Hi Julia,

Thanks for reaching out! Glad to hear you’re thinking about making the transition. The Nielsen Norman conference is definitely no small investment, so I understand the hesitation. For me, it was one step in a long process so I knew for sure that I wanted to invest in it. But it did come after a long time of reading everything I could online, attending meetups to get to know people in the industry, completing the General Assembly course (which is also a chunk of change), etc. I felt that I had really explored every possible avenue and that I needed something else to kick everything back into gear. I had taken a bit of a break from pursuing UX to focus on my current role and I figured NNG would be a good way to reinvigorate myself, earn a certification, and to do a lot of great networking.

With that being said, I wouldn’t insist that it is the absolute most critical way to land a UX job. I am a big proponent of attempting to do as much on your own as possible. If something is going to be a financial strain, don’t push yourself to do it as you may be disappointed in the results if the money is going to be weighing on your mind!

One other note — does your company offer any professional development funds to its employees? A lot of companies are really great about supporting employees even if it’s not in their current field. While I didn’t receive support to attend NNG, I did receive a bit for my General Assembly class. I was completely shocked since I was working in marketing at the time, but my company was very supportive and that definitely helped!

Long story short, the NNG conference is great but I’d say only if you really feel like you’ve explored everything you can and if it won’t cause you to feel financially strained. Hope this helps!

Kristin