I recently finished a UX Design intensive boot camp. Throughout the course, I had a classmate who would regularly talk about how bad the job market is for emerging UX Designers. Immediately I would change the subject, or do whatever I could not to start to believe that. I felt that holding that belief would greatly hinder my chances of getting a job.

During this course, every night, I would think about working at my dream job in a suburb called Collingwood in Melbourne, that I would work a hybrid work schedule, and that my salary would be $80k a year.

After graduating, I was consistently seeing posts about how rough the UX market was right now on LinkedIn. Some junior UX Designers had spent months to a couple of years actively applying, networking, and going through multiple rounds of interviews and still were jobless. When I would come across these posts, and they were plentiful, I would immediately scroll past or log out. I even made a post later by encouraging others not to hold this mindset, and that there are great jobs out there for us.

A day after the boot camp ended, my husband and I found out we were pregnant. It was a very exciting time, but the morning sickness, which lasted from when my eyes opened to when they closed that night, and all the other ‘fun parts’ of the first trimester kicked in, and I found myself almost bedridden for over a month. I was only able to apply to one job in 6 weeks, from which I was rejected. I wasn’t able to attend a design week or any networking events I was going to volunteer at. I felt others in my class were making huge progress after graduating, but I wasn’t.

However, I told myself that I was content with whatever happened and that I wasn’t going to stress myself and the baby out. I just accepted my current situation and took care of myself.

Towards the end of this period, my instructor, who lived in Sydney, reached out to me asking if I wanted to attend a networking event at a small consultancy she worked for in Collingwood,  Melbourne so that we could meet in person. I was pretty severely nauseous that morning, and I went back and forth about going. But something told me I needed to go. So I pushed through and went. I got to meet my instructor in person for the first time and a few other grads she had invited as well. At the end of the event, she told a few of us that she was looking to hire a few new junior Designers for an upcoming project.

When I left the event, somehow, I knew she was talking to me. She had been impressed with my work throughout the course and had dropped some hints that she would recommend or employ me after the course. When I called my husband after the event, he said “Congrats on your new job!”

I had sent a couple of messages to my instructor on LinkedIn. One of them asking for a referral and one asking if she needed any pro bono work done. Neither of my messages were responded to even though I knew that she was a very busy person. I decided to surrender to whatever was going to happen and kept taking care of myself.

A week or two later, out of the blue, my instructor messaged me on Slack, asking if I was interested in a three month design contract role at her company with a view to something permanent. I almost dropped my phone! This was a junior design role that had not been posted anywhere! It is as if it appeared out of nowhere. She said it was a hybrid role, in Collingwood, and when I calculated the annual salary it was $83k. Everything I had asked for.

I went through the interview process. Sometimes, UX design interviews can consist of 5 to 8 rounds of interviews. I simply had a phone screen with a recruiter and a one hour “interview” that was basically just a chat learning about the project.

I put this company on my vision board and pictured myself working there. A week later, I got the call saying I had been hired!

Previous grads that I talk to can’t believe I landed a Jr. UX role that quickly after ending the boot camp, having only applied to one job in two months! I know wholeheartedly this situation was pure magic, and I give all my thanks to the law of attraction, The Secret, and that I was able to stay positive and really believed that this role was coming to me. Anything really is possible! Thank you, thank you, thank you!