Tips for transitioning from Visual Designer to Product Designer?
I have a bachelors degree in design and 5 years of agency experience but I’m looking to make the move into product design and don’t know how best to shape my approach. Should I be narrowing my portfolio focus or keeping in my wider skill set? I feel overqualified for some roles and under qualified for others when I read the description so I feel I’m in an in between place.

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Product designer roles are going to be much more focused on the process and the user experience than just visual design alone.

As someone who’s interviewed others for my company before it’s nice to see how they came to conclusions and had work to back up how they problem solved.

I’d say try to present as much of a well rounded portfolio as possible. Highlight that you’re skilled in visual design but also have solid UX and problem solving chops.

Also a lot of designers will come in trying to show that they did everything on projects (research, design, UX, coding) and its less impressive than you’d expect.

It’s more impressive to show you know how to work well with others and will be able to add support to your product and engineering teams and other specialists like UX researchers who likely will be designated if you’re going to a larger organization. Definitely show you have a good understanding of it but talk more about how you work with others or would work with others.

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This last part stuck out to me as great advice. My husband is a recruiter and when I pick his brain about interviewing, he always says talk less about “I” and more about “we.” Companies want to know how you worked cross functionally to get a project done

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I would look for contract work. So many companies are looking for UX/UI designers with heavy visual design skills just because they don’t have the time . Depending where you are based, KForce is a good starting point

I’ve heard good things about Ari Agency if you live in a urban area 😊

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