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I made this mistake once. So I went in an interview and it was with a really
big company i was in a very confident period in my life and i went like i'm gonna wing it i have my portfolio i know my portfolio very well i know the stories and then i didn't necessarily tailor that interview and my presentation to that particular role yeah i didn't get the job but uh i also realized that uh okay so uh i it's probably my fault
Hello everybody, how are you doing? Welcome on the next episode. I already lost count what kind of number it is, but anyways, welcome on the next episode. We are excited to have you back. We are excited to have you on the next topic and today's topic
is the UX job interviews. How do you handle the process? What are the stages you can expect? What are the questions you can expect? And ultimately, how can you impress your hiring manager throughout this experience? So what do you maybe need to have in mind? What do you have to
prepare. Let's try to go through all these questions today in this episode. But of course, before we dive into that part, let's start by just covering how was our last week and how are you doing, Ivana?
Hello, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you, Anfisa, for asking our regular weekly question, retrospective conversation. Well, my week was actually very intense, like all the weeks before, because some of the listeners may already know I just launched UX Bootcamp.
It's actually a UX UI bootcamp, but I was afraid of framing it as such because of the entire conversation throughout the industry. I don't want to get people, uh,
um, furthermore confused on the, uh, how UX and UI work together that in fact, in fact, they're not separated and they're, they're, uh, uh, let's say part of the same, uh, practice and process, but yeah, so it's a UX UI bootcamp. I just, um, announced it, I think two weeks ago, three weeks, we already have students that have, uh, enrolled. It's really exciting. We have the first cohort starting next week, which means that, uh, we're doing a lot of
preparation, conversation, trying to understand how we can customize their journey, trying to figure out who they are, what they like, what their goals are, what do you want to get from this learning experience? And so it's really exciting that it's finally happening as you know that we've been working at it for the past year.
And everyone on the team is super excited. And now it feels like it's coming to life. But at the same time, there is a feeling of pressure because you want everything to go perfectly. And until we have the first round, there's still a lot of unknown. And yeah, it's super exciting. But people who have enrolled also have a great attitude. We have people from all over the world-- US, Taiwan, Japan.
Romania as well. And so, yeah, it's, yeah, it's really, it's really great. This is what's taking up my time actually right now. And of course my little baby who now has her first teeth too. Yeah. And so, and so this is what I'm spending my time with. How was your weekend pizza? Yeah.
No many new teeth, but yeah, the last week was okay. I think we finally started having this nicer weather. It's almost starting to feel like spring because it's almost, it's actually the end of the April. And yet the whole spring we had like winter kind of weather, right?
the snow, the rains, the minus three degrees and stuff like this. So it's been super frustrating, including the fact that it's still a COVID period. So we all starving for like life and going out and having normal life, but it's not happening. So I start having high hopes for the May and for the summer moving on.
And, and yes, the last week was just another week, busy week with, with the full time job with supporting the students with the content creation with some with some partnership and and stuff like this. So it's been a lot of, you know, like a sort of backlog kind of work where you're trying to pull it up together as much as you can.
But yeah, we also finished like a mentoring program. So basically as a part of my course, we have like a mentoring program, which is not a bootcamp, not literally like you were doing, but it's more of a, we take a few students, six people per one batch and work with them for four months on their personal projects. And we just finished our last batch. So it's been a six, batch number six. And I'm kind of starting to think that I might need to take a break.
from doing this because I've been doing this for the last two years and so yeah I feel like I've learned a lot throughout this experience I've definitely gained a lot of perspective as to how it feels for students everybody is so different every time you take a new batch it's just so different how people think differently behave differently asking different questions and it's always
makes you start thinking about, you know, oh my God, what about this? What about that? So it really helps you to advance your thinking, I guess, and the perspective. It does really help. And with, you know, with the last six batches and H1 had like six students, I've gained a lot of perspective as to,
What could be the biggest struggles for people moving into that industry and, you know, trying to enter and break through the fence and kind of enter the industry? One of the goals for this year, I've started really planning the book. And I think I've started reflecting just a little bit on how do I see this content? How do I see the book growing?
being unveiled and what do I want to put there? What could be the table of the content and stuff like this? So I think after this mentoring program, I finally started
feeling that i need to be reflexive and and start you know planning this um this journey this new stage ahead and yeah the mentoring program helped a lot so most likely i'll take a little break um in the next few months from the next cohort and focus on the writing but we will see how it goes i'm always talking a lot about it but never have enough time in the calendar to just
you know free the space the mental space to embrace the unknown and huge new project so not sure not sure but I do hope I do have high hopes moving into it maybe in the summer but yeah let's not maybe to get too far away from our topic today and let's try to jump into this topic of this episode which is the job interview process
This question was requested by one of our listeners. So thank you so much for reaching out and for asking your questions. It's definitely, definitely helpful and helps us to understand what are the typical struggles are when you are entering the profession. So we are taking it step by step. As you know, in the last few episodes, we have discussed the topics like UX design for you and what are the stages and how do you break into it and what are the backgrounds and what are the...
All the things moving into the UX, but now I think it's the right next step to discuss the job interview process. And I guess my first question in this topic would be to you, Ioana. And it's what are the typical hiring processes looking like to you? What are the typical stages or activities or steps that...
people are taking in order to find a job. And again, let's do a quick disclaimer here that we know that the design industry is not a regulated one, it's still very young, so there is no standard that everybody could reference. And please always, when you hear our perspectives, think of them as just perspectives and opinions because every company treats things differently. But again, I think there are some common patterns there if you look into any job offerings online right now.
Maybe we can highlight some of those typical stages and activities that as the potential employee you're going through, you're going to go through. So yeah, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Anfisa. Yeah, so I'm going to answer both from my own personal experience as an interviewer, but also as an interviewee. So from the processes that I've been through as an applicant and the ones where I've tried to, I've been part of the recruiting process of hiring designers. So I think there is some commonality as to the patterns or order of hiring
activities or common activities that happen throughout the design recruiting process. I think that normally from my experience, it all starts with, let's say, a screener interview or a screener call. But I've also had it like in real life physical meeting with a
but this provided that you're in the same city. So usually it's done by phone and it can be either with the recruiter or with the hiring manager himself.
And basically the purpose of this, let's say screener call is that you both kind of get a high level understanding of what, uh, the role is about you as an applicant and also the recruiter, uh, or hiring manager gets a high level understanding of where you are in your career. If you want to pursue this opportunity, if it sounds interesting. And so you kind of figure out on a high level, whether you think that this conversation is worth having. And then, um,
the design, the standard, let's say the, the traditional process ensues. And this means that, um, usually in my career, uh, it meant a onsite interview or yeah, zoom interview, uh, where, uh, we go through, uh,
the portfolio. So many times you send out the portfolio before this meeting and then you have a presentation of one or two projects during the first interview. This is one part of the interview and another part can be just having an open
oftentimes informal, other times more formal conversation with questions around UX design and yeah, answering some questions and also having the opportunity to ask questions.
So this is, let's say, the interview part of the process and the portfolio showcase. But then for most UX design roles, regardless of their seniority, there's also, let's say, practical stage where you probably go through something like a whiteboarding exercise where you have a
a real-time practical project that you need to solve so that the hiring manager or the recruiter or in the case of hiring, you can get the chance of understanding the applicant's thought process and their design process and what types of questions they jump at asking, how they go about solving problems, what their
what's the place in which they feel most comfortable. 'Cause I've had interviews with people who immediately jumped to UI design and just they start sketching out screens. And I've had people who have to ask like 100 questions before starting to sketch something on the whiteboard. And so you kind of understand where that person feels most comfortable and what their thinking process looks like, which is essential.
And two more things can happen after. So I've mentioned the screener call. There's the interview, portfolio walkthrough, then the whiteboarding exercise. And I've seen companies, but this is a bit controversial in the design industry. I've seen companies that want to have also homework.
So you give a design challenge to the person who applied and then you give them a couple of days, like from one week to 10 days or even less to solve that design challenge. And then they solve it, they send it to you, you evaluate them or they evaluate you in case you're the applicant. And this is a bit controversial because some people argue that it's like you're doing work for that company. You should be paid for the hours that you put in the effort of solving that problem, that challenge they gave you.
but other companies argue that it's the best way to see them in more complex setups or with more complex problems than just a whiteboarding exercise. And also to make sure that they have the
they're interested enough, they're invested enough to give you their free time to solve this challenge. I myself, I'm not a big fan of giving people homework, but I can understand that sometimes you need extra reassurance to make sure you're hiring the right person. And I think that's that. And then there's also the interview with the HR. Usually things go well. Then you have an interview, the last interview with HR, where you start to discuss, uh, uh,
more, let's say logistical questions like the contract and so on. So this has been my experience on both sides of the process. And I think I spoke too much. How about you Anfisa? What's your take on this?
No, you definitely did not. No, it's actually, I think you covered pretty nicely the high level overview. Mainly, it would kind of depend which company you're applying to. I think some companies would be more sort of focused on the hard skills where they would ask you to complete those different challenges. And the conversation, the interview part would be much longer.
sort of shorter rather than in other companies. And for example, the company I've been hired just as you know, one year ago, I started a new job in the company, which I was going through the official hiring process for almost like a first time in my life. That process was very heavy on the interviews. Like we had only one hour practical challenge when I had to show my thinking process, how I approach solving problems.
But I think only one out of, I guess, six interviews was that practical challenge. And the other five interviews was actually all about talking. And I was really talking to different possible stakeholders. And now almost like one year in, when I'm working with the company, I realized why it was so important to have all those conversations like in the beginning before we jump into those relationships. It's true that right now when I'm working in a bigger company,
like a corporation company, you do have to have a lot of conversations, alignment, have different people and yeah, just have different conversations with different stakeholders and understand different perspectives. So when I had this
When I was going through this hiring process, I was talking to design managers, to the hiring managers, to design directors, to design people who are working, to some PMs, to some individual contributors in the team. And it's just been a lot of talks.
And yes, I think it was definitely useful and helpful because right now I can see that the company I was going for was really investing a lot in the team culture for the company I'm working in right now that people is the first priority. They do want to have a very self...
So safe and healthy environment, people who trust each other and stuff like that. And that's why it was much more interview heavy rather than hardcore sort of hard skills and practical challenges involved. I was almost like surprised that it was only one hour challenge because obviously I was
I think from the experience I've seen around, I've seen a lot of people taking those home challenges that would be taken, I don't know, 10 hours, week hours or something like this. So it was like an interesting experience. It was just one hour and really quick sketches and just explaining what were my thinking process. And that's it. It was enough to evaluate the thinking. So even so I can say it was not a hard experience in terms of, you know, going through this interview. So
So one thing you mentioned, uh, just a bit earlier that you were also hiring people in your past, you were going through the process when you were looking into the candidates. And I think that's a very interesting angle that we can also tackle a little bit today. Um,
And so I would love for you to hear what were the particular qualities or things you were trying to assess or understand when you were interviewing the potential candidates? Was there some maybe red flags or some questions in your mind or some specific things you were particularly trying to evaluate when you had interviews with the potential teammates for you or for your team, I guess? Tell me a little bit more about this experience you had.
It's a great question. And yes, I had some particular things that I was always looking for. And you actually named them red flags. And I don't want to talk about people in terms of red flags. But yeah, I was looking for signs of not having a good so because it was very important that they worked in teams, I was looking for signs that maybe they're not such a
good team player necessarily because some designers are like brilliant, but like a solo ranger, a solo designer working freelancing or the design and team of one. But since I was always interviewing for teams, I wanted to make sure that they can work well, they can thrive in a team context. And I think that you can tell that by the way they react to feedback or critique in this portfolio sessions. So I've seen a lot of people who became designers
very defensive when challenged with questions around their problem-solving process or how they tackle the particular challenge that they, a particular project that they presented. And so when you see people get defensive, it means that they don't handle feedback necessarily quite well, or maybe they're not used to design critiques and working with
with the opinions of others, which happens on a daily basis in teams. And so, yeah, I think that this is a major red flag, not being able to handle feedback or your work being challenged.
And so this is what I was particularly looking for. And yes, I think that we all discuss about how important soft skills are because hard skills, you can learn them, you can learn tools, you can learn the process, you can learn everything. And indeed, soft skills are something that I was interested
more interested in than necessarily the actual experience or, well, the actual experience is super important as well. But yeah, I was also very focused on soft skills and making sure that
they're a nice person. I think it's important that you hire nice people that can bring a positive energy exactly to the team. So yeah, this is what I found. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's so critical. Like when you work day to day and there is...
sometimes uncertainty some hard questions some hardships of the working in the bigger companies you at least want to make sure that you have nice people around you and you can laugh out of situations reflect on situations make things work better next time so you do want to have the safe space working in teams and that's super important that's cool that you have mentioned this um
Was there something also, I'm just curious, because I have not been a hiring manager in the past. I was only like in the interviews where, you know, we have the new candidates sitting in the interviews and we get a chance to meet them and kind of say what would we like to work with those people in general. But yeah.
I was not necessarily like looking for people, right? And so when I was sitting in those interviews, I was just mainly the people were presenting some of their case studies and I was just trying to ask really how they think. So I was really focused on their thinking process
And it was a bit hard for me to, like in a, let's say, 30-minute interview, understand what kind of person it is. So I think it would depend. My experience was not super, you know, involved with the, like, personality assessment, I guess, but more of the almost like hard skills, I guess, hard skill side of it. But I wonder if there are specific things that you look into the portfolio also, maybe case studies, when somebody is presenting case study. Are there some things that you might...
let's say, could be a deal breaker for you or things that if you don't see in the portfolio would be maybe a bad sign for the candidate. Is there something you want to mention before we move forward?
Yes, I actually have something I want to mention here. I think the biggest red flag or thing that scares me or discourages me from hiring or considering an applicant is when they are unable to articulate why they made a particular decision. When they show me screens or they show me a solution they came up with and then if you ask
something along the lines of how did this decision happen? How did you choose this particular interaction over another? And if they're not able to give a reason for their design choices, then that's, I think, the number one
yeah, a thing that makes me question whether I can trust this person with making design decisions. Because I think that the number one or one of the...
essential skills that a designer needs is to be able to make informed decisions, to articulate their decisions, to understand why they're making certain choices in their design process and yeah, be able to communicate them. And if you don't, if you're unable to show that skill in an interview, then that's a bit worrying. And I just want to make a mention as per the last question, I just want to say that I said that I want to hire nice people
which doesn't necessarily mean that I want to hire happy people who pose no problem and are just making jokes all day and they're like a very nice person to be a friend of. I'm not afraid of uncomfortable people or people who are challengers. I think they're great for a team. So it's not that I want to create the environments or teams where everything is just very positive.
positive and everybody's like a bit superficial. I, I want, I think that uncomfortable people are super valuable, but there's also a fine line between being a challenger, being uncomfortable, being a truth speaking and so on. There's also the danger of becoming, I don't know, toxic, aggressive. And that's something that I don't think is a positive. I don't want to encourage that. And I don't want to hire that type of toxic, uh, toxic people. So yeah, I, uh,
I think, I hope I answered your question and I also got back to the previous question a little. Nice, that's good that you have mentioned it. I agree, like it's too important, it's important to have both people in the team, otherwise nobody is willing to take the responsibility for the hard things. Okay, let's try to move on to the next couple of questions that I had in mind for this conversation. So,
What are the typical questions that you can hear in the job interview that you maybe were asking or you were asked? Was there some questions that you want to bring up so people kind of know what to expect and maybe can do their homework by answering those questions somehow in the back of their mind? Yeah. So what could be the questions, maybe even categories of the questions that you could hear in the interview? Yeah.
I'm just gonna, I think there's a lot of variety and I think that probably I've gotten different questions or asked different questions based on the projects that were in front of me, that were presented to me based on the person that was in front of me and their particular set of skills and the particular background and attributes that they had.
So I think there's a lot of variety when it comes to questions, but there are some questions that seem to be like a pattern or more often asked than not. And I think that one of them is, so people often talk, you will be asked about your process, which is something that you probably will be asked.
but not with the intent of finding out that you are doing the, I don't know, classic stages. Now you empathize, now you ideate, now you, so people don't want to hear a checklist of activities that you do in a general UX design process, but they want to see how your process was in a particular challenge or in a particular context.
So when people talk about you will be asked about the process, it's important that you understand that what's important is the process that you chose or you had in a particular context, situation, project. So making sure that the process is relevant to the challenge you're solving. So yeah, process will probably be a point of the conversation.
And again, not the linear classic process that we see shared on Instagram, but the messy back and forth type of process and type of story. This is one thing. Another thing that I like to ask and I have been asked and I enjoyed being asked is to discuss the difficult parts of every design challenge that I presented to discuss the difficult parts or discuss, let's say,
challenges, what was harder for me in my career in general, but also in a particular challenge. Because I think that when you talk about the difficult parts, then you also see where that person has maybe
some vulnerability or not necessarily where they have better skills in coping with hardship. And every design process will have its hardship and its difficult moments. And it's important to understand how the person you're interviewing overcomes those hard moments and how they deal with them. So talking about the harder parts of the design challenge is something that's also quite common and important.
What else? I also want to hear about what inspires this person that I'm interviewing. It's an exciting question. So what type of, let's say, design leaders do you follow? Where do you get your design information from? Do you prefer books? Do you listen to podcasts? What podcasts? What YouTube channels?
and so on. So understand what makes them inspire, what gets them exciting, excited, because you want to have excitement. You want to have people on your team that resonate with your type of team culture, company culture, projects that they will be working on, products that they will be improving. And so you want to understand what gets that person moving. Yeah, maybe understanding how they deal with feedback is another thing that I'm circling back to. Maybe understanding...
actually asking directly, um, how did you deal with some difficult feedback that you got in a particular moment of your career and then understand what means a difficult feedback for them and how they, how they, uh,
how they managed to cope with it or turn it into something positive. And yeah, I think these are some of the questions that I find valuable or important to ask in an interview. Which are yours, Anfisa?
That was great. I love the points you just brought up. I thought it actually made me think about also some of the points and I'll just pick up from where you left and kind of put more on top of what you have said. Any interview could start from literally just you and, you know, tell me about yourself. So basically just your background, maybe like just to understand. So this way, the hiring manager could understand where your context, your background, your some sort of
roots of your thinking, maybe what shaped you as the person, why you decided to become a designer, maybe what were your first projects, what motivated you to join the UX team and stuff like this. So again, more about you and why you are doing the design thing, why you're interested in design role.
maybe then I could expect hearing some of the questions about like a self-awareness and really understanding do you know what you who you are what you're worth what you can bring on the table as the designer and that's why I think self-reflection as an act and we have covered it a lot in the previous episodes make sure to listen them so this where this is where the self-awareness part could be really handy in the interview and you could be asked questions like what
What are your weaknesses? What are your strengths? What are your approaches and understanding the critiques? You know, stuff like this, which you just mentioned. Maybe what are your motivation? And let's say...
some interesting moments or interesting situations, like what was the last conflict you had in the work or hard situations? How did you solve those? How did you approach solving them and stuff like this? So I guess it's about understanding who you are and how you approach things, but also how do you deal with different situations? I think it's more like a soft skills test when you have those questions. And then I think
It's also very common when the hiring manager is asking you sort of about the motivation to join their team. So they could ask you questions like, why do you want to work here? What are the particular aspects that attract you? Why this product? Why this team? Maybe why this culture?
What do you know about the company? Do you have any questions for us? What is most interesting to you? And actually, I think the trickiest question here would be, do you have any questions for us? Because this is the questions where the hiring manager could really assess whether you did your homework and really just try to think what is important for you and what do you want to have in your next, I guess, role in your next workplace.
So it's important. So when somebody is asking you this question and you don't have any questions prepared, that's a little bit of a bad sign, meaning that you don't really care. You just want to get hired. You don't really care where you would work. It's important to know why you want to work there and what questions you have, particularly to this team or this manager you're talking to.
And that is actually the perfect place to also ask your questions about the team culture, the York's maturity level, the tools, the typical day-to-day lifestyle of the designers. So make sure you have those questions somewhere prepared in front of you. And I think sometimes I could hear also questions like,
I think those would be more challenging questions about your design thinking approach. And there could be questions that would challenge your curiosity. For example, what is your favorite app and why do you like it? What's your favorite experience, web experience or app experience online? Or what are the worst experiences you've ever heard? Can you tell me more about it? And this way, the company or the manager would try to assess your critical thinking
skills, trying to see if you care about details, if you care about how people are going through the apps and what exactly you like in the solutions and what are your values as a designer. So those could be different question type of questions where you're being assessed on different levels, starting from your thinking process, your critical thinking, your self-awareness, your personal motivation, your story,
your personality and of course why would you want to work in these companies those those are the questions I think are pretty that are pretty common to hear at least in my experience okay so I think with with all this context we have just covered I think it's a it's a good timing to start talking about the tips
So for all of those aspiring designers who are trying to transition to UX design and maybe are scared to jump on the first interviews, what would be your tips on how to stand out on the interviews? What to prepare, what to keep in mind, what kind of mindset to have? And yeah, how do you stand out basically? How do you nail it in the interview? I think that there's no one size fits all recipe for winning the interview. I think that what, what, what,
was what felt like a winning attitude so far in my career, both in hiring and when I was interviewed and
got the job was the fact that if you show excitement and excitement not in a silly way like yeah I want to do anything everywhere but if you show interest just like you said if you show genuine interest for that company and for that role and if if you are uh let's say coming with uh with an open uh attitude at the interview and are positive I think that this helps um
help to get the role as opposed to, I don't know why designers, sometimes they feel like they have to come with this a bit of an arrogant attitude in interviews because that will make them like more valuable or more, I don't know. Yeah, I'm certainly interested, but I've seen many designers also come in my interview when I was interviewing for roles and they came with this
Yeah, I don't know how to call it. Superior attitude towards the team and towards the... I'm cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's something some designers do. And that's like a faux pas. Like the French say, you don't do that. Don't. So I think that having the right attitude, like a proactive, collaborative attitude, that will help a lot.
Another thing that you can do to secure or contribute to your success is to be honest and not just not show perfect processes or perfect challenges or pixel perfect screens and say, okay, this is what I've been working on and it's flawless. But maybe be honest and talk about the struggles, talk about, I don't know, what didn't work in a particular project.
and what you learned from that thing that didn't work. So being honest and being open about your struggles as a designer is something that is instantly valuable and shows that you are very self-aware and honest
introspective person, which is really super important when you're trying to find the job. And I think that another thing that you can do is to do your homework well. Don't go unprepared in interviews. I made this mistake once. So I went in an interview and it was with a really big
big company, huge company in Asia. And I was like, I don't know, I was in a very confident period in my life. And I went like, I'm going to wing it. I have my portfolio. I know my portfolio very well. I know the stories. And then I didn't necessarily tailor that interview to
and my presentation to that particular role, which was a role that was looking more into management skills. It was a bit more senior and a bit more around team management. And so I didn't showcase any of those. And then, yeah, I didn't get the job, but I also realized that, okay, so
it's probably my fault. It's never just your fault when you don't get the job. It may be that you're not the right candidate for that particular role. And that's absolutely fine. You don't have to guilt trip yourself. But what I'm trying to get at is that you should do your homework and you should understand the role that you are applying for, the company you are applying for, the
the product you will be working on, the setup you will be working in, and then do your homework if you think that position makes sense for you. And you can bring value to that particular role and then go prepare to go with everything else
yeah planned and thought through and not just uh hoping that you'll wing it because you're a good designer and that's usually not enough so these are my uh three cents and fisa i'm looking um forward to hearing yours oh my god you covered such a great points already i don't even know what to add on top of that
One thing I wanted to add also, and I think this is again coming from my perspective, my experience, things were A, being a nice person, approachable person, open-minded person that people want to work with. Again, this is about being collaborative, being a nice team player, being
be in person who people want to work with mainly so that's important again just like you you have mentioned already right don't be there don't get there don't go there feeling like you're such a smart ass know it all and figure it out and just hire me don't yeah convince me why would like you want to have this a nice approachable persona i guess um
It's an introduction. You want to make a good impression, show who you are, be honest, be authentic, be yourself, basically. And I really like the part that you said, being honest, because if you're coming so confident that you know it all, yeah, I don't think that's the right attitude to go into it. I also think for me personally, what was critical is to have their
And this sounds like I'm repeating myself, but the critical part was to show the critical thinking. When I was going through the interview, when the hiring managers were trying to assess my skills, where I would try to go through my case studies. And it was very, very important to have all the right answers prepared.
prepared every time you are presenting your case study you need to have the reason why you need to know what was the protocol what was your search process what were the main insights and how they shaped your solutions your decisions moving forward how you prioritize the problems how your what was
your ideation process and how did you select the best ideas with what the criterias maybe you were looking into so always trying to rationalize and articulate your decisions in a critical thinking way so not just like because it looks nice or because i feel so or because uh
I think it's what works. You need to explain why it works. What are the criteria? What are the priorities? How exactly it was solving the problem and why it was solving? Always thinking why, right? So this was a very critical point
part in any interview I was doing. And if I were able to really rationalize my solutions, I was almost like 50% in and people from what I have seen in the interviews, I did so that people were sort of nodding their head and feeling like this is the thinking we want to have in the team. So this is important as for me.
And the third part, just like you did mention, it's important to be prepared and know why exactly you want to be in a company, what are the challenges you want to work with, maybe what the team culture you're expecting, what are the skills you want to learn in your journey, and if this company is willing you to
provide you with this growing skills or growing opportunities and stuff like this so yeah three parts such as your you being a nice person that people want to work with open collaborative and stuff like this then critical thinking and then third um is homework so knowing the company you're applying to those would be three key i guess parts that i would need to make sure um
tackled well before I go into any interview knowing that those would be things which will be highly assessed. Again, just my perspective, I think that again it's not regulated so it could be different in different companies and different aspects could be important. My assumption is that for example in design agencies
you might be more assessed by your hard skills. You know, what's your portfolio? Show me your visual decisions. Show me why exactly you choose those, let's say, directions and visual styles and stuff like this. So again, the questions could be different, probably depending on the role you're taking. But I'm talking from my experience being a UX designer mainly.
And maybe, you know, it's almost, I think we've tackled a lot today, but I was thinking, should we also quickly go through the things which we do not recommend doing under interviews? And I know we already partly covered this with the attitude, with the homework and stuff like this, but anything else you would particularly call out to keep in mind and try to not mess up in the interview as you're going into it?
Yeah, I think that there's actually two categories of things. So don't mess up the common sense things like don't be late in an interview. Don't be rude. Don't interrupt your interviewer. And also more often,
more than courtesy, it's important that you actually ask questions as well. So don't go there like this is a unidirectional conversation where they ask and you answer and you have to, I don't know, convince them that you're the right candidate and you have no power or no curiosity or no... It's really important, but...
both for your success in this application and for you as well and your future well-being, that you ask questions and understand if that job is right for you. So it may sound like a cliche that it's not just a company that's interviewing you, you're also interviewing them.
But in fact, that's the reality. So you want to ask enough questions to understand whether you would enjoy working on that. Because the worst thing that can happen is that you get the job and then you're unhappy with it. And then you realize that, oh, this is not what I wanted to work on or
This is not what I was expecting or I understood it completely different or I imagined something completely different. So this is another, this is actually one of the most important points I want to make for today that you also have to make sure that you're interviewing the company and the company is right for you. And so the biggest mistake that you can do under the slide is to not ask any questions. Do you have anything on this, Anfisa?
I loved it. I actually had it even also like as a point. And if you wouldn't mention it, I would definitely make sure that we have discussed it today as well. Uh, I, I just wanted to say that it's true that it's a relationship you're embarking yourself into. So you need to have a common, it's, it's not just a one-sided match. It's, it should be a mutual match because, um,
I think the company would also be in trouble if you join the company and you don't want to work there, you don't have motivation, you're not doing your job, and then you actually drop out after a few months. It's a very expensive process to hire people. And so you don't want to hire somebody who is not eventually going to be interested in working in there. So take this into consideration. And I think it's also coming back to the point I have covered
I think last time when I, like in the top three takeaways that I talked about the confidence. But I think that because sometimes you might feel not confident, especially if you're just, you know, getting started and it's just one of your first interviews, you might feel yourself a little bit weak or like an imposter. So you go into this process feeling that everybody will be evaluating you and you will be so stressed out that you will forget, you know, to ask the question. So I think it's important to sort of set yourself up
in prior to that interview and really just talk to yourself, like calm yourself down, maybe meditate, whatever helps you best, but really try to think of the fact that it's not...
that they will be evaluating you, you will be evaluating them as well. So it's almost like a date. Think of it as a date, if it helps. It's an introduction, you get to know each other, you ask your question, they ask your questions. It's not that you have to marry tomorrow, but you want to sort of get to know each other and really to try to understand if there is a potential there. So don't think that...
You need to get married as soon as possible. And if that's not the right company, you'll never get married. No, you need to try out different things and go into different days and figure it out. So it's important to be confident, know what you're worth, and also try to be...
to try to take it a bit more lightweighted in a lightweighted way. Don't stress too much. Help yourself, be confident, know what you're worth, know what you can bring to the table. Listen to our previous episode where we have discussed already why it is important to be self-aware person and reflect on and kind of build this creative confidence, if you will. But yeah, it's super important point. And I'm really, really happy we had a chance to discuss it today. Okay.
If that's it for today, I think we can wrap up today's episode with the top six takeaways. How about that?
Should we? Okay, I see the nodding. Okay, so Ioana, from our today's conversations, what would be, and I don't want to say top six takeaways. I would like to say what would be the three main takeaways that you want our listeners to have after this episode? So if they finish listening to the episode, what they should keep in mind? What are the three things that you want them to have remembered from the conversation we had today?
I think I'm going to go about it retroactively. So I'm going to start with the last one that I mentioned as a very important point. Don't forget that you're also interviewing the company. So number one, make sure that you want to be in that company, ask questions, understand as much as possible about the role, the team, the company, the product.
Make sure it's right for you. Make sure you want to have those particular set of challenges and tasks and responsibilities. And so this is super important. Also do the interviewing yourself. This is number one. Then the second one is that you should always go prepared.
Do your homework, understand clearly, have a clear understanding of what you want to showcase, what you want to communicate to these people. What are the stories that you want to present about your work? Why also?
always answer yourself why do i want to share this project over another or what do i want the audience the hiring manager the recruiter the team what do i want them to to see to get out of my story this is uh the second point so do your homework and the and the first point is um the first this is retroactively going is that um you should be prepared for a lengthy uh
So design jobs don't usually get offered after just one interview where you ask several design questions. And that's that. You should also, you should be ready to go through several stages from the phone interview screening to an on-site interview, maybe then doing a design challenge on-site, online on Miro, maybe do a home challenge, whatever.
maybe do an app critique or product critique. So there will be probably several stages that you will need to go through and you have to show up prepared for all of them and take them seriously. And yeah, if you treat this process responsibly, then probably your efforts will pay off. And before I wrap up, since I already said my three points, I just want to apologize to our listeners if they heard a baby.
at some, in some particular moments of this conversation. Yeah, it's, she's like my sidekick and it is what it is. So Anfisa, I'm curious to hear your top three takeaways for the audience. Super, yeah. First of all, you've covered it perfectly as always, but here are three things that I think I would also be
I want our listeners to take away from here. So one is know who you are. And I think it's not just being prepared for the interview you're about to take in one hour or so, but it's about knowing who you are as a person. And I think we discussed it so many times already. Just want to highlight it again. So self-reflection, understanding who you are, what your value is, why you want to be a designer, what are your great sides and weaknesses and strengths and stuff like this. Of course,
The second takeaway would be to do your homework and kind of learn everything possible about that company. Maybe know exactly why this company, what you expect from them and how do you think your both expectations match. So basically why they would want to have you on board and why maybe you would want to work with them. Why exactly it should be this company.
And then, yeah, I think it's also partly covering the takeaways you have been covering, but I think it's also very important to be able to feel comfortable and confident about your portfolio and knowing exactly which case studies you want to cover, why these case studies were the...
what are the strong sides that you want to show? And actually it's just me almost like replicating what you said, but I just, I just think it's a very important part because this is where you're almost being like, okay, this is the person that knows what they're doing. So it's almost like half. Yes. But let's also talk about who you are as a person. So it's super, super important to know and have this confidence in your process and know that
I think it's important just to have one or two projects that you're particularly proud of and that you know that they will impress your potential hiring manager because you have worked on them with your heart and soul, with your mind, with your thought about it very well. You tried it all. So maybe having almost like this highlight project in your portfolio, make sure you have this.
Because most likely in the interview, you will not have like hours and hours to talk through all of your case studies. They will most likely say like, hey, let's pick one of the case studies and you take me through the whole process. And you just have this project already in mind and you're kind of ready to perform it or present it.
So yeah, I know it's been a little bit of what you have just said, but I think it's an important point and I'm happy that we coincided at this point. Yeah, I think that's it from my side as well. Thank you everybody for taking your time to listen to this new episode. I do hope we have covered some of the questions or we helped you to sort some of the mess or maybe fears moving into this process. So yeah,
Thank you everybody for listening it. And if you have more questions or suggestions or requests, feel free to DM us on our Instagram. You can find us as honestuxtalks or just go to Anfisign or Ioana, which is UX goodies on Instagram and just DM anybody of us. So we would really love to hear what else would you like us to cover and what are the other questions you might have as a designer.
um that's it thank you everybody have a great day thank you everyone bye have a great day