When I was starting out in the field of UX, I had very little “real world” experience. It was the one piece of feedback I kept hearing from recruiters after countless interviews. “We’re looking for someone with more ‘real world’ experience.” As a new grad, that was tough to hear over and over again.

当我刚开始从事UX领域时，我几乎没有“真实世界”的经验。 这是我经过无数次面试后不断收到的招聘人员的反馈。 “我们正在寻找具有更多'真实世界'经验的人。” 作为一个新的毕业生，很难一遍又一遍地听。

I wanted to have something concrete to talk about during my interviews that wasn’t a class project. It was about 6 months into my post-grad job hunt and I felt like I needed something to act as a stepping stone until I could get a full time UX design job. I finally turned to an unpaid internship which was very short lived. I want to share what my experience was with my unpaid internship in case you were thinking of doing the same.

我想在面试中说些不是课堂项目的具体话题。 毕业后大约六个月，我觉得自己需要一块垫脚石，直到我能获得一份全职的UX设计工作。 我终于转向了一个短暂的无薪实习。 我想与我分享我在无薪实习中的经验，以防您想这样做。

我如何找到无薪实习 (How I Found My Unpaid Internship)

I was desperate for experience. One day during my job search, I noticed some unpaid internships at startups on AngelList. It seemed like a great way to boost my resume and add “real experience” talking points during interviews. Since it was unpaid, I felt much more confident that I would get the position. Who would want to turn away free help?

我渴望获得经验。 找工作的一天，我注意到AngelList上的初创公司有一些无薪实习。 这似乎是提高我的履历并在面试中增加“真实经验”谈话要点的好方法。 由于该职位是无薪的，所以我对自己担任该职位充满信心。 谁愿意拒绝免费帮助？

The internships I found were for product designers and most said that they would be unpaid. A salary of $0. There wasn’t a length to the internships, but they seemed like they would last up to a few months.

我找到的实习机会是针对产品设计师的，大多数人说他们不会得到报酬。 工资$ 0。 实习没有时间，但是他们似乎可以持续几个月。

招聘流程 (The Hiring Process)

I applied to a couple of UX/UI design internships and had phone interviews with two startups. The first one wasn’t a great fit for me because each person lived in a different country, and there were only 5 employees. Communication would be difficult and the work seemed like a lot for an unpaid position, so I passed. The second one was an early stage startup with 3 employees and I would be the only UX/UI designer. The workload seemed manageable at an estimated 4–8 hours per week.

我申请了几次UX / UI设计实习，并与两家初创公司进行了电话采访。 第一个不适合我，因为每个人都住在不同的国家，只有5名员工。 沟通很困难，而且对于一个无薪职位来说，工作似乎很多，所以我通过了。 第二个是一家只有3名员工的早期创业公司，我将是唯一的UX / UI设计师。 估计每周可以工作4到8个小时，这似乎可以控制工作量。

Since it was an unpaid position, the interview process was super simple compared to a regular tech interview. I only had one phone interview and they hired me.

由于是无薪职位，因此与常规技术面试相比，面试过程非常简单。 我只有一次电话面试，他们雇用了我。

The only paperwork I had to sign was an NDA and since it was so new, there was no onboarding at all. I would have a weekly phone call with one of the cofounders who let me know what my tasks would be for the coming week.

我必须签署的唯一文书工作是保密协议，因为它是如此新，所以根本没有入职。 我每周都会与一位联合创始人打个电话，让我知道下一周的任务。

工作不是我所期望的 (The Work Wasn’t What I Expected)

I didn’t receive the help or guidance that one would expect during an internship. Since I was the only designer, I had to do the work on my own. My only resource was to ask the cofounder for feedback, who wasn’t very UX savvy. I would’ve loved the opportunity to shadow another designer, but that wasn’t possible.

在实习期间，我没有得到期望的帮助或指导。 由于我是唯一的设计师，因此我必须自己完成工作。 我唯一的资源是向联合创始人寻求反馈，他对UX的了解不是很深。 我本来希望有机会给另一位设计师蒙上阴影，但这是不可能的。

When I applied for this unpaid position, I was also under the impression that I would be doing a lot of UX/UI related work. The reality was something different.

当我申请这个无薪职位时，我还觉得我会做很多与UX / UI相关的工作。 现实是不同的。

Instead of UX/UI work, I was working on designing and creating social media templates and icons. I mentioned that I wasn’t well versed in that area and wanted to focus more on the users. They said they weren’t ready for the mobile app design yet, but it would come soon. Unfortunately for me, that was taking longer than I had hoped. I didn’t want to work on icons, so I ended up quitting after a month and a half.

我没有设计UX / UI，而是设计和创建社交媒体模板和图标。 我提到我不太了解该领域，并且想将更多的精力放在用户身上。 他们说他们还没有为移动应用程序设计做好准备，但是很快就会到来。 对我来说不幸的是，这花费的时间比我希望的要长。 我不想处理图标，所以一个半月后我最终退出了。

我退出后感到尴尬 (I Felt Embarrassed After I Quit)

I started to feel ashamed and embarrassed because I spent such a long time doing work for free with nothing to show for it. I didn’t have enough content to put together a full case study because I worked on smaller projects that were more graphic design than UX design. Since the work wasn’t really UX related, I didn’t feel comfortable putting it on my portfolio, or even on my resume.

我开始感到as愧和尴尬，因为我花了这么长时间免费从事工作，却无所作为。 我没有足够的内容来进行完整的案例研究，因为我从事的是较小的项目，这些项目的图形设计比UX设计更多。 由于该工作与UX无关，所以我不愿意将其放入我的作品集甚至简历中。

One day, while browsing Twitter, I read a #designtwitter thread that opened my eyes. It was about unpaid internships, and how they take advantage of new designers. The responses were almost all saying that people should get paid for any work they do for a company. Reading everyone’s responses really validated what I was feeling after I quit.

有一天，在浏览Twitter时，我读到了一个#designtwitter线程，让我大开眼界。 它涉及无薪实习，以及他们如何利用新设计师。 答复几乎都说人们应该为自己在公司所做的任何工作获得报酬。 阅读每个人的回复确实证实了我辞职后的感受。

我从无薪实习中学到了什么 (What I Learned From My Unpaid Internship)

This unpaid internship taught me how much I need to research what I want in a position. I need to ask the questions I’m actually thinking about early on, and not assume that a job will be everything I hoped for. I took these lessons with me in my future job applications and interviews. If something seemed off, I questioned it and made sure each position was something I wanted.

这份无薪实习告诉我，我需要研究多少我想要的职位。 我需要提早开始真正思考的问题，而不是假设工作就是我希望的一切。 我在以后的工作申请和面试中带走了这些课程。 如果出现问题，我质问它，并确保每个职位都是我想要的。

我的最后想法 (My Final Thoughts)

If you’re considering doing some work for free to boost your resume and portfolio, think twice about it. Plan out how much of your time you would be putting into the work, and what the outcome of the work would be. If it’s something you can’t turn into a case study, or explain the reasoning behind during an interview, it’s not worth your time. Working for free could be an easy way to gain some experience, but you have to know what you’ll be getting out of it. Your work can’t only benefit the startup, it also has to benefit you.

如果您正在考虑免费做一些工作来增加简历和投资组合，请三思而后行。 计划要花多少时间投入到工作中，以及工作的结果如何。 如果您无法将其变成案例研究，或者无法在面试中解释其背后的原因，那是不值得的。 免费工作可能是获得经验的一种简便方法，但是您必须知道自己会从中学到什么。 您的工作不仅可以使初创公司受益，还必须使您受益。