.jpg)
Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
I help tech employees use their finances to create the life of their dreams by helping you take your financial confidence to the next level!Are you a tech employee who wants to learn how to better manage your finances?Working in tech you may experience extreme pay increases, which may allow you the ability to accomplish goals you've only dreamed of. However, if mismanaged, you can also find yourself stressed out and under pressure to increase your income in order to fit your lifestyle.The good news, is through education and a little bit of determination, you have the power to control your future and create your best life.Not only will we cover basic personal finance concepts, but we'll dive deep into tech specific benefits and issues that I regularly help my clients build strategies to maximize. (Examples: working for start ups, restricted stock units, stock options, and layoffs) Also, on a regular basis, I will have special guests that will highlight their stories with unique stories about their tech experiences.
Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
Landing a UX Job with Sam Harper
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sam shares his journey of escaping from his soul-crushing cubicle job to find his way into UX.
His story is great and he has a lot of great resources that will help you think of additional tips and tricks to land your job in UX.
Here is what we cover:
- Navigating your career as a young professional
- Leveraging interests and experiences to create opportunities
- Challenging yourself to build skills and a portfolio
- Experiencing a layoff
- Utilizing a resume expert
- Critical steps you need to take in order to find a job in UX
- Creating meaning within life
Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Your UX Boot Camp Will Not Get You a Job Unless You Do These Critically Important Steps
Sam's LinkedIn Profile
Sam's Podcast
Fee-Only Financial Planner
Number five is you might have to work for free for now. And I know that sucks. There was definitely some times where it's like I could barely afford to eat. And I'm like, why am I working for free? But you know, sometimes you gotta do it, you gotta build that experience. And it's just like again, you know, when you're first starting out and you don't really have that kind of experience. You just gotta do something.
SPEAKER_00This is techie personal finance bootcamp where I help tech professionals in their 20s and 30s build a great life today without sacrificing their future possibilities. I'm your host, Lucas Caseris, certified financial planner and founder of Level Up Financial Planning, where I help educate, coach, and build strategies with my clients to help them take their financial confidence to the next level. Here's an important compliance disclosure. This podcast is for informational purposes only and are not to be considered recommendations. It is recommended you consult your trusted financial professional before implementing any information obtained from the Techie Personal Finance Boot Camp. Hello, thank you for joining Tech EPersonal Finance Bootcamp. I'm super excited. I have Sam Harper on today. And Sam is a user experience designer who transitioned from a soul sucking government cubicle job to becoming a user experience designer and a career coach who focuses on helping people also make a successful career transition. Hi Sam, thanks for coming on today.
SPEAKER_01Hi, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and so I saw your video the other day on LinkedIn, and the kind of main point about that was not accepting the first no when you're applying for a UX position or any position for that matter, but um I reached out to you to be a guest because I thought it was pretty pretty interesting. And I even mentioned it in a message to you that uh you actually were trying to get on the LinkedIn Live feature, uh, and and obviously that was a no for you in in one way or another because it's just not available at that point yet. Yeah, you you didn't let that stop you and you went and you ended up creating a video and and posting it on there anyways. So tell me a little bit more about that. What what inspired you to want to create that video? Because I don't think I've seen anything like that from you previously.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, this dated back from uh there's this article that I wrote on medium.com that was called Your UX Bootcamp Will Not Get You a Job Unless You Do These Critically Important Steps. And when I wrote that, I was just dumping all the information of what I learned going through my career transition and what I thought would help a lot of people who are similarly going through boot camps or coming out of college and they can't find work. And I'm saying, hey guys, look, this is how I did it, and it worked really well for me. And I just wrote the article, I didn't expect it to get as popular as it did, and it just blew up on LinkedIn. Like I get probably about 10 LinkedIn contacts every single day just from that one article. Oh and it got featured on the UX Collective blog. And what I realized is that so many of these new uh these people who are in their boot camps, you know, they're going through their boot camps, but they don't really have a whole lot of help, a whole lot of support as far as like actually get like they're learning a lot of theoretical knowledge and they're working on some theoretical projects, but they're not able to like actually find a lot of work. And I decided that because so many people are finding this valuable, I could turn this into kind of a video series. I'm also trying to boost my personal brand on LinkedIn, so that's working for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so I just decided to go back into my article that I wrote that went really popular and just break down each one of those little sections.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. I I'm having a lot of fun uh creating content. I don't know if you've ever seen any of the stuff I'm producing. Obviously, we're on a podcast now, but I started out initially with like the standard blog post, and I call them strategy guides, and then yeah, I started branching out from that uh into to video like how you're doing now. I started creating like infographs, which I was calling cheat sheets, and yeah, there's so many different ways you can kind of share the same information, but do it in a way that other people would enjoy kind of absorbing it, and then and then also can retain it and and kind of and gravitate towards those things too. So that's really awesome that uh you're taking it upon yourself to go and do that. And I know from my experience it's super rewarding. I don't get all the crazy messages that you get every single day. So that is awesome. Like I I get to see you um because I track it with Google Analytics. Like there are like about um 30 to 40 people like a day that are like reading those things. Um, but yeah, I don't get the direct messages like you, so that you must be doing it. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01I realize I just didn't answer your question, so I'm gonna go ahead and answer that right now. But uh whenever uh so this is something that I think is valuable, not just for someone who's trying to get a job as a UX designer, but somebody trying to get a job at all, uh, especially people who are newer, who don't really have a lot of experience, what they'll do is they'll apply to a job. Uh, they'll usually try to apply to like a lot, a lot of jobs, and that's actually not the best strategy, but um, that's for uh another topic. So, but then they'll get back this rejection letter, you know, that says, Hey, candidate, uh uh thank you for applying. We got a lot of people, it's just very vague and generic. I swear it's like they take this template from like somewhere because you see it across everywhere. Yeah. And I think what a lot of people do, this is actually I found out the name of the guy. His name is Austin Balkak. And what he talked about was how he got his first job at Google with pretty much no experience at all, from what I understand. Okay. Yeah, he got one of those rejection emails and then he responded back. And uh he instead of saying no, he kind of like really hit in hard as to why he was so valuable for this role. And that actually got him an interview and ultimately got him the job. Um, I've actually done sales jobs myself.
SPEAKER_00Um, everybody who Lucas, I don't know if you've done a sales job before, but yeah, like luckily the the route I took into financial planning, even though I was working at banks, uh, they were actually community banks and credit unions. So it was more on the the finding the right fit and less less salesy than you would actually think from like a financial planner or anything like that. Um so yeah, your training's probably been better in mine in terms of how that would go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you know, the thing with sales, and I think uh he didn't tie this to sales at all, but I thought it was really brilliant because it's something that I remember from my training was that you always want to collect at least two no's before you move on. The reason for this is because like if you you know you're pitching a product to somebody and you really, really genuinely believe that this is going to be a good fit. You know, you're not like trying to twist their arm or anything. You're like, hey, look, I see that you have this problem. I really do think this product can help you. And then if they say no the first time, instead of just passing and moving on, you want to assume that they didn't really see the value. It's like, well, okay, I hear you said no, but there's you know, this is really like all these things that you would be getting from this. And it's kind of the same thing if like whenever you're applying to a job, too. Uh you want to, if you get one of those no, those like generic rejection emails, you want to assume that they just didn't see how incredibly valuable it would be in this employee. The way I look at it is like, I mean, you miss 100% of the shots you don't make, so you may as well you get a you get a second a second shot to make that basket, so you may as well make it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And that's what I try to think about whenever I'm doing anything like, and so the crazy thing, I messaged you just a few days ago about this after your video, and it's not about getting a job or anything like that, but I actually just experienced the same thing myself. I've been trying to see if I could help like a local newspaper kind of with contributions for like just financial literacy-based topics. And I was just commenting on the other day, it's been five kind of different people, it's five different approaches I've taken to getting in there and and being able to provide like that value that I'm basically volunteering for free. And just I'd get a lot of no response, like I just no, no response at all. And then finally, uh just yesterday, I got an email back from the the owner of the newspaper. He's like, Oh, we're this is actually something we've been missing and and like we think would be a great addition. Uh-huh. And like it's been two years, I think, or a year and a half, since I've kind of first started doing that. And like every every time I like it came back in my brain, I was like, oh, let me just try again. Like, let me let me check with this person. And even though they weren't responding at all, like those are basically a pretty hard nose. And sure enough, like I'm gonna hopefully be uh pumping out a couple articles for them. So that's that's cool and exciting. And it goes across not even just when you're applying for jobs, but like so many aspects of of your life. I know so many people who uh get married and that spouse or partner, like they were not interested at first, but but they kept being persistent, kept kind of being around in their vision and just kind of constantly showing up, like giving them and showing them that they would be a value uh of somewhere or another. So yeah, this this is a super powerful lesson and tool that relates to so many things in life.
SPEAKER_01Definitely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, again, thanks for sharing that. I think it's super valuable. And so one of the things I did, and by now I think a lot of the listeners realize that I'm a power user of LinkedIn. It sounds like you are as well, Sam, but I was actually looking at your profile, your your virtual resume, and I was looking back in your your history. Kind of the first thing you got was an associates in film, cinema, video studies, and that makes kind of a lot of sense because your user experience, your creative, uh things like that. But then the next thing I saw was pretty surprising to me. And so it was that you obtained a BS in fishing and fishery sciences. So tell me about the early days navigating your education and and career. We know that you're a UX designer now, so how how did you go about that path?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so what's really uh really just comes down to the fact that I was young and I didn't know what the f I wanted to do with my life, which I think is true for just about anyone, you know, even even the people who seem like they're very solid on a path, uh you know, some of them will later say, you know, they become an accountant when they're 20 or something like that. And then uh sometimes you'll actually find that those individuals kind of burn out later, and then they start having the midlife crisis and things like that. So uh I even you know, even though I kind of spent a lot of time like figuring out what do I want to do, you know, what do I want to uh I had a lot of interest as a lot of us do. And I I got into film school actually because like I took some film video courses when I was when I was in high school and I really liked them. And I kind of got uh started doing that for about two years. Uh I was young, I failed a lot of classes and you know wasted a lot of my parents' money, and then but then I kind of had this um, it was like this internal feeling of like maybe this path isn't exactly right for me. But growing up, I always had like this huge fascination with the ocean, especially being in Colorado and uh not having access to that. And I always had a bunch of like fish tanks and aquariums growing up, and I decided, you know what, I need to get a bachelor's degree in something. I'm I want a new uh I want to get something new that's like outside of Colorado. So I actually moved to California, got that uh marine biology degree. And that I of course like I got out and it was the traditional story of like I can't really find work. And I'm just staying with my parents to train uh to try and get something, and I just had a bunch of random various jobs, and then I finally got a position out in uh out in Anchorage, Alaska, and that was that was basically it sounds really cool. It was um mapping the the habitats of bald eagles, but then when I got up there, I realized it was just it's basically just desk work. And nothing wrong with that, by the way.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, it's all about personality and what actually like gets you get you going in the day.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. And the thing with that, I remember sitting in this cubicle and just looking around, and all my co-workers were at least 20 to 30 years older than me. Uh, they all just seemed like they didn't like their jobs at all. And they were all like very educated people, like yeah, just about all of them had at least had a master's degree, and it was just like, you know, and there was like phones ringing around me, and it just like it kind of felt like office space. I'm like, did I really get into this major to have this kind of life?
SPEAKER_00Um I wouldn't even think that, and and that's what I was wondering too, because I I knew that background as far as uh getting out of that soul sucking cubicle position, and then I was looking at your background, I was like, like, was he in a cubicle for this? Like, which which one is he talking about? Because um, I wouldn't have thought that with the fishers, I would have thought you were like out exploring, out testing different things.
SPEAKER_01There's some well, I mean, there's some of that kind of work in that in that field, but it's usually like you go out for a week and then you come back and you just spend a lot of time like analyzing data and then managing other people who are out in the field from a cubicle. Um I was uh and I was just looking at this and I was trying to come up with like every conceivable way of like, well, okay, if I get a master's degree, will things be different? If I do this, will things be different? And I'd but I would just come back and I would look at my boss who had a doctorate degree, very, very educated woman, and she's just sitting in a cubicle in the corner. And I was just like, you know, at that point, I kind of realized like I need to find something else. I need to find something that fits me personally. And I don't know a lot of people go through this, and a lot of people, you know, will actually feel kind of insecure at that point, like, oh, I'm 30 years old, I'm 35 years old, I'm 40 years old, and I'm starting over. Um, by the way, side note uh there is a fantastic book that was written on the subject called uh Range Why Generalists Specialized Range Why Generalists Specialize in a Specialized World, something like that. It's by David Epstein. Uh it's got a picture, some keys on the front cover. And he talks about how in our society, we really we put so much emphasis on the people who just started out at a very young age, like Tiger Wood started going golf at three and all these people. But like the vast majority, that's the exception. That is like a major, major outlier. That is not what most people do. Most people, they actually conducted some studies and found that most people who are happy with their lives actually spent a lot of time experimenting and dabbling in a lot of different areas and before they ultimately found what they want to do. So if people are going for a career change or anything like that, you're actually probably you're not only on a good path, probably on a better path than a lot of people who are just decided to pick something and you know go with it right away.
SPEAKER_00Sure, yeah. Just just in having different careers over the course of your your working career, that is diversity right there. And that's something that a lot of people are saying like there's a lot of benefits to diversity. And when you talk about that, like with Eden, with the workforce, there's like so many reasons why diversity is good, and it's sounds like it's the same thing for kind of your career, because you get you get more stimulated from those things, and um it there's a lot of things that show like the brain activity, the creativeness, like so many things start to diminish, like probably starting around the age 30 time frame, and then it they just keep going unless you're kind of uh getting in get in your brain, stimulated, being excited about things. And I could see people that that's not necessarily that enjoyment job kind of sitting in that cubicle. But yeah, they were too afraid to make any changes, and yeah, they're just they're they may not be as happy as someone that's could have found that career later in life once they realize that that's what they actually want to do. And I don't think a lot of people had felt like they had the choice in the past, where now there's so many ways, like through LinkedIn, through Facebook, where you can see people making these big transitions, like oh yeah, I can actually do that. Where I don't think it was as visible before you didn't necessarily know people that made successful career changes, and and if you did, you didn't really understand like how they did it or why they did it, but now everyone can share that information and share that knowledge, and that's kind of what you're doing with your career coaching too now, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So um I did did um ultimately I'm doing career coaching in addition to my current job. But after after leaving that job, I actually um I pretty much just like I moved back to Colorado. I got a job driving a school bus, and it was all right. Uh, but during this time, I pretty much just I think like one of the biggest obstacles we have is giving yourself permission to you people think of it as like failure. It's not there's no such thing as failure, there's just learning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless you truly and actually just kind of give up on doing things that you're gonna enjoy. So, but even then, like as long as you're still alive, as long as you're still kicking and there's another day coming around, like you couldn't always take that into your hands and change those.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. And so I moved back, moved back to Colorado. Um, I actually got actually I got two jobs. So I was driving a school bus and I was working as a museum educator uh with the University of Colorado. And that was I was actually working seven days a week, and I I took a boot camp, it was a part-time boot camp with Career Foundry, uh, because when I was back in Alaska, I was kind of like on my phone a lot, uh trying to escape the cubicle. I was like, huh, UX design, that sounds interesting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I long story short, is I wound up enrolling in one of those boot camps, and I was just like, I was working seven days a week, and then just like on every downtime I had, just studying on my boot camp uh a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more every day. And it was not easy. It was uh it was a lot of sleepless nights, it was a lot of just like didn't really have a life to myself aside from work and my boot camp.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, how long did it take you to go through part-time? Because I'm not too familiar with many boot camps or at least many people that I know that went through like a part-time option. Usually it's like three months, like you said, like no no life for three months, and that's all you're doing. You can't even work in a lot of situations, but you found an opportunity where there's a part-time one, and then you wore two jobs and and we're kind of pushing the limits across the board. How long did it take you to get through that boot camp?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that was six months actually. So what I did was uh it was this was an online program, so it allowed me to be a lot more flexible, and it was actually cheaper than you know, if I went through like General Assembly or one of those. And I remember, you know, I went through it after about six months. I eventually, you know, and I got throughout that that journey after that, I got like a couple unpaid remote internships. Uh, and that helped me. And I also um for those are you familiar with the X-Price Foundation at all? No, yeah, tell me about that. So the X-Price Foundation is essentially a nonprofit organization that was started by Peter Diamandis to bring attention to a lot of these issues that are facing the world and to gather teams who can actually solve it. So it's like he actually hosts like a competition of like, hey, we've got this environmental issue, can you solve it? Or we've got this social issue, can you assemble a team and then solve it? And then they give cash prizes to those guys. That's really fantastic. But uh, I Lucas, you remember you mentioned the marine biology background. This is actually where you know one of the things where I was actually able to pull from all these different experiences and then bring it together. They had a competition called the Big Ocean Button Challenge. The purpose of it was to make an app that was designed to pull all this information from these buoys from you know, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the US Geological Survey, and it collects it into this app. And then the purpose of that is to take that information and make it useful for the public somehow. And how, you know, what kind of app or what it does specifically is up to the team. But the purpose is essentially to like capitalize on this massive, massive amount of data collected. And this ties into like, yes, I was doing some stuff at my boot camp, but I was also doing stuff outside of my boot camp as well. In this case, I was building my own experience. So what I did is I was able to take all my knowledge from my marine biology. Background and applying my user experience design skills to this. Yeah. Yeah, seriously, having a wide variety of skill sets actually does help you quite a bit. And uh from there, I was able to like my girlfriend was a UI designer at the time. Uh I brought on two developers and a data scientist, and we just powered through this. We made we made two apps, they made it to the semifinals. We didn't win, but I gained so much out of it. And it was just like it was this big self-education piece that I was able to make. And ultimately it was that and a couple of the internships that I did that was able that allowed me to land my first job. Sweet. That's crazy, though, that all that stuff comes together and works out. Oh yeah. And you know, what's funny about that too is like my first job was actually in an advertising and marketing firm. Coming from a marine biology background, I would have never seen that coming. But sometimes you gotta be open to these kind of things. And you know, I remember walking in on my first day and looking around, and there was like posters of all like all this really cool work in these high-end clients that these guys had worked with. And it was just, I was just like, man, I feel really feel like I'm in my element right now. This is like this is so cool. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was I was at that job for a year and a half, and then I actually got laid off. And yeah, and then whenever people say, uh, I I tell people like I got laid off, and the first reaction is I'm sorry, and my reaction is why? Yeah, this this was actually a fantastic thing that happened to me, and I'm gonna tell you why. Whenever people get fired or they get laid off, or the company's needs shift around, and then they just they don't need you anymore. Yeah, a lot of times people are going, you know, their immediate reaction is to I don't know, feel sorry for themselves or just like hide in their room or something. And it's normal, it's normal to feel crappy about it. I felt crappy about it for a long time, but you don't want to stay there.
SPEAKER_00It's a different form of loss, but it's it's still a loss. A lot of people tie their identity to their their work. Yes. I've seen it become like even more of an issue for older people, especially like if they've been at a place for like 20, 30 years, then it hits them a lot worse than a lot of the the younger people like ourselves. Um, we're we're able to adapt, and we've seen other people do it, and we've even made transitions, like you've already made big transitions well before this. So I'm sure it wasn't as scary if you wouldn't have gone through that whole career change in the first place.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. I mean, I'd uh lived in six different states and had numerous jobs before that, so I guess you know, again, that kind of ties into like I've had all these experiences, so I just feel so well-versed and so like confident and like I can handle this. But ultimately, what happened was after I got laid off, I actually wound up getting a job in Salt Lake City, Utah that pays more, the benefits were better, uh, and just like it was an upgrade in every kind of way imaginable. So it's I kind of think of like uh, you know, the the Phoenix burning, the mythology behind the phoenix where it catches on fire and then it becomes ashes, and then like there's a new baby that comes out of it. That's what I think about these kind of things. Yeah, it's not necessarily bad. In fact, in a lot of cases, it can actually be a blessing in disguise.
SPEAKER_00Well, and yeah, it really comes down to that choice. It's it's like that flight or fight or flight, and you basically every time something like that happens in someone's life, you can decide, well, how how do you want to view it? How do you want to let it shape you? And yeah, like you can actually use it as like a boost to kind of get you to what that next thing is. And and a lot of times, especially early on in people's careers, I think my um this this probably isn't gonna go in order, so I won't say my last person I interviewed, but uh one of the ones that was on my show, she actually started out at a position and it just wasn't a good fit like for her for her growth. She was so early in her career she needed a lot more support. And really, like that could be the worst thing ever is uh to start out and just have uh a system and uh model that's not gonna be conducive to your growth. And that's where these things kind of work out pretty well, is they're they're good at addressing stuff like you're probably not a good fit uh for where the business is going, but at the same time, they're acknowledging that they're probably not a good fit for you too to keep you moving in your career. Oh, yeah. I think a lot of people don't realize that. It always seems cold when you get those rejection letters for sure. But yeah, if it's something that you feel confident that no, like I I sh I would be able to handle everything here, I'd be able to to rocket this. Definitely don't take no for an answer or the first no, at least, like you said. Um, and you can kind of keep up high in there, but yeah, just be open to well, maybe it's just not not yet here, and how can I find those pieces? How can I build a road or a bridge to get to uh where I ultimately want to get to? So yeah, thanks thanks for sharing because I know even even though hindsight's 2020, like we know you're in a good spot now, like during those days, I've had days like that, like when I uh quit my previous farm I was working for to start level financial planning, like for a good year. Um, so initially, definitely once I quit, just crazy mental games going on in my head. So I imagine there's some some things going on that you had to work through um to kind of constantly refocus on nope, this is good for me. And as long as you probably tell yourself that more times than that, you're gonna you're gonna come out on the right end of stuff. So yeah, so tell us how how did you end up navigating that and get into your current position uh in Salt Lake City? Like, was there anything specific you had to do, or was it really just your experience was already built up to where it was kind of speaking for itself, or did you have to do any extraordinary networking or anything like that to align your current spot?
SPEAKER_01Well, in my case, my experience was already built up. Um, and I had you know worked with a bunch of like high-end clients before I had uh you know built a range of products at that point. So I was able to, it was a lot easier for me going into that, but then I mean I also did some other things too. Like there is there's this this person by the name of Sarah Duty who has uh she teaches people how to like make their portfolio better, and I actually signed up for her class, and that helped me a lot, and I got my resume rewritten, and I would say that was a big part of it. Um and then I would say probably another thing too is that you really want to be open to whatever possibilities are coming your way. You want to um so even if you know you may have not thought, oh, I'm I want to move, I want to stay right here. Well, you know, if you you want to stay like where you are, but you're looking for a job, then depending on where you're living, you know, if you're in San Francisco, you'll probably be fine. If you're out in, I don't know, Topeka, Kansas, it might be hard. But I would say just be open to things, like even positions which at first you may have thought, like, oh no, I'm not gonna go for that one. It's like, well, I don't know, maybe like go through the interview process. It may very well be that the position you thought you wanted either A didn't hire you or B wasn't exactly what you thought you it was. Uh, and then meanwhile, there might be some other positions that you know they may have not been your first pick at first, but then you go through the interview process and they're very serious about bringing you on, and you do think it would be a good fit uh after a while. Like that was kind of my experience. I was juggling maybe uh five or six different positions, and this one was the one that I ultimately wound up going with. And you know, when you're when you're applying to these positions, you can't really, you don't have nobody has a crystal ball can say, like, oh, this is gonna go fantastic. But sometimes you just have to have that leap of faith and say, you know what, I don't know exactly what this is gonna be like, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm gonna do my best and I'm gonna see what happens. And yeah, yeah, it just turned out to be a fantastic, a fantastic change for me. Um, you know, like I said, like I'm making more money, I'm happier. I'm living in like Salt Lake City is a really cool place to live, by the way. Probably a lower cost of living, too, I imagine.
SPEAKER_00Like Denver's gotten expensive. Denver's getting crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's just been an upward positive change overall. So glad to hear it, man. And yeah, yeah, and it's cool again that you're kind of giving back through the through the content that you're creating too. So it's not it's not like you're like, oh, I'm making all this money, I'm enjoying my job. Like, you're constantly still looking for ways to to help other people. You still have your uh career coaching on the side of that, so that's that's awesome. Um, so you mentioned earlier on in the interview that you actually wrote a popular article on Medium, and it's called your UX boot camp will not get you a job unless you do these critically important steps. Obviously, we're getting towards the tail end of the interview, so we can't go into detail into each one of those, but can you just kind of share the bullet points? Um, and then yeah, we'll make sure that the link to your article gets in the show notes so that people can go in and read out kind of the the reasoning and the supporting information for each one of those.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So when I wrote this article, ultimately I was I just wanted to share my experiences of not only what I've gone through, but also what I've seen other people do and what's worked for them and to kind of culminate it into this one article. This was I wrote this back in February, and I was not expecting it to take off and get as popular. It really did go viral. But it was really just like a culmination of like, hey, this is what I learned along my journey of being a UX bootcamp student, and what I did additionally that ultimately got me to the point that I'm at right now. And it's just I keep getting, you know, I I keep constantly getting like notification. I've wrote a bunch of other articles on media. Many of them have like not taken off at all, but it's this one article that keeps coming back that people are still liking, they're still commenting, they're still sharing. Um, and I've got like a little CTA at the bottom that links people to my LinkedIn profile. So I'm getting like five, probably about five to ten new contacts every single day just from that. That's sweet. Yeah, and it's like most of and they're all telling me, like, hey, I came from your article, I came from your article, I came from your article. And eventually I realize, you know what? By me not talking to these individuals more, I'm kind of doing them a disservice. Otherwise, they're just sitting on my my LinkedIn contacts, and I mean, it's I may as well like continue talking to them and uh continue seeing what their pain points are and like helping them out. Uh, so the summary of this article was I made six parts, and I'm actually going through and kind of making like a video series on each one of those. Uh, the first one is create your own independent work. When I was a part of the XPRIZE Foundation competition, that was not something that anybody told me to do. I was not prompted to do it. I just said, oh, hey, look, there's this thing that ties in with one of my one of my other interests. Let's go ahead and uh use this as a learning opportunity and a a res you know, a resume builder and a portfolio builder, and let's build something really cool. So create your own independent work is number one. Nice. Uh the second one is find apps and websites you love and reverse engineer them. And a lot of people, yeah, they won't, a lot of people don't really think to do this, but this is an incredibly powerful tool for uh user experience designers, I mean, also like user interface designers too. You find something like, I don't know, Apple's website, for example, or like Adobe has a really nice, uh, really nice UX on their website. Yeah. And then just go through it and see like why does it function the way it does? What you know, when I click on this button, what happens? What how is information presented to me at this point? And then just like make some wireframes around that, put it together, and not only is this a really good opportunity to learn how and why some of these things function to better build your own skills, but then it's also good blog information too. Like, if you want to publish a blog, then and you want to put it on there. This ties into your personal branding. Yeah, you can actually like this is a good blog fodder. It's like, hey, look, I looked at Adobe site, I saw this is how they set up their information architecture, this is how they they set up their uh their color and their typography. I wonder why that is. So I'm gonna break it down. It's like, oh, this, this, this. Cool. I learned something new, and now you can too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. That has to be super powerful. And you never knew either, like who who's looking at these things. You mentioned personal branding. Is that is that one of your bullet points to your personal branding?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes. Um, that's actually number four. So uh we'll get to that in a sec. So number three is get a mentor. So a lot of people uh especially I think like especially in these self-directed boot camps, they try and do this all on their own. Yeah. The problem with that is that there's really only so much you can learn by yourself, but then there's some people who have been in this industry for a while who are just like, you know, they've got so much information, so much knowledge they can share with people. And it's like you'd be crazy not to learn from them in some capacity. And you know, even if you have to just uh like, for example, there was one guy who I'd watched, he he made a lot of LinkedIn live videos. He actually worked for LinkedIn as well. And he was and he's a he's a UX designer with them. And what I did is I reached out to him and I said, Hey, I really like your work. You know, can I uh can I promote something you're doing? Or you know, since I'm making these videos, I asked him, like, can I interview you for this little segment and I'll promote whatever uh whatever you're trying to like work on, whatever you're doing at this time. Even just like little things like that. Like you find somebody who is really kicking a piece in your industry and just go like they like, I don't know, even if you have to be like, hey, can I like do your laundry or something stupid like that? I mean, the point is individuals.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, no, yeah, super important. And and so did he get back to you? How did he respond?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, he said, yeah, let's I'd be happy to do an interview with you. Um I don't know if your your listeners are familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, but he says basically the same thing. It was like, hey, look, if you want to get close to someone, just like reach out to them, be like, hey, what can I do for you for free? What can I do for you for free? Yeah. You know, I think a lot of people, whenever they're looking for mentorship, they'll say, What can you do for me? And that's not what you want to do. Use like, what can I do for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it there's been a lot of kind of research and just feedback that the the mentors get a lot out of having those mentees too. And and a lot of people can relate to this. They probably don't always think of themselves as mentors, uh, but whenever there's a new hire, whenever whenever you're helping anyone with anything, it doesn't even have to be work-related, like you're acting as a mentor, and oh yeah, you usually feel really good about it, like, oh, especially watching the growth occur, and then you get vested in in that person's kind of progress and development. So um once once you kind of continue to develop that relationship with this gentleman. Is it a a guy for this one? Yes. Yeah, so like he's going to be like vested in the video that you create, and then all the future videos, and and yeah, especially if he's in your industry too, he might start taking taking some notes from you, seeing things that you're working on different. And so it's it's just crazy how things like that could end up working.
SPEAKER_01Oh, definitely. Uh so number four is build a personal brand. My favorite example of this. So there's this guy who I've been a part of his group. Uh his name is Tim Salu. I put a link to his LinkedIn and everything. This guy is a uh he's just like a career rock star. And I I definitely recommend people be a part of his group. He's got this big uh group on Facebook called mentors and mentees, and then a bunch of like uh specialty groups, like design mentors and mentees. Uh he's got one for uh I forgot, like he's got a lot of like one for like healthcare and uh and what this guy's doing, you know, he's constantly he's not just like a lot of people, whenever they're looking for a job, they just say, Oh, I want to, I want to have this job. And then they get into it and they're like, Cool, I'm gonna show up the office eight hours a day, work 40 hours a week, come home, and then like be with my kids or sleep or whatever. But the problem with that is that nobody knows nobody outside of your office really knows who you are. And you know, let's say, like we talked about, I mean, sometimes you get laid off, sometimes things happen and you can't have that job forever. And I think it's like it's so so so important that, like, how can you always give back to someone else? You know, now, for example, I'm not gonna be teaching Jacob Nielsen anything useful, most likely. But those of you guys who don't know, he's somebody who's been in this industry for like forever, and he's like one of the godfathers of UX, but I can what the people who I can help are like brand new UX designers who are still trying to get that job. Yeah. So that's why I'm always putting out content of like, hey, you guys are struggling finding your first job. This is how you can do this, this is what you can do. Uh and not only is that helpful for these other individuals, but it's also helpful for it helps you become a better teacher. It helps them get feedback that they can apply to make them more competitive in their market when they're actually looking for work. And it also builds, you know, also like whenever you're posting on LinkedIn and you're just making this huge name for yourself, you know, that can get you booked for speaking gigs, that can get you that builds your connections, you know. Like whenever you're posting on LinkedIn a lot, their algorithm will reward you and show you to other people, which then builds your connection. So I don't know, let's say a few years from now, if I needed to find another job that I could reach uh, hopefully I'd be able to reach out to my LinkedIn contacts and be like, hey guys, I need does anybody have any opportunities that are coming up? Most likely a lot of people do. You know, most jobs you get are through word of mouth, it's not through applying through job boards. Exactly. And so when you uh, you know, when you're cultivating that long-term harvest, you know, you just like think about like you've got a big field and there's a bunch of seeds in there, and you're just watering all the seeds and it just seems kind of pointless, but you're really building something huge in the long run. And it's important just like go out, you know, like post something, even if you don't feel like doing it. There's so many days where I don't feel like posting something on LinkedIn, but I just do it anyway. And it's like, oh, I don't want to get another, I don't want to have to deal with comments, I don't have to talk to people, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, it could just be like your introvert side and like just trying to get you to like, yeah, I just really want to veg out, just chill. Um yeah, it's perfectly fine because you definitely you're on there more times than that. And so yeah, I always appreciate all the things you you say, and yeah, I try to um I don't try to bug you too much with comments or messages, but yeah, I do like it so it can boost the people that it's gonna be uh most relevant to. And that the cool thing about kind of that personal brand too, and a lot of people connecting to you from that medium article and and some of the other content you're producing, you provide a value to them at some point along the way. And so, like maybe you help them in a small way or big way get that first position, that first job. Like, how how crazy would it be that yeah, in the future you need a new opportunity and and they become aware of this, like, hey, this totally changed changes for me or really helped me out, like he doesn't even know it or whatever. And and now all of a sudden I'm like in this higher position, I'm able to help him out. Like, that's oh yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01That's kind of the the law of reciprocity too. Now, like I'm not I'm not doing this for any selfish intentions. Like, if somebody, if I can get you know, a thousand or like ten thousand people to go out and like really like get that first dream job that they want, and they don't give me anything back. That's fine. I have no problem with that. I'm happy knowing that they're happy. But at the same time, it's like if they, you know, somebody becomes a senior executive at Google, and then I need I need to find work, and and then they'll remember, like, oh, hey, you know what? That guy really helped me at that point in my career. You know, maybe I can return the favor.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, you never know, seriously.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and just the fact that you are kind of constantly just pushing out this content too. It's like, hey, this guy is pretty, pretty selfless. He's just always looking to share. Like, he would be great for our team. Um, we know we need like we need more people like this, basically. Yeah. That's that's awesome. I really appreciate everything you've been sharing. Um, you did mention you're also a career coach. So do you only work? Oh, true.
SPEAKER_01Oh, sorry. Yeah, it's okay. I'll make them I'll make them really quick. So, yes, build a personal brand. That's absolutely important. Number five is you might have to work for free for now. And I know that sucks. There was definitely some times where it's like I could barely afford to eat, and I'm like, why am I working for free? But you know, sometimes you gotta do it, you gotta build that experience. Uh, and it's just like again, you know, when you're first starting out and you don't really have that kind of experience, you just gotta do something. Yeah, and yeah, it ties into the X Prize, it ties into the a couple, the couple like internships. I got their angel list, but I managed to make it work. Uh, and then the sixth one is never stop learning. A lot of people, I think a lot of people they'll get um when you're young and you're excited or you're new in this industry, like you're really in this mindset of like learning. But then once you get into that industry, I think a lot of people like they'll get into it and they'll think they'll kind of uh they'll think like, oh yeah, I know all this stuff. You know, I know I know everything there is to know in this industry, which like it doesn't matter if you've been anybody's been in an industry for 50 years, I'm gonna call bullshit on that. But uh you always gotta be in this mindset of like, what can I be what can I be learning? What can I be working on? What can I be doing that's gonna keep elevating my game constantly? No matter how you know how high up in an industry someone is, there's always something new you can be learning that you can apply.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Well, and this is this and just tech in general, rapidly changing too. So just just cause you might have some concepts and and know of things, there's just so many things developing and changing, and things look drastically different user experience-wise, just from two years ago, let alone 10 or 11 years ago when people are uh may have been starting their careers. And so, yeah, there's people people need to stay on top of their game as far as learning different ways, and and even if it's from like a management position, I know a lot of people transition into management roles, and then they're less kind of needing to know the the nitty-gritty details, but you still want to be aware of like who's got the skills and and what's kind of up and coming and stuff to you. So, yeah, it's all important info. Um, so you you mentioned you're also a career coach. So do you only work with UX designers, or is there like a preferred set of individuals that you just really enjoy working with?
SPEAKER_01I mean, right now I've just been working with individuals who are wanting a career change, so not UX designers specifically. Uh I'm still, you know, still kind of like starting out as a career coach. So I'm figuring that out as I go as to like specifically what group of people I want to work with. But right now it's just general career changers.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, that's awesome that you're just kind of helping anyone and and I think developing like a niche or just kind of segmenting out like who you really enjoy working with, uh, that just kind of comes with time. I know it's something that took me a while to focus in on the tech group. It was my focus back when I was working at the traditional firm. I I wanted to help everyone, and then when I started my business and said, you know what, I want to help everyone, then really it just people weren't getting the message. It was very hard for me to create content too. And I I want all my stuff to kind of tie together. So my content was too general and it took me a few months in, but I was like, you know what? Like the tech people is who I'm able to help, I understand all their stock options, all their tax issues, uh, career transitions and changes, uh, different things like that. And so I just need to focus on in on this, and it really changed my way, it changed my enjoyment level to be like drastically higher by being able to focus on that from a content standpoint. And and so, yeah, you're you're gonna hone in on this thing, and and it might end up being UX designers, or it might be something totally different. You might find like a a certain segment of people that you're like, oh, maybe it's like the uh the people with those uh fishery degrees or something like that. You can get super niche oriented and kind of help uh a lot of people. And once you kind of do get to that point, um, there's a lot of general things that apply to to people generally, but once you're able to find that niche, then you start to become an expert on all those smaller details and and being able to do that too will give a lot of people kind of peace of mind, like, oh, he really understands me and kind of um because yeah, you've you've seen that same exact situation like so many times. So you're already knocked out of the park with all the value that you shared uh with your stories. But uh, if you had to focus on one main piece of advice that you'd give anyone or maybe your younger self, if you could go back in time travel, what would that kind of uh piece of information be?
SPEAKER_01Uh I would say don't worry too much about trying to figure out what you want to do and what your you know your purpose is in life. I think there's so much emphasis placed on like what is my purpose in life? What am I supposed to do? And I think that's that's a very caustic word uh because it's like it it kind of implies that there's like this, you know, this uh pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that's like somewhere that's like you have to find it. And once you find it, like everything's gonna be blissful. Uh but what I've found is that the the thing with finding what you're meant to do in your life is that you actually need to create it. You know, in order to give life meaning, you have to, or in order to gain meaning from life, you have to create meaning within it.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01What I mean by this is that you know, you're not gonna be uh there's not gonna be any one path that's perfect for you, but as you go along into that path, it becomes more and more perfect. Um I mean, unless it's like completely not the right field, you know. If I if I tried to be an actuary, then I'd just be like, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this the whole time. Yeah. But at the same time, too, when you go out and you're just kind of like trying something, it's like, oh, I want to try this field, oh, maybe I don't like that. I'm gonna try this field, oh maybe I don't like that, but I like these certain things of it. And then like with user experience design, like it's a very arty creative field. But then I'm also able to take uh for like uh producing content, for example, I can draw my film and video background from uh the there's even some things in user experience where I can bring uh the idea of like sampling bias and the scientific method and uh certain statistical ideas that I can bring into user experience design, which makes me stronger for that. Uh and also like whenever you know, a lot of people who are coming into UX design, they're coming in with these very interesting niche backgrounds. So then if you wind up, you know, let's say in my case, uh if I found a company that specializes in you know something like UX design that's related to marine environmental protection, yeah, and all of a sudden I'm a thousand times more valuable than just a general UX designer. Same with everybody who's getting into this field who's got like all these very specific backgrounds, like you've actually got something very significant to offer, and you may not realize it. And that was just came from experimenting and kind of deciding what you want in life.
SPEAKER_00For sure. And my I have a client that just uh transitioned from a bootcamp too and uh as a data analyst, and that was one way he was able to find the job. And he was also the one I messaged you about to um because he actually received that no first. Um, but once once he kind of followed up with his like, oh, I really appreciate like he got to the interview stage, so he had contact information and he was able to say, I really appreciate you guys taking the opportunity. Uh, they ended up coming back to him and saying, you know what, like we really liked you, so we're gonna find find you a position. And the reason why I think one of the reasons why I think that ended up working out is because he was super passionate about uh kind of the basically how food gets to where it's like supposed to go and how to make that efficient and as low cost as possible. And that's something he's super passionate about. He cares about um organizations, charities, and things like in that realm. And so he was super focused. There was only like a small amount of companies he was gonna apply for because that's what you're he wanted to be working, and so yeah, that matches up and with what you just said. Like if you have this experience or have this kind of desire or passion for a certain thing, and you apply for those things, you're gonna stand out so much more because you're speaking specifically for that. They can tell that you're passionate about it once you once you get to that stage of being able to have someone actually look at yourself and not like the computer algorithm kicking kicking out those emails, but yeah, it's super super valuable for sure.
SPEAKER_01Uh it's funny, I was reading this this fantastic book uh by Eric Barker. It's called Barking Up the Wrong Tree, and it was also like this ties into uh like romance too, where it's like there people think like, oh, there's the one out there for me. It's like, no, nobody's the one, but you create the one for you. Yeah. So as you've got like an astronomically low chance of just meeting someone off the street, and it's like this person turns out to be the right person for you. This has been proven time and time again. But once you meet that person, you start getting a relationship, you guys start knowing each other better, then they become more better for you. It's the same thing in your job. You know, there is no perfect job out there for you or no perfect career, but once you go into it and you start building momentum and you start building skills, that's when you start like back, passion will actually follow after, not before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01Seriously, like when you invest yourself and you start gaining these new skills and start learning more and start getting interested, your passion comes after you get into the field or after you meet this person, you've known them for a long time. It's just that's how human psychology works. And we've got it so backwards, and it puts a lot of pressure on people who are like, well, what should I do with my life? It's like, I don't know, dude, do something to figure it out. That's how you figure it out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, it makes a lot of sense too because we're we're constantly evolving, and that's kind of once you start talking about relationships, it made it connect even more for me. But even in our careers, like you get to a point that's it's not game over. It's not like you won the game, like the game's gonna continue. It's a it's an open world, you have to constantly be interacting, and things are changing, the workforce is changing, your team is changing, like so many things are constantly changing. So just because something was awesome and perfect one day doesn't mean it will just inherently be awesome forever. Like you have to continue to to work and enjoy it. And and again, if we kind of circle back to that uh diversity standpoint where if if that perfect thing was just the same thing every single day and it wasn't changing, it wasn't evolving, it might not make you all that happy five or ten years from now. Um, but it the nice thing is most things are not like you're constantly moving forward, time's changing, I'm getting older, you're getting older, all these things are are changing. And so if you're changing together with your spouse, if you're changing together with uh where you're headed career-wise, that's cool. Uh, and I want to check that out as far as investing and stuff, um, and then that passion following because you're putting a lot into it. Um yeah, that that that makes a lot of sense when you think about it. And there's a lot of things too that people um like once you purchase it, you consider it to have higher value than uh before you purchase it because now it's yours.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Cool. So I really appreciate you being on today, Sam. Um, before you jump off, let all the tech kids know how to best get in touch with you if they want to connect um or or team up with you and uh to be their career coach.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, definitely. So uh connect with me on LinkedIn. So my handle is sharperUX, so it's LinkedIn.com slash sharperUX. Um my name is Samuel Harper. Uh, and if you can also find me through through LinkedIn search. Um, you can also find my article in the show notes that at the end it's also got a little CTA that dates you to my LinkedIn page. And then just connect with me there. And then if you're interested in any any one-on-one mentorship or anything like that, go ahead and connect with me. I'm posting a lot of free content. Uh so you're welcome to just kind of like take in, take in my content and take in my knowledge, or if you want to work with me one-on-one, then we can talk more about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, perfect. And I'll make sure you're LinkedIn. Um, obviously, we're connected there. I'll I'll pull that link, I'll I'll throw it in the show notes as well. So make it easy for a lot of people. Um, yeah, again, really appreciate it. Anyone that does link up uh with Sam on LinkedIn, just make sure you, when you are seeing the content, if you think it's at all valuable, even if it's not valuable to you but other people in your network, uh, just throw a like on that because that is something that tells the LinkedIn algorithms that uh this should be boosted to your uh connections and just more to the world too. So yeah, it definitely helps these things go a long way. And and who doesn't want to see like valuable content as opposed to to people whining about stuff or or having negative outlooks on things? So you definitely want to see more of Sam uh in your news feeds. Thank you. We definitely need a lot more positivity in this world. For sure. Awesome. I appreciate it, Sam. Thank you, Lucas Havity in this world. For sure. Awesome, I appreciate it, Sam. Thank you, Lucas. Thank you for listening to Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp. Remember, if you like what you've been hearing, to subscribe, review, and share with your friends and colleagues. I'm also still taking suggestions for future episode topics and guests. Do you want to take your connection to the show to the next level? You can find me on LinkedIn or on Facebook. Catch you next time on Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp.