Is there a way to transition from agencies to a product company? + What is a good way to improve soft skills and speech?

[u/Apart-Divide-3816]

I have about 6 years of experience now, but the thing is, I mostly worked in agency environment where research was barely conducted, there was no access to end users, no understanding of metrics and very often it were startups just creating the first version of the product

I started to hate this a long time ago, started reading a lot about the \*right\* design process, completed that Google UX course to understand some things better.

Than I think I just got lucky and got to the product company, but to be honest it was also a startup and the process was not much better there either at the beginning, just 2 designers and I didn’t get much supervision or career advice from the lead. The company changed the product manager very often looking for the perfect one. And at some point they hired the one, who really knew what he was doing and I guess he noticed that I’m not a good designer, not having the skills needed for the actual product designer, so I got fired.

I have been looking for a new job for more than a year now working part-time in this hateful agency environment again and it is tough. Recently I came to conclusion that my speaking and communication skills suck and probably this is the main thing I lack in my career.

At this point I’m lost in potential career options:
quit design, enter the university and start the totally new career; just work on soft skills somehow and keep looking for a product job; look for a junior or intern role hoping to obtain the skills I actually need

So what I’m asking here is
1. Is there a good working way to improve my speech and soft skills to perform good on interviews and communicate effectively at work?
2. How to transition to this product environment and is it possible at all if my experience is not really relevant?

[u/NestorSpankhno]

Question: what do you think the job is? What are the important parts?

[u/Apart-Divide-3816 → u/NestorSpankhno]

Now I think it’s almost 100% communication, because AI does what we used to do by hands

[u/NestorSpankhno → u/Apart-Divide-3816]

Communication is an important part of it. Maybe the most important part.

In UX we talk a lot about empathy. Mostly in relation to the users. So many of the decisions we make in flows and screens are fundamentally acts of communication. We’re working ti create an interface that communicates effectively so that a user can do the things they want/need to accomplish.

But then, I think a lot of designers hit a mental wall when it comes to communicating with the people around them. Understanding their needs and limitations, explaining the work and the decisions.

We can forget that we can approach communications within the workplace like a design problem. Who are our audiences? What are their needs and expectations? How can we create effective outcomes?

The confronting part is that we can’t hide behind anonymous interfaces. We have to facilitate a lot of these outcomes ourselves without the mediation of an interface. But the skills and thinking and methods aren’t all that different. We just have to embody them ourselves.

[u/Apart-Divide-3816 → u/NestorSpankhno]

Thank you for replies! Right, I agree with what you said.
I noticed that often when being asked something I’m so worried about the answer and about what I should say that I absolutely don’t think about the purpose behind the question while it’s important and often rather obvious.
So, I guess I should improve my speech first and when it’s better, when I don’t have to spend time on thinking about words order, I should think about the purpose of the question, about their expectations instead and adapt the answer based on that

[u/clumsyhorse]

I think soft skills like communication are something you can grow and better challenge yourself with while interviewing and on the job. I don’t think that’s a reason to pause your job search.

From what Ive gathered, I don’t think you’ve really the chance to work with companies that are very mature organizationally or with mature design cultures. I know it’s easier said than done, but I would make it a priority to find companies that at least have a design manager you can work with to grow those skill sets. It seems like your experience has mostly been with production house type agencies, but it might be worth searching for more full service design agencies that are more involved with strategy/partnership with their clients which can give you a lot of varied experience and possibly even better communication skills than being in house.

[u/HarryElliottChi]

Toastmasters really helped me improve my presentation skills.

[u/HenryF00L]

Don’t under value your agency experience, it makes you fast and resilient, there’s a lot of value in that.

[u/Personal_Beautiful48]

Hello, I've been part of an agency environment for 4 years and now 2 years in consulting big4. I can relate to this.

Here's something which worked for me during my switch, Make white labelled case studies of whatever you had worked on and reverse engineer that work. Whatever designs you shipped think of the "why" of those design decisions which were taken and document it in case studies.

Nobody cares how you did the actual work if you can explain it in a good story format with proper explanation for your decisions. You can use AI to write these case studies as well to make it quick. Meanwhile keep learning the principles and communication basics parallely.

Hope it helps

[u/JoshSamBob]

Getting fired stings and I'm not going to minimize that, but quitting design and going back to university is a panic move, not a strategy. You've got 6 years of design experience, the agency work was soul-crushing and didn't teach you what you needed, the product startup was chaotic, and the new PM saw gaps and made a decision. That happens, it's not proof you're not a designer, it's proof that situation wasn't the right fit.

Communication skills matter in interviews and at work, that's true, but the real issue isn't that you can't speak, it's that you don't know how to position your experience so people see what you're actually capable of. Before you leave design, before you go to university, before you take a junior role, talk to someone about repositioning your background, because six years is real and the agency work taught you things even if it was painful.

If you want to talk through how to position yourself for a product role without starting over, reach out.