To help us continue with our Industry Folder, in our Monday session in week 24, Jamie gave us the task of researching potential employers. I was put on a team with Ameer and Jason because we are all designers and will be looking to work for similar firms. We were asked to find and research three different employers; one in Norwich, one in London and one elsewhere in the world. Jamie provided us with the first company name to help us get started and in our case, this was Foolproof UX.
Company 1
Name: Foolproof UX
Location: 2-4, Queen’s Street, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 42Q (This company also has offices in London and Singapore
Number of Employees: 90 (UK)
Turnover: £11.5m – £12m
What they do: “We create products and services which improve the lives of millions of people all around the world.”
Notable names they have worked with: Suzuki, easyJet, Transport for London
Entry level/junior jobs available: Students are always able to apply to be considered for an internship, work placement and work experience. We are encouraged to send them an e-mail to express our interest.
Company 2
Name: Webcredible
Location: 133, Park Street, London, SE1 9ED
Number of Employees: 30+
Turnover: £6.5m
What they do: Webcredible is a UX design company with a global reach who have been active since 2003. The methodology advertised on their website is cultivate, investigate, innovate and accelerate.
Notable names they have worked with: Comfused.com, Dulux
Entry level/junior jobs available: There are no jobs of this nature being advertised at the moment but they are always open to receiving CVs.
Company 3
Name: Fantasy Interactive
Location: San Francisco – 351 California Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94104, USA
New York City – 30 Broad Street, Floor 34, New York, NY 10004, USA
Number of Employees: 43
Turnover: $9m – $10m
What they do: “A human centred design agency that pioneers.”
Notable names they have worked with: Xbox, Microsoft, Nickelodeon
Entry level/junior jobs available: There are no junior positions available at the moment, only senior design/development or project manager positions.
We soon noticed that the turnover for these companies is considerably smaller than those of the games companies the other groups found. This could be down to the UX industry still being reasonably new and not having the same number of contributors yet. This can also affect staff numbers and how well they are known outside of the industry. Following this, I considered the possibility that smaller companies just do not have the resources or time available to train junior employees and graduates. This became especially apparent when the games devs presented their findings and big companies such as Rockstar and Ubisoft offer a handful of junior programmer opportunities in large cities such as London. The majority of the UX companies my group found were offering a considerable amount of senior designer and developer roles and project manager positions. These would require at least 2-3 years experience in the industry prior to application, so this is out of the question for my personal position. To get into these types of companies with lesser experience would require going through a back-door route such as knowing someone who already works here or having an exceptional portfolio including outstanding, credible references. Having said this, they do accept CVs from people who are interested so that could be worth a shot in the future.