. Having a mentor is important so you can receive constructive criticism, discover new opportunities, network, provides you with new resources/shortcuts/tools, and empowers you.

When on the job hunt, you’re doing it all on your own, you don’t have a team there to help and guide you. You have to rely on your own resources and the community you’ve built for yourself, but having a mentor can ease the load you put on yourself and assist with these things. They can help you focus on your goals and guide you in the right direction. Additionally, many assume that once you land a job, your team and your manager will be your mentor, while this is true in most cases, it seems to be that there are companies that provide very vague mentorship. It’s not a companies requirement to provide you with a specific mentor to help you with the challenges you may face, they are there to provide you with the resources required to help you be successful in the position you’re currently in. Having a specific design mentor will help you grow whether you’re on the hunt for a job or are already in established position.

I found this website whose goal is provide UX designers with established mentors from all over: https://www.adplist.org/. They have great reviews and I have just started the hunt for a mentor, once I find one, I’ll write a follow up on my experience!

Cheers,

Ashley