Day#227: I am interviewing!

Hey Uxers and today I wanted to let you know I am on the job market and actively looking for a new position, I decided to be open about my decision to share some of the interesting experienced I have had of late. As you know I am the biggest fan of Offerzen, the platform is easy to use and take the stress out of job hunting for candidates, however I have been looking out for positions on LinkedIn and other well known platforms. I must say that the effort some of these recruitment sites ask for in order to apply for a position is ridiculous though and it makes me thin that they are just data collecting. Anyway I wanted to share a few of the different styles of interviews I had to share my experiences and perhaps help any newbies interviewing

1. The big corporate interview

This was a very structured interview, the company indicated they would have their questions and right at the end I would be able to ask a few of my own questions.

Why I wanted to work there

• Big household name, working on an established product that I already know and love
• Heard that the team was great and working there would be busy but a great experience

The red flags

• When asked about shortfalls etc, two people mentioned silo departments
• H.R kept stopping jokes which helped relieve tension and then it would make the situation uncomfortable again. Sounds like a small thing to notice but this resulted in the interview being very structured with little room for detours and actually talking to a candidate and getting to know their actual behaviour and skills.
• The rest of the team had recently all just left, all for one UXer

What I messed up in the interview and need to work on

• I got nervous because of the style of the interview
• I answered questions at face value and did not go into enough detail on my UX process
• I did not share my proudest project and felt like it would match in comparison to the companies views what makes a great project. This was so silly of me in retrospect and I have worked on being able to be proud to talk about my projects irrespective of where I am interviewing.

2. The small-ish start up

I did not even end up going in for this interview but I will discuss the leading up the interview and why I declined this position

Why I wanted to work there

• I liked the idea of being apart of a UX team and learning and working with other passionate people in UX
• The business model is an interesting idea and I was keen on learning more about it, and being involved in the process of fine tuning the product over time

The red flags

• The first time I was contacted, I was asked to share my availability for the upcoming week. I did and never got a reply for over a week and a half. Fair enough we all get busy but then when I inquired with a follow up, I was met with no general apology and asked if I could come in the very next day. The thing that a lot of places don’t seem to understand is that recruitment is a form of customer experience, as well as it’s just common decency when the mistake is on you to own up. The lack of understanding for another person’s schedule was also a little worrying for me.
• After we set up a time to meet, I was sent the technical test which also had issues for me, the technical test entailed I would need to install their product on my phone and share my personal banking details on their product in order to do the assessment. I am always fine with technical assessments to display skill set etc, however I am sure they can set up a test account for candidates, I just felt feeling obligated to share that information for a test was a little pushy and not well thought out coming from a UX department
• Finally the section at the end of the assessment also indicates “By sending this document you are agreeing that all your ideas can be used by X”. This irked me a little, I would like to think if they liked my ideas that they would then choose to hire me perhaps? I understand there are lots of factors like culture fit etc that also come into play, but mentioning it felt sticky for me…
• When asking around, a few people indicated how there was lots of politics within the team

What I messed up in the interview and need to work on

• Well I declined before the interview, I decided to go with all the red flags and decline. I had two other interviews I was prepping for at the time and decided to rather concentrate on the ones that I felt more positive about.

These were just two of my recent scenarios, I wanted to go through various categories of information and why i made the decisions and mistakes I made and how understanding them will help you overcome them in the future. In the end I am glad neither of the above ended in a future job because I really feel it would have been a bad decision on my part, happy researching until next time!