Photo by Carson Masterson on Unsplash

In the previous post I tried to show you how asking the right questions might help you to get important answers show your true interest. However, how to make sure you won’t shut any doors to potential interviews in the first place? What are the things to look out for in your interview process? Let’s find out!

I asked a couple of senior designers and design leaders who regularly take part in hiring interviews what are the red flags they look out for in new candidates, and what often (unnecessarily) disqualifies candidates even before the first interview. You can find their responses freely interwoven throughout this article, nevertheless I just want to give them a shout out and a say big thanks right here at the beginning. You’ll be hearing from:

— Senior User Experience Designer @ Netsuite/Oracle — Product Design Manager @ Kiwi.com andTadeáš Kubát — VP of UX @ Kentico.

Communication

The biggest and usually the first red flag people notice when hiring, is the way the candidate communicates. Are they too verbose without getting to the core of the thing they want to explain? Or maybe they are little bit too informal? Disorganized in their explanations? How are they addressing their shortcomings? You might have an excellent knowledge and experience, but if you’re unable to transfer this information in clear and cultured manner — you may unnecessarily leave quite a bad impression.

Martin:

One of the extremes I encountered were designers who lied during the interview. They were describing the results of their research or project and they were just making them up on the spot. This can be hard to detect, however sometimes it’s obvious once you start to ask deeper questions and they just get lost in their answers. You just should be honest even if it does not sound cool. No fake it till you make it here.

Dominika:

Probably the first thing that came to my mind was a situation when the candidate ignores everybody present in the room except the person who decides on whether we’ll invite them to the next round of our interviewing process (in our case the hiring managers). Somebody asks the candidate a question, but the answer is once again targeted at the hiring manager. This happened to me multiple times already. Furthermore, with some male candidates I felt like they had a problem with me being a woman (but that might be just my assumption).

Tadeáš:

If a candidate talks for a bit too long without saying anything of substance I start to question if they manage to communicate efficiently with other colleagues.

Design thinking and skills

Of course a huge part of the conversation during the job interview will revolve around design. You’d like to show off your design chops and people hiring you would like to see how you approach the design process. So how to navigate this without ending like the Ever Given in the Suez canal? Pay attention to how you present your work. What do you put emphasis on? How do you define success in a project? Are you coming off as a strong individual designer? Or maybe a bit too individualistic? Here’s what might put hiring managers off:

Martin:

Too strong focus on low-level design (micro interactions, UI design, etc…) or the opposite — too strong focus on high level (facilitation, strategy). It’s great if you have some superskill (everybody’s good in something different than the others). What’s important is the acknowledgement and understanding that good design is about something more than just yourself.

Dominika:

The unwillingness to admit that there might be some other solution to the problem than just the one you propose.

Tadeáš:

If you don’t ask the “Why” question during your process and you don’t use data and metrics. And if you describe your past project like: “I did some designs according to the brief and then I asked the users which one they prefer and I chose that one for implementation”.

Lack of interest or preparation

This is a big one! One of the reasons why I love to go to candidate interviews is that I genuinely like to meet new people and to get to know them. I’m optimistic about them and I root for them (even if I sometimes ask some hard questions). And there’s no bigger disappointment than meeting someone who does not share this. Even if you are skilled, professional and there’s some nice conversational chemistry going on — if you don’t do your homework on the company, product or industry we’d like to hire you for this will be a big bummer. I’ve seen situation where after nice, promising intro the candidate asked us how’s our business in accounting software (which is not even close vertical to what we do) — and the atmosphere in the room suddenly plummeted. Don’t take me wrong it’s more than ok to ask about the specifics of our business. It might even send out some very good signals about you. However if you don’t even take few minutes to skim through our homepage I’d have serious doubts about your motivation to work here.

Martin:

In the final interview rounds we ask fairly specific things connected to Kiwi strategy and if the candidate didn’t research anything about the company and does not understand our business, that is a real red flag. Mainly regarding their motivation to work on the product.

Tadeáš:

If the candidate does not have any information about the company or does not know what do we do here. They either did not invest few minutes to read at least our homepage or they do not understand it. (However this does not apply to the first informal coffee chat we have).

Personal fit

No, this is not an HR fluff. Hard skills and the ability to present and communicate well are just one side of the coin.
The other — equally important — is who are you as a person. What are your life and career experiences, what do you value, how do you learn and how do you respond to new situations and challenges. You may be a kickass designer, but if you behave like jerk or get dominated by your ego, we won’t be a good match. Some of these might give off very bad signs:

Dominika:

This is connected to what I mentioned earlier — if you’re unwilling to learn something new directly during the interview.

Martin:

Basically you should have respect for designers who are strong in something else.

Tadeáš:

If the candidate does not ask about our development and our processes. If they’re not complete junior they should be interested in how would they work. And if the candidate puts too much emphasis or interest in making decision on what should be implemented — that points out that they might want to do something different (product management), or that they’re not exactly a team player.

So, that’s it. These were some red flags we see at interviews. I hope these might help you so you wouldn’t unnecessarily cut the branch beneath you on your next interview. 😉

I would like to thank

, and for their time and experiences when hiring and conducting interviews. This article wouldn’t have happened without them. 🙏