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A comprehensive explanation.Photo taken byauthor.Every day, I talk with people struggling to find a UX design, research, or contentjob.The UX job market has never been this difficult to navigate. Even seasoned, talented UX professionals are struggling to land their next job. Many report applying to hundreds of positions without getting invited to a single interview. For some, months of unemployment have pushed them to reconsider continuing their careers inUX.I regularly hear reports of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people applying for positions, sometimes within the first 24 hours of posting. If youre a UXer applying for work, its easy to become disheartened by the seeming fruitlessness of yourefforts.The UX job market is a mess. Heres a comprehensive guide to why and what you can do aboutit.It wasnt always thisway.Getting a UX job three years ago was much more straightforward. In fact, from the early 2000s until late 2022, landing one was much easier, as there was a heavy demand for people with UXskills.I have joked that, a few years ago, all a UX professional needed to do was sit in a darkened room and whisper, I can do UX. In an instant, a half-dozen recruiters would materialize and start bidding on who would get the UXer into the first interview. That doesnt happenanymore.UX professionals became in high demand after the infamous Dot Com crash of 20002001. That global economic crash happened because companies jumped into emerging web technology too quickly without considering the need to make websites usable. Companies realized they needed their sites to be well-designed, pushing the newly formed UX field into a growthperiod.When the iPhone arrived in 2007 and apps emerged in 2009, the need for high-quality UX became even more prominent. The field expanded further with the growth of B2B, SaaS, and consumer applications like Netflix andAirbnb.When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, while other businesses were shutting down, tech companies shifted their focus to lockdown-related businesses, such as at-home delivery and supply chain management. These all required more UXsupport.Then, we saw the most significant hiring spike in UX history. The Biden Administrations 2021 Inflation Reduction Act included special R&D tax credits. Congress believed a massive investment in new technologies would boost the economy, so tech companies took advantage of those credits to hire speculatively.From the beginning of 2021 until late 2022, companies hired massive numbers of tech workers, including UX designers, researchers, and content professionals. Many were hired to work on speculative projects like the Metaverse, crypto, and consumer-grade self-driving cars. Venture capitalists and companies invested billions of dollars in these new technologies, and great UX wascrucial.But it didnt last. The growth in the UX market suddenly inverted. Whereas previously, there were far more open positions for UX professionals than there were people to fill them, things had changed. Now, there are far more unemployed UX professionals than open positions.And the question iswhy?What didnt cause this job marketmess?Suddenly, starting in late 2022, attaining UX jobs became much more difficult, but nobody seemed to knowwhy.People posted on LinkedIn and other social networking sites that their companies were laying off their entire UX teams. Dozens, sometimes more than a hundred UX folks, were let go atonce.Theories emerged. People started talking about how UX had lost the respect of executives, and thats why companies were letting teams go. Some insinuated that corporate management thought they could replace UX professionals with inexpensive AI.The general belief was the UX industry was collapsing because it had suddenly become obsolete. We can now see, several years later, that none of this turned out to betrue.There is no evidence that anything has triggered a loss of respect for UX. While UX leaders have always struggled to demonstrate UXs full value, that did not change significantly from 2020 to 2023. Nor has there been a single documented instance of a UX person being replaced by an AItool.Instead, as I write this during the first days of 2025, more UX professionals are employed globally than ever. Some estimates put the field currently at more than 2 million people. UX folks are employed by more organizations than ever, finding themselves in every industry, from environmental safety to sewage processing to government to shipping logistics.There are now more open UX positions than ever, and the field is growing at its highestrate.Yet, there are also more unemployed UX people than ever. And thats theproblem.If this current hiring mess wasnt caused by AI or a massive, sudden devaluation of UX, what was thecause?Five things that changed to cause this messIt turns out that there wasnt one cause. Instead, five things changed simultaneously.Change 1: The tax creditexpired.In the U.S., the Republican-led Congress chose not to renew the portions of the Inflation Reduction Act that gave companies hiring and retention incentives. As a result, employees suddenly became more expensive, and tech companies started seeking ways to cutcosts.This change pushed tech companies into significant layoffs. They cited the substantial unrealized expenses in those speculative projects (we never did get our Metaverse, did we?) and cut theirlosses.Theres a myth that companies targeted UX people more in layoffs than engineering or product people. However, theres no evidence to supportthis.When Meta laid off 21,000 people in 2022 and 2023, a few hundred were UX people. That might have been the largest layoff for UX people, but the discipline was not a special target. All the other layoffs were similar. UX people were never more than a small proportion of the total people letgo.Change 2: Interest rates increased due to inflation.Since Congress did not cooperate to keep inflation down, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank started raising interest rates. In April 2020 (right after the pandemic began), the Federal Reserve interest rate was at 0.05%. However, at the peak of inflation in June 2022, the Fed had raised the rate to1.21%.As interest rates rose, investors feared their corporate investments were no longer good deals and demanded that companies pay them back. This demand resulted in massive market stock buybacks, which allowed investors to withdraw their money. The buybacks forced companies to cut costs even further, which resulted in laying off more workers of all kinds, including UXworkers.Change 3: Bootcamp programs flooded the market with inexperienced UX professionals.Meanwhile, the speculative hiring period from 2021 to 2022 encouraged people to switch to tech fields, including UX. Low-cost boot camp programs took advantage of the demand and started a factory approach to producing graduates.Thousands of newly minted UX professionals with zero years of work experience were now competing against the recently laid-off experienced UXers for the limited number of available positions.Change 4: Automated hiring systems reduced application friction.Advances in online job sites and application tracking systems made it much easier to apply for jobs. Before these advances, Human Resources employees had to process every application. Online software now processes millions of applications with little human intervention.Because of this change, applying became as simple as uploading a rsum document and answering a few questions. Job seekers could apply to dozens of jobs eachday.Nothing in these new application tracking systems ensured only qualified candidates applied for the listed positions. Suddenly, people applied to any available position, regardless of their qualifications. The systems were flooded with unqualified candidates, and positions received hundreds of applications immediately uponopening.This change slowed the hiring process tremendously and made it more difficult for hiring managers to focus on genuinely qualified candidates.Change 5: Companies offered remote positions.Because of the pandemic, working from home was now possible, independent of the companys location. Before the pandemic, your job required you to work at an office that was an (almost) reasonable commute distance from your home. When companies started offering remote positions, you could work anywhere.This shift to remote work removed the geographic restrictions on job applications, giving applicants many more viable positions to apply to. The result was a dramatic increase in applications for every open position. And two things that shouldve changed butdidnt.There are a couple of things that, had they changed leading up to 2022, this inversion wouldve dampened if not been outright prevented.Non-change 1: UX should have gone strategic.Since its popularity in the 2000s, UX has been 100% tactical in most organizations. UX teams have devoted the bulk of their work to designing and validating specific designs. Companies started hiring Product Designers instead of UX Designers or Information Architects to create a one-size-fits-all position that works hard to deliver the least terrible products as quickly as possible.UX should have grown into more strategic roles as the field expanded and matured, but that didnt happen. Instead, UX teams remained tactical, emphasizing design aesthetics and cleaning up poorUX.This pervasive tactical approach became the de facto model of UX, with no real discussion among UX leaders about how to do anything differently. Thus, product managers and senior stakeholders had no alternative models with which towork.Organization management saw UX as an adjunct practice to support product and development efforts. The question became, How few UX folks can we get away with while keeping our development and delivery efforts moving forward? This mindset limited the value of adding more UX people toteams.Non-change 2: UX management didnt create senior opportunities.Without a strategic career path, senior UX professionals were left to hone their skills instead of learning new ones. Eventually, they became better at their practice than their companies demanded.Being at the top of your career path can become repetitive for many folks. They dont feel challenged in their work, which leads to frustration and a feeling that they cant grow without moving into a different profession, such as UX management or product management.It also limits the possibility of promotion and salary increases. Some UX folks tried changing jobs, but they quickly hit the ceiling in their new positions.Simultaneously, having the most senior people stuck at the top of the career ladder limited promotion for more junior positions. And without the current junior UXers moving up the ladder, early-career folks had limited opportunities to get their firstjobs.This lack of a career ladder created a hiring traffic jam, which increased the number of early-career UXers in the market. They looked for any opening that would take them, and they started applying to the open positions they could find, even when those early-career folks could see they didnt have enough experience for those positions. The result was hundreds of people applying to practically every open position.How long will this UX job market mess continue?When will it go back to the way it was? Not for a long time. If ever. It took 20 years to reach this inversion, and it could take a decade or more for the market to reverseagain.Another inversion would require many more open positions than available UX people to fill them. That might happen if some market changes trigger a massive increase in demand for UXpeople.There is precedent for this. After the 2001 Dot Com Crash, the companies that took their time to move into websites had just watched the first wave peak and then crash and burn. (We miss you, Pets.com sockpuppet.)Those companies could see that the web offered some value, but it was clear that success would require a thoughtful approach. Out of this clarity emerged our first massive demand forUX.The same phenomenon repeated in the early 2010s with the success of app stores and SaaS products. Investors and founders saw their chances of success increase significantly when they built strong UX efforts. (In that era, demand grew so much that banks, big-bucks consultancies, and other old-school institutions acquired entire design firms to have an already up-and-functioning team.)However, whatever massive growth trigger there may be, it wont arrive for years. Until then, this is the market well have to livewith.Navigating the newnormal.Successfully navigating this new post-inversion UX job market requires different job-seeking skills and practices than what worked before the inversion. This change is throwing many UX practitioners off their game, as what previously worked for them is no longerworking.In the pre-inversion days, hiring managers faced more challenges because fewer qualified candidates were available. Even if a candidate didnt 100% match the managers needs, they would still considerthem.Waiting for a 100%-qualified candidate could delay filling the position for weeks or months, so hiring managers would compromise with candidates who werent perfect matches. It was common for candidates to accept another companys offer because the hiring manager took too long to complete the interview process and make an offer. Even then, many candidates had multiple offers to choose from, requiring the losing companies to start the hiring process over with other candidates.In the current market, hiring managers have the luxury of passing up a close match to see if they can find someone perfectly qualified. With hundreds of applications for each open position, theres a good chance that a better match is waiting in the samepile.This new hiring climate requires significant adjustments to how candidates present themselves and how hiring managers evaluate their candidates.What you must do if youre looking for your nextjob.If youre currently looking for your next job, there are a few things you can do to make the processeasier.Dont take this personally. Even if you were let go without warning. It is not about you or your abilities.Think of the job search as a months-long project. While there are actions you can take that will reduce the length of your search, it will likely still take months. (Not like the short timeframes of the pre-inversion times.)Dont apply to jobs for which youre not highly qualified. The spray-and-pray approach of applying to every possible job doesnt work. Neither does applying to jobs youre overqualified for. These things dont increase your chances. They just clog up the hiring pipelines for everyoneelse.Work your existing network. Reach out to people who know you and your work already and ask them how theyre doing. When they reply, you can say youre in between positions and excited for your next opportunity. Your friends will automatically tell you about any positions theyre aware of, so you dont need toask.Dont search alone. To fight the loneliness and potential depression of a long job search, build a community of folks who are also looking so you can talk to others who get it. Current job seekers tell me great things about participating in the activities of ADPList and Phyl Terrys Never Search Aloneproject.Tailor your rsum, portfolio, and cover letter to the specifics in the job ad. You must demonstrate that youre 100% qualified for the position. Everything in your application submission must prove that you can do this job because youve already done it elsewhere. Everything youve done that isnt proof you can do this job becomes noise to the hiring manager, so leave it out. Only focus on what matches the hiring managers needs.Finally, take care of yourself. Seriously, this is the most important thing. Pay attention to your own needs, stay hydrated, and take long walks. Permit yourself to tackle your job search like any critical project. Give yourself room to do your best jobfinding.What you must do if you might enter the job marketsoon.You may be gainfully employed today, but what if that changes? Many folks were surprised when their organizations unexpectedly decided to cut expenses. These folks werent ready to suddenly enter the job market. Being prepared is thekey.You might also be among the UX professionals ready to move on, but todays messy job market is foreboding. There are things you can do before you jumpin.Build up your Career Management Document. Make sure you regularly collect the artifacts and journey of your work experience. A rich CMD makes responding to positions with tailored materials much more manageable, which means you can respond to positions early.Start reaching out to your existing network now. Dont wait until youre out of work to contact folks. Connect with people in your network immediately, then keep in touch every few months. That way, it wont seem like you only reach out when you need job leads (which you should never dojust ask how theyredoing).Build up a bigger network. Track who gets to know you and the quality of your work. Connect with these folks on LinkedIn or add their non-work email addresses to your contacts. Find common interests outside of work, so you have things to continue talking with them about. Networking is all about building rich, lifelong relationships. (Think of it like planting a new apple tree. It takes years for the tree to produce fruit, so you must put it in the ground as soon as possible.)Constantly survey the market. In the olden days, UX folks had recruiters regularly banging on their doors and updating them on what hiring managers were seeking. Post-inversion, reading job ads is the best way to learn what the market wants. You dont have to apply, but knowing what the market is seeking can give you insight into how to plan your career goingforward.Be a lifelong learner. Dedicate time and effort to learn new things (and document what youre learning in your CMD). The more knowledge you gain, the more expertise you can communicate with hiring managers. Too many UX professionals let themselves stop learning, just repeating identical work assignments in every project. They end up without a good story to tell their next employer about their continual desire togrow.What can you do if youre hiring new UXers for yourteam?As a UX team manager, you can make the hiring process smoother.Far too many job ads are vague and only describe the attributes that would qualify anyone who is a competent UX professional. (Real bullets from recent job ads: Must be able to communicate with team members or Leverage usability insights to guide your involvement across a broad solutionspace.)When your job ads are too vague, they signal you (or, at least, your HR department) dont know what you want from your next new hire. It turns away many of your most qualified candidates, leaving you with many less-qualified applicants. Vagueness makes it hard for highly qualified candidates to get you the evidence they are a close fit for the position.I recommend hiring managers write a First Anniversary Thank You Note to their unknown new hire. The note should describe the accomplishments you want your new UXer to achieve in their firstyear.When you publish the positions job ad, the more you can post about the details of that note, the better your applicant quality will get. Youll give potential candidates insights into the comparable experience youll use to assess their fitness for thejob.Youll get better quality applications, which will get you to an offersooner.The mess is here to stay (for a while, atleast).Its important to realize that the job market has changed significantly and will not change back for a while. Its navigable, but the most successful approaches vastly differ from those before the inversion.Those who adapt have a much higher chance of nailing their next opportunity faster. UXers who keep trying outdated approaches will likely only experience frustration without getting their desired outcome: landing a greatjob.This article was originally published on CenterCentre.com.We have many UX job search resources available in our 52,000 member UX Leader community, Leaders of Awesomeness. You can join that community forfree.Why is the UX job market such a mess right now? was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
