From Content Writer to Designer: Tackling imposter syndrome & perfectionism in my content design career shift
I’m not the best at trying new things.
I get frustrated if I’m not immediately “good” at a thing. I have a hard time just trying something new and enjoying the process, worrying instead about the quality of the end result. Arts and crafts projects picked up during lockdown were quickly scrunched up or shoved into a drawer, while other ideas were never even explored because of the vague possibility of their failure.
(And yep, I realise that the very first sentence of this article is exactly the type of comment people like me need to work on not saying to ourselves!)
With this in mind, you can imagine how daunting it was to pivot my writing career towards a whole new niche. I had started my career in 2017 with the classics: SEO content writing, copywriting, and blog writing. But like many, I found myself rethinking my career direction in the wake of COVID. Sales-oriented writing wasn’t really my forte, but I also didn’t know what my options were beyond this.
As luck would have it, the agency I was part-timing for at the time set us all up with a quick career counselling session. The counsellor mentioned the word ‘empathy’ a few times, suggesting that maybe I was looking for a way to humanise my writing. And what’s a more human-centred discipline than UX writing?
After this revelation, I didn’t actually know how to take the next steps (or even what the next steps were). I had heard the term ‘user experience’ thrown around by some freelance clients and occasionally read articles sharing tips and tricks around content design, but that was the extent of my exposure to the industry.
After 6 months of having the idea of content design stuck firmly in my head but not taking any steps towards it (see above re: fear of trying new things), a recruiter suddenly reached out to me regarding a content design opportunity at Telstra. I couldn’t believe that, after an interview in which I admitted I didn’t have content design experience, I somehow landed the contract.
Here’s how things went in my first content design role.
The first 3–4 months
The imposter syndrome was strong from the outset, given that I felt I’d landed a role I wasn’t at all qualified for. All I’d done for the past 6 months is think about whether I should go into content design — how had I conned these people into giving me the job?
It didn’t help that during this period, I felt like I was barely staying afloat in the role.
- Working Agile was completely new to me
- The jargon used by the developers as well as the wider telco jargon was literally like a foreign language
- My lack of knowledge about what content already existed led to confusing double-ups and rewrites
- I had countless embarrassing moments in meetings — not being able to answer questions, answering questions in a way that completely missed the point, or asking an “obvious” question was my daily norm.
At this point, I was wondering if I should just quit.
The 6-month mark
At the 6-month mark, things started to click — just a little bit. Enough trial and error had taken place for me to start understanding the basics.
- Don’t just make random copy updates without considering what other parts of the app are affected
- Talk to other content designers to understand what they’re working on and how this overlaps with your work
- Stop and ask developers to explain what’s possible to build, and why certain bugs are coming up.
I accepted that there was literally no way for me to learn content design without being imperfect. I had to make mistakes. I had to ask stupid questions. And guess what? Sometimes your “stupid” question will have everyone else on the call stumped — maybe they’ve been throwing around an acronym without knowing what it meant, or been working off assumptions that weren’t quite right.
We’re all really figuring things out as we go, even if some of us look like we’ve got it all together.
The next 2 years
After these first six months, things have certainly gone much smoother. While there’s been months of challenging projects to get through, I’ve now got the tools to deal with it. I lean on my team for support, get things workshopped, and make sure to consider the bigger picture. I’ve since had the opportunity to present my work in various forums at work, observe and learn from user testing carried out by my team, and apply my skills across a variety of different digital environments.
Of course, you can never let yourself grow stagnant in your role. I’m now learning to work alongside AI (like the rest of the content design team at Telstra is also doing). It’s intimidating and challenging, but it seems like getting uncomfy has its perks, right?
