As I continue along the job hunt of 2022, I’m prompting myself to answer interview questions to understand myself as a designer. I’ve picked a handful of interview prompts with my answers below. Of course these answers are ever evolving and once actually spoken new things will come into my head that I would share with the recruiter or hiring manager, but this exercise has helped me understand the value that I can bring to a company and affirm the value I have as a designer. At the end of this article are prompts that I’d ask the company because these types of questions are just as important because as a designer I need to understand if the company is a good fit for me as well.
So let’s begin…
Tell me about yourself.
I am a Product Designer with a background in Fashion Design. I’ve hosted in person pop up shops and managed the customer service of the e-commerce store of my clothing brand I built over the past 5 years. Something I cherished was always hearing from customers, what they liked, their needs, pertaining to both my designs and within the fashion industry. Finding this new career path of UX design has enabled me to understand users/ customers even more and putting a name to this aspect of my previous company I enjoyed doing. Once I understood what the topic of user experience is, I found DesignLab an online UX/UI bootcamp. I attended both the UI focused foundations course strengthening my eye for visual design and then chose to move forward with the intensive UX bootcamp which I graduated from this past January.
Talk about your path, what you’ve learned, and how your design education has prepared your future growth as a designer.
What I’ve learned from my path into UXD is that anything is possible. This is an industry that is so valuable for this evolving landscape of our economy and is needed in every growing industry that is transitioning into the digital space. User experience has always been a part of every business and every business that has grown knows who their user is and how to make them happy through their interactions and experience with a company. I speak so much about the value relating to business because I was previously a business owner for the past 5 years and know how important it is to tailor all aspects of the user’s experience from the very first sight of a brand. I’ve learned that this incorporates marketing, in person experiences, digital experiences, customer service, and so many more aspects. From learning about all these different facets, this contributed to my interest in the UX field. It put a name to something that I was aware of when growing my business.
My design education has shown me the core steps through the design thinking method as well as agile product development. Designing a product can go as fast or slow that a company needs to based on money. I think understanding the business side of a company solidifies me as a designer because I understand both the steps of design and steps that a business is taking to build a great product. I value the mentorship and group critiques that my bootcamp required me to attend and this is what I took out as the most valuable, receiving feedback from others. Connectng to the whole UX industry which is listening to the user and understanding their pain-points. So as designers of course I feel this is most important which is listening to your colleagues and understanding what they’re saying.
Do you prefer to work alone or with a team?
I prefer a hybrid option of both working with a team and alone. I find that working with a team contributes to the development of ideas and with a team where everyone is on the same wavelength great things can come out of brainstorming sessions and bouncing ideas off eachother to grow and turn into great solutions. I think working in a team also contributes to how I evaluate my own work. The questions I ask my fellow teammates I would also ponder myself to strengthen and take a step back and evaluate my work.
Have you given feedback on someone else’s designs before? What about receiving feedback?
I have given feedback on other’s designs before both in UX, fashion, and art such as photography and sculpture. Throughout all mediums of design it is important for me to understand the vulnerability and time that the designer took to not only present the work, but also taking a concept from one’s mind into a physical or digital space is a transition of concepts and ideas that I cherish about any designer or artist. So I try to remember this before diving into a critique. This is something I even try to recognize for myself that a designer is not critiquing me, but there is seperation of myself from the design even though I have spent a certain amount of time and energy. When critiquing others work, I try to phrase reccommendations in a question format for the other designer to understand what changes need to be made versus being told. I believe this is a better way for the other designer to grasp a concept that they may have missed while designing and remember better for future designs.
Give me an instance where you delivered something exceptional, something that made you really proud of the result.
An instance where I delivered something exceptional is a project that I completed for a local drive in movie theater. I really honed in on the idea that I wanted to make this old school activity and revamp it for millennials to be interested in. During the time of the pandemic theaters were closed down so understanding the needs of users, what they needed in this time, and figuring out how to grow the audience through design was important to me. Also for the animation of the prototype it was the first time I practiced making micro interactions within the design. When the user would browse food items on hover state it would prompt the user to add the item and once clicked again would take the user to edit any details for the item if necessary.
After user interviews I thought to also create the user flow of buying a ticket a step by step process that the website takes you through because in usability testing user’s repeatedly came to the cart and would be surprised that the cost was so high just to buy a ticket. So I wanted to make sure that the user was aware where they were along the ticket buying flow, the quantites and items that were being added to the cart, and how much further they needed to go before completing their purchase. These new concepts made me excited as a growing designer to put into practice and really showed me this is the industry I see myself growing in and contributing to for the long run.
The End of an Interview
The following questions are what I would ask at the end of an interview to understand how the company envisions me to be a part of their team.
What projects will I be working on?
- This helps me understand what I will be working on once I start working at the company. It will help me prepare for the first day and understand the amount of work that will be on my plate. It’s a nice act of preparation on both sides to stay organized and know that we’re both thinking about the future.
Can you tell me plans for company growth in the next year?
- I have an entrepreneur mindset and always am excited to hear about what steps a company has taken or will make to continue growing their company. I believe like the question before, it helps know that the company is strong and has plans in order to take care of its employees by being clear in where they want to take the company. Even if I may not be speaking to the CEO, I’ll know that the rest of the team is on the same page and everyone has the growth mindset.
What gets you excited about working for this company?
- Company culture is so important to me! I’d hope that the interviewer is able to stay excited in some way through the work that they do with the company. Hopefully this question would lead to talking about planned events that the company organizes to all get to know each other and maybe hearing about a future event that I can attend once being hired.
Do you offer educational and professional development opportunities?
- As I will be offering my design services to the company, I would hope to hear more about how the company can support me especially in continuing to educate myself. This is an important value for a company to have which is to keep noursihing their empoloyees because this helps me stay excited and even apply new things that I am learning into the current role. It helps prevent feeling stagnant and keeps the mind open.
What key metrics do I need to achieve within the first year?
- I believe this question would equally say as much about me as would the answer to the question. It shows that I am forward thinking and already planning how I can take myself above and beyond to do my best for the company.
