The UX Design Interview Process - What To Expect & Tips!

hello youtube fam welcome back to the channel my name is wesley hong and i am a ux designer based in atlanta georgia so in this video today i'm going to share with you guys what the ux design process looks like and what you guys can expect as you go through one yourself so i've been a ux designer for about three years now and i've had my fair share of going through many different job applications and going to the job interview with different companies and for different positions so from my own experience i want to share with you guys what i went through so that way you guys know what to expect as you go through it yourself before we dive in please thumbs up this video so it can help with the youtube algorithm so that way other people can see this video as well and also subscribe to my channel so you can stay up to date with my content so let's talk about the ux design interview process that you'll be going through let's begin all right so let's talk about the first interview that you'll probably get which is the screening interview which will be about 30 to 45 minutes long now most screening interviews will be done by an hr recruiter and their goal is to make sure you are who you say you are they'll be the first person to look through your resume your portfolio your case study and they just want to make sure that everything lines up in terms of what you say on there and what your experience looks like so here's tip number one there's a 95 chance that as you go through each round of interview and you talk to someone new you'll have to start the interview off with a tell me about yourself even if the interview doesn't start off this way i think it's super important to put that out there and just say if you guys don't mind i'd like to tell you a little bit about myself before we begin this interview and tell you why i'm here i think it's important to have a really good tummy about yourself pitch because first impressions and introductions they matter a lot it's a good way to start the interview off confidently because you should know who you are and you should be able to speak about yourself in a confident manner so just be prepared to do that in every interview especially if you're talking to someone new for the first time start off by telling them your name what position you have and what company you're working at currently tell them a little bit about some of the product teams that you've worked on and share some of the more recent accomplishments that you've made and if you feel like a certain previous experience will help you specifically within the role that you apply for mention that as well this helps you stand out and helps them to understand if you'll be a great fit for the company and the specific position you can also give them a short concise reason as to why you're looking for new opportunities and what you're looking for in the future role now after your introduction you'll probably be asked a couple of surface level ux questions just to see if you understand what ux design really is and if you're really a ux designer they're really not going to do a deep dive and ask you challenging ux questions that'll probably happen in your second round interview where you'll be talking to someone that's in the ux team whether it's the director manager or another ux designer they may ask you to describe what your ux design process is like what are some of the more recent projects you've worked on did you work as a ux journalist or a specialist and they'll probably want to know what your strengths are and what some of your weaknesses are as well then they may ask why you're trying to leave your current employer and what you're trying to look for in a new position tip number two when you're talking about your current employer and telling them the reason why you want to leave make sure you talk about them in the most professional way even though you might have some negative things to say when it comes to first impressions you don't want to come off as like a petty person who's trash talking a certain individual or a certain company it's better just to tell them that you just didn't align with the company goal and vision or you weren't challenged enough or weren't learning anything at all or you just didn't have a good work life balance just have a professional response for those type of questions and explain to them what you're looking for in the new opportunity so that way the recruiter can see if that's something that they can provide through this new role or they may try to see if you might be a better fit for a different position that they have open there's definitely many different reasons but some of your reasons could be you're looking to work in a balanced product team you're looking for a better work life balance you're looking for experience working on ios or android applications or you're looking for a better faster paced environment now usually these interviews will wrap up with more miscellaneous and logistical questions they may ask where you're located just to see if you're located nearby a company headquarter and if you're interested in relocating and if you're okay with relocating they may even offer you a relocation package that may help you with your expenses as you move to a different state or city if they don't mention it make sure you ask just to see if they're willing to help you with that for my first ux job i actually did receive a relocation package that was pretty substantial and they definitely helped me move across to a different state and help me just to settle in just be aware that by taking a relocation package you need to stay at the company for about a year because if you dip out before the ear then you're gonna have to pay all that money back another thing they want to know is your salary expectation tip number three when they ask you how much you're looking to make always aim a little bit higher than your target salary because you don't want to aim for a low number and then you get stuck with that loan number and that's it if it matches with your higher evaluation then perfect if not see if they're willing to be flexible who knows as the interview continues on and you begin to shine through the interview questions and then the design challenges they may be willing to offer you what you want once the interview ends the recruiter will try to see if you are a good fit and then they'll send your resume and portfolio to the ux design team in order for them to look at it as well most likely the ux director or manager will be the first person to see it and then it'll get passed around to other ux designers for them to look at it as well now if they like what they see and like what your responses were in the first round then you'll be moved to the second round once you get past the screening interview then you'll get moved on to what i call the design interview where they'll start to ask you more in-depth questions about your ux experience and skills you don't really get to do that in the first interview just because it's a recruiter and not a ux designer with these interviews being about 30 minutes to an hour you'll be talking to either the ux director the manager or some other high level senior ux designer in this round what the ux team is trying to learn about you is to see if you'll fit within the ux team and their structure process and culture they'll want to know what will this person be like working alongside me and some of the other designers on this team will this person work well with others will this person be combative and argumentative when they're in a situation with other people do they have an open mind and are they open to constructive criticism can they be empathetic to other people's perspective the one thing that surprises most people about ux interviews is that most of the questions revolve mostly around your soft skills rather than your heart skills let's first define hard skills and soft skills hard skills are teachable abilities or skill sets that are easy to quantify so these are skills that you can learn in a classroom through a book or through a learning material and people tend to have these written as skills on their resume some of these examples are coding learning how to use figma or sketch knowing a foreign language or even having a degree soft skills are subjective skills that can't be easily quantified people also call soft skills as people skills or interpersonal skills some of these examples are communication leadership empathy teamwork storytelling now from my own experience doing a lot of different ux interviews there definitely is a higher focus on soft skills to put it simply as a ux designer what they really want to know is who you are how do you work how do you think and how well do you work with others so here are some examples of some soft skill questions that they may ask you tell us about a time when a boss or manager was unwilling to work with you and they just told you what to do what would you do in that situation and how would you solve that problem how do you handle negative feedbacks tell us about a project that didn't go as planned what did you do to pivot and how did you manage it then there are those hard skill questions like what wireframing and prototyping tools do you use to create your designs do you use any tools to help you work collaboratively with others and that's pretty much it they don't really go further deeper into it then there are the usual questions revolving around your experience as a ux designer such as talk me through your work through aka tell me your design process tell us about the most recent project that you've completed what are some of your biggest accomplishments as a ux designer here's a tip for you if you get stuck on a question and you just don't know how to answer it right away don't be afraid to ask your interviewer to give you a couple seconds to think about the question most of the time they don't mind at all and it's better to give a more complete thought out answer than to panic and give out an answer that you're not confident in you don't want to use too much buffer time or your interviewer won't be able to ask the other questions that they have on their list and you also won't have time to ask questions yourself another question you'll be asked is why do you want to work here i think it's super important to do your own research into the company the design team the specific role and position that you're applying for just so that way you can understand how well that's going to fit with you and how to give more better responses and answers to the questions now you don't want to answer these questions by saying oh you're located in downtown chicago and i've always wanted to work near there or you guys are going to be paying me a higher salary those kind of responses just makes it seem like you're just there to use them for your own personal gain and really has nothing to do with the company experience if the company has a certain app or a product that you really like tell them why you like it from a ux perspective and how you're gonna help out as a ux designer now once they're done with all their questions they're gonna ask you do you have any questions for us so come prepared with questions to ask about the company the design team the company culture career growth work life balance anything that you're curious about based on the questions that you ask you may spot some red flags that'll make you reconsider if this company will be the right fit for you for example if you ask them what their current ux design process is like and they have a hard time answering that question that to me is a red flag or you may realize that they don't have a good team structure good work life balance or they don't offer you career growth or mentorship so some of the questions that you should probably ask is what is the design process like at this company how does your company maintain work-life balance how do designers at your company work alongside pms and engineers what is your typical career path for someone in this position what are the learning and mentoring opportunities at this company what do you like about working at this company now outside of the usual q a session that you may have you may be also asked to do a portfolio review now this may happen in this round or in the next round interview where you'll be asked to do a walkthrough of one of your case studies if this is gonna happen they should let you know about it ahead of time so that way you can prepare now what they'll have you do is do a screen share where you can share your portfolio website as you walk through one of your case studies or another option is to create a powerpoint presentation on one of your case studies as well so i've done it both ways but me personally i like to do a powerpoint presentation on my case study so that way i can chop it up into separate sections instead of having to scroll through an entire long case study where it's a little bit harder to keep them entertained and focused it just helps the viewers and readers to digest the information a lot easier so if that's the case make sure that you have a case study that you know really well and be prepared to present it so there may be a chance that you may have to do another round of interview where it's the same q a format they may have you talk to some non-designers such as a product manager and engineer and that's where most of the questions will revolve around your working style specifically within a product team and how well you collaborately work with others so be prepared to answer questions like what is your experience like working with product managers and engineers and if you don't have any experience what will you do to understand their roles and responsibilities and to work collaboratively together how do you go about passing off design deliverables to your engineers what's that process like for you how do you work alongside product managers as you try to understand your stakeholders and understand business goals now if that round goes well the next round that you'll be moved on to is the design exercise interview and in this round you'll need to complete some sort of design challenge in front of the ux team usually this will be the last interview that you'll go through before they'll tell you if you got the job or not so this is your last chance to impress the company in the ux team before these crazy times usually you would do these on site at the company headquarter where you get to meet some people in person and do the design challenge in person as well but lately a lot of these have been done through a virtual video call so in these ux design challenges the ux hiring team will be looking for the following things how you break down a problem and create a viable solution through your ux design process how you interact and work with others how you react to complications and obstacles that are placed in front of you through business goals and other people and what you do to pivot in order for a company to really evaluate your skills in real time they'll present you one of the following type of design challenges it will either be a whiteboard challenge where you'll need to complete that on the spot in front of a ux hiring team or you'll be sent a take-home challenge where you'll be sent the problem through email and then you'll have time to complete it at home for this video i'm just going to focus specifically on the whiteboard challenge so for the whiteboard challenge you'll be brought into a room or a virtual room where you'll meet some of the design team there will probably be a ux manager who will be there to facilitate the challenge they'll introduce the prompt to you and give you instructions then there will be one to three other designers who will also be in the room either there to take notes or to assist you throughout the design challenge now you can use them for role-playing purposes what i mean by that is you can actually turn them into your product manager your stakeholder a user an engineer whoever you want them to be they'll be there to be that person for you in order for you to work through the challenges and to help you work alongside other people they're there to change into different people in order to help you solve the problem so take advantage of that and be willing to use them along through your design process now the only thing that you'll be given to assist you throughout this whiteboard challenge is a whiteboard markers some pieces of paper and some sticky notes so here's an example of a prompt that i've received in the past an ice cream shop is looking to expand their business during these crazy times and they're looking to create a curbside pickup and a delivery system into their business please create a mobile experience and solution for the customers so that way they can place a curbside pickup order or a delivery now most of the times these challenges will have nothing to do with the company after you're given the prompt the time starts so the entire interview and challenge will either be about an hour or an hour and a half long if it's an hour long that means you probably want to finish the challenge in about 45 minutes so that way you can leave about 15 to 10 minutes for q a and feedback i think it's super important to leave 10 to 15 minutes open for q a and feedback just so that way you can show them that you're willing to defend your design work you're willing to show that you're open to constructive criticism and that you're looking to improve your own work as well now if it's an hour and a half long then you have about an hour to complete the design challenge and then i would give yourself about 30 minutes for q a and feedback now if the feedback and q a session isn't scheduled within the interview and the challenge make sure you schedule it yourself so that way you can fit that in once you're done now you need to be ready for that q a and feedback session because the ux design team will be ready to grill you on why you did what you did throughout the challenge some of those questions will look like why did you prioritize this solution over the other ones that you've thought of any reason why you decided to use a hamburger menu instead of a bottom nav if this was a desktop application instead of mobile what would have changed what would you have done differently if you were given another chance to do this all over again if you were given more time for this challenge what are some of the next steps that you would have done for this project now here are some tips to remember as you go through your challenge ask a lot of questions i know some of you might think that asking too many questions might make it seem like you don't know what you're doing or you don't know what to do but it's the complete opposite i think the more questions you ask the better you'll look in front of the ux team the more questions you ask the better you'll understand what you need to do in order to create a viable solution tip number two think out loud and narrate your thoughts so that way everyone in the room knows how you're processing the challenge staying silent through these challenges is probably the worst thing that you can do remember people can't read your mind so you want to give them full access into your thought and brain so that way they understand how you tick and how you work through the problem tip three take a deep breath what i'm really trying to say is you need to calm down as you go through these challenges i know it's super nerve-wracking as you're being presented a challenge on the spot and you only have about 45 minutes to work through this but it doesn't help if you're panicking talking too fast or saying that something that doesn't make any sense to the people in the room you got to put yourself in a calm state of mind so that way you can think clearly as you try to tackle the design challenge i know this sounds super cliche to say but trust me i've been there and there have been moments where i freaked out as well and that's why it might help you to practice and try a design challenge at home time yourself video record it just put yourself in that environment so so that way you can get used to it when you really have to do it in person or when you're actually doing it in an interview assuming that this will be the last interview that you'll go through the ux team will now take a look back at your application your portfolio your resume your design challenges the questions that you've answered and they're going to compare it with the other applicants as well and they're going to make their final decision and either offer you the job or they won't so that's pretty much it for the ux job interview process let me know if this was helpful for you guys did you guys go through any of the things that i've mentioned did i miss out on anything let me in the design community know in the comment section below so that way we can learn off of each other and help each other out so i will be looking to do a more in-depth video about the whiteboard challenge and how to be successful in that so stay tuned for that in the near future if you like what you saw subscribe to this channel thumbs up the video and turn on the notification bell so you can stay up to date with my content so till then see you guys in the next video peace out guys [Music]

Channel: WesleyHong

Views: 31,458

Keywords: ux design, user experience, ux designer, interview, interview process, ux design interview process, design, tech, career, coding, ux bootcamp, ux, ui, ui design, product design, ux interview, ux job, user experience design, ux job interview, interview tips, career advice, ux design interview, ux jobs, ux interview tips, ux design tips, ux design job, ux career

Id: bv1uXm3EEZo

Length: 18min 17sec (1097 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 25 2021