I interviewed 217 UX candidates for open roles last year; here’s what works and what doesn’t
As Director of UX in a fast-growing healthcare tech company, it’s my job to build amazing UX teams.
Last year I hired more than 30 people from entry-level to director, after reviewing thousands of portfolios and resumes, and personally interviewing 217 people.
Want to get the attention of a UX hiring manager? We only care about two things: UX process and UX Impact. Ok, and ability to communicate UX process and impact: If we can’t figure out the candidate’s process or how they made something important happen at their last company/client, no job.
Portfolios
Show thinking / process. Most portfolios suck: here are the final beautiful designs, as if by magic. No goal /problem statement, no description of UX process, no impact of the work. Unless we are hiring a Visual Designer, we do not care about glossy visuals, and even then we need to see the supporting design principles, moodboards, and design patterns. Show your thinking.
Where is the U in UCD? We typically see no personas and no research. We could lock a dev in a room overnight and have them create a website with no inputs. We’re not hiring a designer to make our product mistakes look good, we actually need to succeed with our users.
And where are the upstream XD deliverables like journey maps, service design blueprints, or frankly anything earlier than wireframes? Getting a project assignment, talking to some stakeholders, and jumping right into wireframes is not UCD, it’s SCD — self centered design. ;)
How did you influence the outcome? Basic UX activities and design spec delivery are de rigueur. How about influence on project goals or changing the minds of decision makers? Was the influence at the feature, product, or portfolio level? Did the product metrics go up? Did the users love the product? How do you know? Fast failure and learning is ok too, but close the loop on impact.
Communication
Forget becoming a “storyteller”, we turned down MIT and CMU grads, people with tons of healthcare experience, as well as people with big name tech on their resumes, because they couldn’t stay on-topic in the interview.
Look, we all get nervous in the hot seat, but just be sure to keep a thread on your answer. At least keep it structured if you can’t keep it concise. I’ll write another post about my 1, 2, 3 reframing trick.
Some fabulous ways to go off topic are:
Go in depth into the product solution. We don’t care if the product saved a million lives if the designer/researcher had no impact on the UX.
Take 20 minutes to do the “3–5 min” UX career summary. We don’t judge people’s ego, but we will knock them for time management.
Ask too many questions (3+). We want candidates to get answers, but practically speaking we have to make a decision: move forward, or cut the loop off. Running out of time and not getting our questions answered will kill a candidate’s chances almost as well as a “no-hire” can.
We all want to be an open book as an interviewee, but being extremely succinct is viewed in a positive light. The interviewer can always ask for clarification if your answer was too short... Try it!
The take away
Think of the resume as the “What” — the legal document of sorts. Expect a one minute review. Honestly.
The portfolio is the “How” — Not a gallery of designs, but case studies of UX process and impact.
The interview is the “Who” — The real-time communicator, able to be concise, convince/compel, empathize, drive for change, maybe even design at the whiteboard.
Realize that companies are trying to reduce ambiguity and risk in hiring. To do that we need to know if candidates have great UX process, have been able to have an impact, and communicate well with others.
Wishing everyone the best of success!
p.s. My other articles on key leadership qualities, & design review.
