Career Services Mentor/Career Coach Pairing
We know how important a Career Coach is for your Career Services journey, and we want to make sure you feel supported throughout your job search. In addition to the rigorous vetting process to become a UX Academy mentor (more on this here), our Career Coaches are required to either have in-depth hiring or managerial experience, or are established enough in their career to understand the challenges and hiring process in the industry.
You can rest assured that each of our coaches is thoroughly vetted to be able to support UX Academy graduates in how they need at this stage. Different from a design mentor in UX Academy, your Career Coach is supporting you through interviews, design challenges, networking, and ultimately preparing you for the job search ahead.
We take into consideration several factors from availability to expertise to preferences when pairing students with Coaches, but we cannot always guarantee a perfect personality match. The onus is first on students to ensure they're being communicative with their expectations and needs as they're learning.
If a student has not worked with their mentor for at least two weeks, we will kindly ask for students to first give their Career Coach a fair opportunity to align on expectations. Candid, but respectful communication is extremely integral in any mentor-mentee relationship, and this means speaking up to your mentor if you want things to change. Voicing your feedback not only offers an opportunity for growth to your Coach, but is an essential skill for you as a designer working with future stakeholders and team members, ultimately shaping you into a stronger designer and candidate.
If you have given your Career Coach a fair shot, and you have put in the effort to communicate and align on expectations, we can offer a mentor switch as the last resort. If you feel you would like to request a new mentor in such cases, please contact the CX Team.
If your Coach has been unresponsive, it's important to keep in mind that mentors are busy working professionals who mentor in addition to full-time jobs. However, we do set an expectation that they should respond within 48 business hours of you uploading work.
Note that you can always find your mentor’s contact information within your dashboard on the right-hand side, and we’d encourage you to first communicate directly with them.
If you haven’t heard back from your Career Coach within the expected timeframe, please let us know and we’ll help sort things out!