Join a Job Search Council with Other Researchers
Through the UX Researchers’ Guild

*A Job Search Council (JSC) is a mutual support group of peer job seekers who agree to search together using a specific, well-advised process laid out in the book Never Search Alone: The Job Seeker’s Playbook by Phyl Terry. The Guild is forming JSCs because we believe this is an effective program for researchers to define their career objectives and priorities and find support. The Guild is in a unique position to form groups of UX researchers from our community. We believe there is a benefit to career planning with other researchers. Most people join because they are unemployed, but if that’s not the case, you can still use this opportunity to prepare for a future transition.

How does it work?

  • Register to join a JSC.
  • The Guild will form groups of 6 researchers with similar seniority and employment goals.
  • We will notify you when you have been placed in a group. If we don’t select a volunteer moderator, the group will select its own.
  • Your moderator will use premade templates to run the meetings. Groups can decide how often and how long to meet. Generally, groups meet weekly for 10-12 weeks.

How does the matching work?

  • We group people with similar levels of tenure in their careers, employment status (unemployed “fast-seekers” vs. employed “slow seekers”), goals (seeking full-time employment vs. independent consulting), and roles (individual contributors vs. leadership).

Meet with other JSC participants on May 17, 2024, at “Making Real Progress with Job Search Councils?” More information and registration here: https://lu.ma/jsc

What is the difference between joining a JSC with the Guild and Phyl.org? The Guild creates groups of similarly situated researchers and leaders. Phyl.org creates councils from different disciplines (but usually within product). If you prefer a group with mixed disciplines, apply to join a JSC here: https://www.phyl.org/join-jsc

Participating in a JSC requires approximately 80 hours of work over 3-4 months, but it’s all work that you will do on yourself and your positioning, work that directly impacts the quality of your search, your confidence, and your career. Essentially, you must be willing to:

  1. Commit to a time-tested process for searching that centers on articulating your market value. You’ll be tempted to spend all your time doing things “the traditional way,” but we know that, especially in this market, that is not effective.
  2. Attend meetings with your team to give each other support and feedback on the exercises you’re working through.
  3. You may also choose to join the JSC Slack community at Phyl.org to find connections with like-minded folk, get feedback, and discover new resources. Once a Guild JSC group is formed, the moderator joins Phyl.org, and then the members join if they are interested.

Don’t sign up unless you are committed to doing your work, attending each council meeting, and supporting your peers.

Apply to join a JSC
Activity Time
Join a Job Search Council/attend the first meeting 3 hours
Read Never Search Alone  10 hours
Regular JSC meetings (the first 10 meetings – about 1.5 hours per meeting) 15 hours
Designing your Mnookin Two-Pager (self-reflection on what you want and don’t want; as well as your career goals) 5 hours
Gratitude House exercise 2 hours
Complete the Listening Tour to discover what you want and what the market opportunity is. (We recommend 15 1:1 conversations following the structure in Chapters 6, 7, and 8 of the book). Expect about 1.5 hours per conversation in setup, follow-up, and actual conversation time. 22 hours
Candidate-Market Fit definition/decision (the hard part here will be honing this to a clear focus) 5 hours
LinkedIn/Resume Rehab and Sync to your Candidate-Market Fit 5 hours
~68 hours (we round up to 80)

 

Three breakthrough ideas animate Never Search Alone

  1. Job Search Council – Because your emotional balance is the most important thing to manage in a job search, you need a support group of fellow job seekers that will help turn your insecurity and anxiety into hope, motivation, and accountability.
  2. Candidate-Market Fit – You are the ‘product’ in a job search. Thus, before you begin networking and interviewing, identify precisely what you want and what the market wants. This key step will help uncover the intersection of your hopes, dreams, and market realities.
  3. Four Legs to the Negotiations Stool – Never Search Alone shows how to interview and negotiate for the four key things that will set you up to succeed in your new job: salary, budget, resources, and support.

 

Read more about the JSC commitment

JSC and Never Search Alone Videos

* Job Search Councils by Phyl Terry at Collaborative Gain.