Zee Arnold, founder of UX Teacher Prep, spills the tea on her incredible journey from a 15-year teaching career to becoming a remote UX Researcher in just 5 months. Join Zee as she shares strategies, tips, and tricks to help you land your first tech role outside of the classroom. Discover how to showcase your transferable skills and escape burnout while finding the balance to unleash your creativity. Since her transition in 2022, Zee has been supporting other teachers in their career pivots by sharing her story, roadblocks, and valuable lessons learned along the way. You’ll also hear inspiring stories from other teachers who have successfully transitioned to creative tech careers such as UX Researcher, UX Writer, UX Designer, and Product Manager. Gain insights into the job search process and learn what to expect beyond the first 90 days in your new role. If you're ready to break into the tech industry and regain time for your health, family, travel, and all the things you deserve in life, hit subscribe and prepare to transform your future. Don't forget to share this podcast with a teacher friend who's ready to make their next move!
If you want to transition to a career in tech, you have to use tech! Ever wondered how AI can transform your career transition from teaching to UX design? I'm Coach Zee, a 15-year teacher turned UX Researcher and in this episode, I uncover the secrets behind leveraging AI to streamline your job search and land your dream role in the tech industry. Whether you're a seasoned educator ready for a career change or simply curious about merging education with technology, this episode will give you actionable insights to guide you smoothly into the tech industry.
Hello teacher friends, welcome back to the UX Teacher Prep Podcast. When it comes to AI artificial intelligence I find that there's two camps those who love it and are intrigued and curious to learn more. They use AI in their day-to-day tasks, whether at work or at home, and they appreciate how it improves their productivity. Then there's the others, the folks who are just like nope, nope, deaf to AI, use your own brain, etc. I will tell you if you haven't figured it out from my previous episodes.
Zee:
I'm in the first camp. I've seen firsthand how using AI can improve my quality of life, increase productivity and basically free up my time to move from doing the boring, redundant tasks to getting more creative and doing the things I love to do. From doing the boring, redundant tasks to getting more creative and doing the things I love to do. So today we'll be diving into how teachers can leverage AI to help them in their job search for UX positions. Whether you're a seasoned educator looking to make a change or just curious about the intersection of education and technology, this episode is for you. Stay tuned.
Narrator:
Welcome to the UX Teacher Prep Podcast, the ultimate destination for educators who aspire to break into the field of user experience and product design. Your host, zee Arnold, a 15-year teacher turned UX researcher, is here to guide, coach and mentor you through every twist and turn as you make your career transition into tech. If you're ready for a more satisfying career and lifestyle and you want the balance to unleash your creativity, this podcast is for you. Now for the show.
Zee:
All right. So teachers have a unique set of skills that can be incredibly valuable in the UX field, from strong communication abilities to a knack for problem solving. Teachers just have what it takes to excel in user experience research roles, and I say that over and over again because I truly believe it. But it's hard to navigate the job market and land that perfect UX job. Today I'm going to talk about five great ways AI can help you in your job search so you can land your new role, the role that you've been looking for, and finally turn the page and get started in your new career. So first, let's talk about AI-powered job boards. Websites like LinkedIn and Indeed use advanced algorithms to match your profile with relevant job listings. I bet you didn't even realize that LinkedIn was an AI-powered job board If you haven't already. Create a profile on these platforms and make sure to detail your experience and skills On LinkedIn. Set up alerts for UX researcher roles or user research or user experience design, etc. Whatever role you're looking for. You can customize these alerts based on your location, your desired company and experience level. Linkedin's AI is going to notify you whenever a new job that matches your criteria is posted. I know there's some people who say don't look for jobs on LinkedIn, go here, go there. I still believe that you can start on LinkedIn as a starting point to be able to see what types of jobs are out there and to be able to see the job description so you can match it. Similarly, on Indeed, use keywords and filter the results to find the best matches for your qualifications. This is a type of artificial intelligence that has been around for a very long time but, like I said, I bet some of you don't even realize that these sites were powered by AI.
Zee:
Next, you can use AI tools to optimize your resume. Platforms like Jobscan, tealhq and Resiai can be incredibly helpful. These tools analyze your resume against job descriptions to make sure that you're using the right keywords and highlighting the most relevant skills that you have. So you can use Jobscan to compare your resume with the job descriptions of postings you're interested in. This is why I said LinkedIn is important. The tool is going to suggest improvements to increase your chances of getting noticed by recruiters. For example, you can input a job description and ask the AI to analyze your resume for keywords like user research methodologies, data analysis and communication. You can also do this by inputting your resume and then the job description into ChatGPT. If you do this, I'd recommend not putting any personal identifying information into ChatGPT, and there's settings that you can turn off in there, too, to make sure that your information is not training the model if that's not what you want it to do.
Zee:
And speaking of ChatGPT, you can use ChatGPT to save yourself from writing the dreaded cover letter that no one wants to write. Ai writing assistants like ChatGPT or Jasper can help you draft cover letters tailored to specific job applications. And before I get deeper into this episode, I do want to say that tools like ChatGPT that build on LLMs large language models are not always 100% accurate, so make sure that you read over any document you create using AI tools. Once you read it, you can revise it, edit and add your own personal touch. Please remember that part. So back to the dreaded cover letter. So imagine you're applying for a UX researcher position at company XYZ. You can use a prompt like write a cover letter for UX researcher position at XYZ highlighting my eight years of teaching experience and my skills in analyzing data, communication and collaboration. The AI will generate a personalized cover letter that you can then tweak and customize further. It's that easy. They can literally generate this in seconds. Think of how much time you'll save by having ChatGPT create a first draft cover letter for you. I think back to when I was applying for jobs and I was writing every single tailored cover letter and there were a lot from scratch. It was extremely time consuming, to the point where I stopped submitting cover letters altogether. You have the tools at your fingertips to be able to do this rapidly and continue to iterate on your work. Get a quick draft out there and then you can go ahead and revise it and make it fit what you need it to fit. All right, let's move on Networking.
Zee:
Networking is another crucial aspect of the job search process and I'm sure you know this by now. So LinkedIn's AI-powered networking suggestions can help you connect with professionals in the UX field. Did you know that you can actually use prompts like find professionals working as UX researchers at X company or Y organization and get suggestions for personalized connection messages? You can. The AI is going to give you a list of potential connections and even draft messages to help you make a great first impression on them. It really doesn't get any better than that. I've talked to dozens of transitioning teachers who've told me that they felt stuck on LinkedIn and didn't even know how to find the right people to network with, let alone reach out to a random person Cold networking they have no idea how to even get that conversation started. With AI, the guesswork is gone. That's how helpful it really can be in your job search. You need to leverage all the tools you have available to you, and most of you actually probably all of you are on summer vacation right now, so you do want to spend your time enjoying the beach, enjoying family, friends and whatever you do in the summer. So try to utilize AI so you have more time back.
Zee:
The last bit I want to talk about is preparing for interviews. This is super important because, as a teacher, you're going into a new field and you need as much practice and understanding of the new field as you can get. You need chances to mess up and fix your mistakes before stepping into a real interview. Now I know that career coaches, including myself, offer interview prep and I honestly think that the best way to go is to work with a coach, but if that's not affordable or a viable option for you, ai is the next best thing. So platforms like Pramp and interviewingio offer AI-driven mock interviews and feedback. Interviewingio has anonymous mock interviews with engineers from Amazon, google, facebook and other top companies.
Zee:
For example, you can use a prompt like simulate a UX researcher interview for an entry-level position, focusing on questions related to user research methods and problem-solving scenarios. These platforms provide you with a realistic interview experience and constructive feedback to help you get better and better. You can also do the same thing in ChatGPT. You can use a prompt like I'm preparing for an interview for an entry level UX researcher position. Give me 10 common interview questions and answers to help me prepare. What I like about the specific interview prep platform, though, is that they give you in the moment feedback. Chatgpt can also do this, but it's going to take a little bit more crafting and knowing how to engineer the prompts to make that happen. So when I chat with clients, I get more into details about the prompts you could use to facilitate this.
Zee:
Now let me let you in on something. I used AI tools to help me write this very podcast episode, just to show you it was possible, and it cut my production time in half, literally. The key is prompt engineering, knowing your audience and asking the right questions. That's how you work with AI, so leveraging AI can significantly enhance any work that you're doing. The same goes for your job search as you transition out of the classroom, so I want you to take advantage of AI-powered job boards like LinkedIn, indeed. Optimize your resume with Jobscan, teal HQ or Resi AI. Craft personalized cover letters with ChatGPT or Jasper network, effectively using LinkedIn's AI suggestions, and prepare for interviews with platforms like Pramp and interviewingio. All of these are going to be vital tools for you, and I just named a few tools. There's so many more out there. That's all for today's episode. I hope these tips will help you in your journey from teaching to a rewarding career and user experience. If you found this episode useful, remember to share it with a friend. Thanks for listening. Until next time, be well.
Narrator:
Hey, thanks so much for tuning in. If you like this podcast, hit, follow and scroll down to leave a five star rating. Then share it with a friend. If you're looking for resources to help you on your tech transition journey, head over to uxteacherprepcom. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at uxteacherprep for daily tips and motivation. Have a topic you'd like to hear addressed on the show? Send us a DM on Instagram. If you're listening on YouTube, like, subscribe and share. Until next time, be well.
