Navigating the UX Research Job Market Strategically and Ethnographic Sociology 101 (ft. Babz Jewell)

The word “brand” has become ubiquitous. Everyone seems to be building a brand, staying on brand, or protecting their brand. A brand is nebulous, but is the marriage of words, images, feelings, and associations people make with you. Did you know that UX researchers and aspiring UX researchers also have a professional brand and this branding can be the difference between getting your dream job or landing your dream client, but how do you create and craft your brand as a researcher? 

Melissa Albright is a hiring professional. She’s a Talent Acquisition Specialist recruiting technology professionals including UX researchers. If you’ve ever applied to a UX research job and wanted to chat with the recruiter to get some inside knowledge, here’s your chance. Melissa gives an insider perspective on how to get hired.

Shipra is a designer dedicated to transforming the way we work together as a global community. She spoke with Imani about voice of the customer (VoC). She talked about her experience establishing, maintaining, and socializing a VoC program at UpWork.

Angelique Rickhoff is is a research director at a management consultancy. In this episode, she talks about growing and scaling a UX research team from zero and she gives advice about hiring UX researchers and managing a team of UX researchers.

Katrina Noelle is a market research entrepreneur who owns KNow Research. In this episode, she discusses conducting remote research, how to storytell qualitative findings, insights, and managing stakeholders.

As an independent researcher, Imani gets to work with a variety of clients. Though her research company, Yzzi Research, is relatively new, she's already had the chance to work with some interesting clients on a variety of projects. One of those clients is an organization called New America. Along with several other independent researchers, Imani investigated low income taxpayers in New York. She shares what happened and what she learned. 

Elyse Voegeli is a UX professional. At the time of our conversation, she was working as a UX researcher and designer for the City of New York. She talks about being a UX researcher in government.

Imani talks about her UX research fellowship experience with the NYC[x] Innovation Fellowship co-produced by US Digital Response and New York City Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer. Jessica Watson, Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer at U.S. Digital Response, provides some more context about volunteering in digital government.

Jeff works at a company called Artefact. Artefact produced a digital product you may or may not have heard of called The Tarot Cards of Tech. Jeff talks about what the tarot cards are and how technology professionals can use them in their work.

In this episode, Imani speaks with Babz Jewell. Babz talks about ethnographic sociology in the context of conducting UX research. She also gives practical and creative advice for navigating the UX researcher job market.