Quit my sales job to design my experience in life
changing my life by changing my career to user experience design
my introduction to UX
Fed up with the emptiness of chasing money instead of fulfilment in my career, I decided it was time to make a change. I needed to find a way to combine my creative aptitude with my fascination for business and strategy. Fortunately, my best friend of 14 years, Timothy James (product designer) came to me with a brilliant idea…to try UX design.
He painted me a picture of his daily life in UX and how he was conceptualising and designing unique experiences that actually add real value to customers. And how that was driving strategy for companies to help them achieve their business objectives. I knew at that moment that this was where I needed to be.
Tim pointed me to the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) as a way to dive head first into learning, whilst I continued to work my full-time job. From the first lesson I was hooked and became fully immersed in the courses.
beginning my transition
One thing to know about me is that I’m very much an all-in kind of person. So, knowing these learnings were going to change my life for the better, I would get to work at 6am every day to study for 2.5 hours before the rest of the office would start arriving.
Motivated by results, I looked into how the certificate system worked, and very quickly decided that I had to get course results that would place me in the top 10% distinction. I proceeded to build daily and weekly goals around this achievement to ensure I stayed on top of my progress throughout each course. The outcome, my current lowest course result is 97%.
my background
To take a quick step back to understand my background, I began my career in corporate finance after being inspired by the movie “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” I quickly realised the banking game was less glamour and more long, stressful hours in an environment where making mistakes was not an option. I was tasked with managing senior stakeholder expectations on an international landscape, to assist in delivering high performance results across the business.
Taking my learnings, I pressed forward into the FinTech world through direct sales. This allowed me to be on the front line, driving business results, which is where I thrive.
All this was happening whilst I was studying at IDF, so I was able to apply my learnings for communication design and empathising with customers’ needs, to develop my sales strategy. This allowed me to quickly propel myself to top sales agent across 3 months, and earn the confidence of the executives to exceed performance expectations.
taking the leap
Whilst I loved the sales process and being able to generate revenue for the business, it simply didn’t give me the same ability to pair my love for strategy and innovation, that I felt UX would.
So, scared as all hell I decided to take the risk. I quit my high paying sales job and joined the UX Design immersive course at General Assembly. I had no idea what to expect but all I knew was that I was ready for change.
Once again I went all-in. Countless late nights, 4am starts, entire weekends all dedicated to the cause. Coupled with the guidance of a great instructional team, I was able to grow immensely over the 10 week program, and quite literally change my outlook and approach to life.
Throughout the 5 projects we completed, I discovered my passion for strategising solutions from concept to delivery, which is now where I’d like my career to progress.
my next steps
My entire thesis in life is to add the most value I possibly can, so I am now in the process of trying to find a design role that will allow me to learn how to design unique experiences that add real value, across multifaceted touch points. I’m looking to combine this with my deep understanding of business and finance, to achieve holistic results for stakeholders.
As my career progresses, my goal is to move further into strategy roles that drive the direction of a company, in the products and overall service it provides.
where to find me
To see my work or get in touch @ alasdairbarrie.com | hello@alasdairbarrie.com
Thanks for taking the time to read my story!
