UX designer transitioning from Brazil to Europe (Part 3): what hiring teams can take from my experience
A third and final piece where I share my point of view on what makes a great hiring process. All based on multiple experiences as a candidate, from November 2019 to July 2020.
Different from the first and the second part, this text is addressed to companies that are recruiting designers.
Candidates can get very frustrated sometimes, especially during COVID-19 where many were caught off guard and had to look for a new job. There are plenty of emotions involved, and this could easily be a “Hiring designers: you’re doing it wrong!” kind of text.
Instead, I’ll share some of the components I noticed that good processes have in common, in my point of view. I synthesized it in the form of three principles, although this isn’t an extensive list.
Great hiring processes are…
Respectful
Great hiring teams know that time is a valuable resource. They aim for a leaner process. Instead of a fastidious take-home design exercise that demands 20h to be solved, plus hundreds of hours to be evaluated by the team, they apply a live whiteboard challenge that takes up to 2h.
Great hiring teams give feedback as specific as the involvement that they’ve got until that point. It’s ok to say “Unfortunately, we decided to proceed with other candidates best suited for that position” when you’re just getting to know each other. It’s great when a recruiter explains thoughtfully the reasons they are not making an offer, after a final round of interviews.
Transparent
Great hiring teams give candidates a snapshot of how the company is from inside, instead of hiding this. The team might not know for sure where the company is heading to at that moment, or it’s increasing its maturity in terms of design, or learning how to better integrate designers, etc. These are topics that can be hard to talk about openly, but hiding it from candidates will lead to a mismatch in the future when the person is already onboard.
Great hiring teams have a process with clear steps, but most importantly: they let candidates know what’s expected at each step. A candidate being nervous during an interview is somehow intrinsic to the process, but what about giving people the chance to prepare and show their best? Otherwise, you risk losing good people simply because they are introverts, just to give an example. (Wondering if people could hack your process if you leave it “too transparent”? Well, that will also require a good amount of preparation too!).
A few examples of companies that set clear expectations and share that openly: Amazon, Intercom, Zalando (they do it through a series of e-mails during the process), Toptal.
Effective
Great hiring teams know that recruiting people can cost a lot and try to avoid waste. They set up a hiring pipeline and try to manage the whole process the best way possible. To candidates, an optimized and well-managed process shows professionalism and will eventually bring them an answer (positive or negative) sooner.
Great hiring teams automate everything that can be automated. You might think that this is silly, but when you’re applying to a tech company, you also expect from them some tech-savviness. There are companies still going back and forth through e-mail to find a common time to do an interview (when there’s Calend.ly), not using Hangout or Zoom (phone calls, really?), or even not sending an invite with reminders. Automate everything that can be automated, so you can free up space to humanize all the rest.
Conclusion
Hiring people can be seen as a service your company offers, not only a mandatory thing you have to do to get someone on board. This service help candidates, who are also potential customers, to form opinions about your brand. Planning and putting intention on it can pay off.
After applying to several companies in Europe, it’s like I’ve been doing research all this time. The findings are synthesized here, and I hope they are actionable and insightful.
For those who want to learn more about it, I’m open to talk.
This series was written after my experience moving from Porto Alegre, Brazil to Berlin, Germany. I hope this text and the other ones can help you, people looking for UX Designers, Product Designers, UX Researchers, UI Designers, and other roles in the tech industry.
Feel free to talk about your experience commenting on this text or getting in touch with me.
