Employers are asking themselves two major questions about you…
In my last two posts, we focused on prepping your design portfolio. Hopefully it got you thinking about who you are as a designer and how you might showcase (and speak to) your skills beyond just finished design work in your portfolio.
This post is designed to help you think about the questions you will now face in addition to the work inside your portfolio. As I mentioned before, potential employers are wondering about two major questions: “Can you do the work?’ and “How will you work with others?”. Often, a designer has been focusing so hard on compiling their portfolio, they can forget about the broader context that these two questions present and aren’t always prepared to speak to them.
Note
For reference, I work at a 60 person design firm that specializes in digital product development. Therefore, the nature of the questions below are a good baseline, but might look very different if you are applying to a small marketing firm of 8 employees or a design job at Microsoft with thousands of employees.
I recommend doing your homework and trying to understand how the job description and size of the company might inform the nature of the questions below, since they are relative to the size and nature of one type of design company.
How to use these questions
To better prepare you for answering these questions, I would suggest copying and pasting the questions into a text document and write answers for them. If you write your answers, as opposed to looking them and thinking “I know the answer to that”, your brain will literally process your answer in a different and more effective way. It will take some time, but nailing the interview requires prep.
1. Questions you will be asked
Team Fit
What draws you to us?
How are you used to working with teams?
What do you believe you bring to a team?
Do you like to work by yourself or do you like externalizing information together?
What is your longest length of time on one project?
What kind of challenges do you hope to be tackling if you work here?
What sort of projects have you enjoyed most?
What do you need to succeed (from your team/working environment)?
Handling Conflict
Have you had to change a clients mind if they had a strong idea and research revealed that their idea was not right, and how did you change that?
How might how you have handled that internally within your team?
What do you do when you disagree with someone about design direction?
What do you do when you don’t know what to do?
Design Process
What are some ways you like to do research and how do you like to start a project?
What questions do you ask before you begin any design project?
What information is most important?
Can you describe a time when you had to deal with an ambiguous problem and how you went about approaching/unpacking that problem?
What did you like best about this project (one you are presenting) and what did you like about the process?
How much experience have you had with user testing and how does user feedback affect your design?
How much experience have you had with accessibility guidelines?
Do you have design philosophy that you like to bring to the table?
How do you get unstuck creatively?
How would you define design excellence? What does that mean to you?
What kind of project would best showcase your skills?
What are your strengths?
What are your areas for improvement?
Is there work done that you are least proud of, and knowing what you know now, how would you turn that around?
Fun
What is spirit animal?
What’s your theme song?
What do you do for fun?
2. Questions you should be prepared to ask your interviewer(s)
I think having questions prepared to ask the interviewers is the biggest missed opportunity I see when it comes to job interviews . A job interview is really a two way conversation. Most interviewees get into the mode of talking about who they are (typical balance of an interview process) and forget that they should be focused on finding a good fit for themselves just as much as the potential employer is.
This list is by no means exhaustive, and depending on how the company is structured, they may not all apply. The take away though is for you to try to ask questions that help you understand how design works at different levels of the company. Again, I encourage you to do the homework to try to understand the size and structure of the company and tailor the questions to fit.
Design Process
What does your design process look like here?
How do teams work here?
How big are design teams?
What is the average length of projects?
Team Level
Where does the job role I am applying for fit into the design teams needs?
On a high level, what needs does the design team (or this design role) serve within the organization?
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities for the design team internally?
Individual Level
What are the biggest known challenges for this role?
Are there clear growth paths?
How are people mentored?
How (ideally) should a designer in this role support or back up their design decisions?
Are there skills you look for designers to bring to the table for this role that weren’t listed?
Company Level
How is design viewed by the leadership or other teams like business development?
What do you think this company offers to clients/customers in terms of design that is unique?
Market Level
Where is the company headed and how does that impact designs role within the company?
What are some of the biggest challenges and opportunities for this company within the market and how will design help meet them?
One last note on interviews
When they ask you what you do for fun (they might ask this at the end – we always do), have an answer. This is important because the people interviewing have to interview you for the position, but they want to work with someone who is more than just the role. They want to know who you are as a person and this is an opportunity to say something interesting and fun about yourself.
Well, that is all for today and I hope you found this helpful!
