Uxcel’s vision has always been to provide amazing interactive learning experiences and to help designers improve their skills. Ultimately, though, our goal is to build a platform for designers to build meaningful careers.

Uxcel is built on three pillars:

  • Learning. This is done through our UX design courses, challenges, and arcade.
  • Testing and getting feedback. This is achieved through our skill tests as well as through the level tests in our courses.
  • Getting hired. This pillar is based on our Verified Designer Program and related career features.

Problem

Proving your skills as a designer can be time-consuming and challenging. Portfolios only show so much (they’re great for visual designers but can’t always accurately reflect the work of UX designers) and if you don’t have years of experience, employers may doubt your design knowledge and skills.

This is why the Verified Designer program was started. Our primary goal is to help design professionals showcase their strengths, experience, and achievements. All without having to invest weeks or months into a portfolio that doesn’t accurately reflect your skills or spend hours posting your work to various design showcase sites.

Prior to Uxcel, there weren’t any great options for showcasing your design skills and finding amazing design jobs. Your options are limited to:

  • Portfolio sites aimed at visual designers. These are great if you’re a graphic designer, motion designer, or artist, but they don’t allow you to easily share things like user research and testing. And the sites that include job boards often focus much more on freelance and contract work rather than full-time design positions.
  • LinkedIn. While LinkedIn is definitely important when searching for a new job — it is the top professional social network, after all — the fact that it focuses on every professional, regardless of industry, is both a strength and its greatest weakness. But that generalist approach means that finding amazing designer job openings is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Plus, there are very limited options for designers to prove their skills on LinkedIn or showcase their work. While you should absolutely have a LinkedIn profile, you should not rely on it to find an amazing job.
  • Closed designer job networks. These sites vary immensely in terms of quality and the chances of actually landing design work. Some sites do take the time to verify the workers who use the platforms, while others don’t and anyone can list themselves as a “designer.” Also, many of these sites originally started out placing developers, rather than designers, and the design portions of their platforms can come across as an afterthought. Besides, most of these sites focus on placing freelancers and contract workers, rather than full-time employees.

These options are available to designers, but they often focus too much on showcasing portfolios or a simple resume. Being a designer is about so much more than creating pretty images. It’s about your skills, experience, personality, dedication, and your thirst to keep learning about design.

Solution

The Uxcel Verified Designer Program was designed as a solution to these common problems. It helps designers prove their skills and showcase them in a professional profile. The program is primarily backed by our skill tests, built specifically for designers, and benchmarked against the entire Uxcel community. Besides the skill tests, we also have experts who review every candidate.

We’re on a mission to enable every designer to build their career and easily get hired.

Here’s how to join the Verified Designer Program:

  • Create and build your professional profile. Think of this as your online resumé but better. You can showcase your experience, skills, and portfolio for employers to peruse. Get more tips on how to build your portfolio here.
  • Score in the top 30% of our Verified Designer test. The test consists of 40 questions and generally takes about 15 minutes to take (you have 20 minutes to complete the test).
  • Pro tip: record a video intro! Users who complete this step are twice as likely to be accepted into the program. Get tips on what to include here.
  • Apply for the program. Wondering what we review? We’ll look at your professional profile on Uxcel (be sure to include a profile image and fill in your summary), your LinkedIn Profile and portfolio links, your career preferences, and your design background.

We’ll be in touch if you’re accepted! If you don’t get in, you can improve your skills, profile, and portfolio to apply again in the future.

What’s next?

Uxcel is crafting the best place to find remote designer jobs. You have full control of your professional profile and which jobs you want to apply for. We take a designer-first approach to the entire process.

You’ll get matched with opportunities based on your skills and preferences. Companies can approach you about working for them, rather than the other way around, or you can apply for jobs on our job board. You can control which opportunities you want to accept and move forward with, keeping you in the driver’s seat. And we're only getting started!

What are you waiting for?! Go ahead and start building your bulletproof professional designer profile now!