Interviews = blind dates?; Mindset shift to ace at design interviews

tl;dr Interviewing is like going on blind dates. It’s a process to learn whether you and the company are a good fit, rather than a test to see if you are qualified. I was able to get offers from Meta and Google by switching my mindset into this. So, make no assumptions, be yourself, interview a lot and keep going after rejections.

When I first moved to Silicon Valley from New York back in 2013, I sucked at doing interviews. Sure, I didn’t have as extensive experiences as a product designer at the time, but oh boy it was hard to get a job. At the time, I submitted applications to ~200 companies, got interviews from ~15 and ended up getting 1 offer. I was so happy when I got the offer though, because I was close to quitting and moving back to New York.

Fast-forward to 2017, I applied to 7 companies, got interviews from 6, and received offers from 5 including Google and Meta. I was shocked at this metric! My acceptance metric went from 0.5% to 71.4%. That’s a whopping 140x increase over ~4 years. Over the years, I became better at interviewing when I saw the parallel between job interviews and blind-dates, which ultimately helped me shift my mindset.

Don’t assume you’re not good enough

Interestingly, people who post the most attractive photos on online dating sites get asked for fewer dates, comparing to people with more down-to-earth looks. (link) Extreme attractiveness often intimates the potential dates, and this is similar to prospective job opportunities.

Back in 2013, I didn’t apply to FAANG companies or well-known startups, because I thought I wouldn’t be good enough. I only submitted applications to companies I assumed to be less competitive and more accepting.

Looking back, I should have just applied to every company I was interested in. It’s the company’s responsibility to vet your qualifications, not the other way around. There are also researches showing that women tend to apply to jobs only when they are over qualified. (link) So, stop that inner voice and apply for the job you want. You have nothing to lose, and most likely, you’d still learn a lot from the process.

Don’t be nervous. Just be yourself.

I’ve interviewed nearly 700 candidates at this point, and I’ve seen many that start faltering through interviews. For instance, I saw great experiences on the resume, an awesome portfolio, a solid presentation, and then a disappointing performance for the rest of the interview. I think that these candidates became overly nervous and couldn’t showcase their full capacities. Research shows that tech interviews reveal whether a candidate has performance anxiety rather than job competency. (link)

I had this issue at interviews as well, exacerbated by my background. I grew up in South Korea under an academically competitive environment. My teachers and parents physically disciplined me whenever I didn’t get the perfect scores on tests. (Back then, this practice was culturally acceptable.) This experience deeply impacted my personality and made me anxious under evaluative situations such as interviews and performances reviews after I grew up.

I was able to get out of this mentality when I realized interviews are more like blind dates than tests. There are very little things you can change by the time of the interviews. Your experiences, presentation, thoughts and skills are already there. There are no right or wrong answers to interview questions. Instead of seeking the perfect answers, you should showcase your authentic self and see whether you and the companies are a good fit.

Interview a lot

They say, “you need to kiss a thousand frogs to find a prince.” Research shows that people kiss an average of 25 others before getting into an exclusive relationship. While finding a job is less serious than tying the knots, interviewing a lot has many similar benefits.

First, interviewing a lot teaches you how to evaluate companies. When you first start dating, you often don’t know what kind of person you want as a partner, nor recognize those who fit your criteria. As you date more, you learn to find people who are more compatible with you. Statistics show that people who got married older has less likelihood of getting a divorce. (link) Similarly, most people have criteria they want to meet when starting a job search including compensation, mission, culture, product, responsibility and so on. If your last company wasn’t a good fit for you, it’s possible that you weren’t able to properly evaluate the company before you joined. Seeing beyond the politically correct answers is more art than science. For instance, if you ask “tell me more about the company’s culture,” it’s unlikely the interviewer would say “this company’s culture sucks.” Hence, you should be able to read between the lines to get the full picture.

Second, interviewing a lot teaches you interview specific skills. During my first date with my partner, I thought he was arrogant and borderline weird. (shhh🤫) Later I realized he’s one of the most humble and kind people I’ve ever met. What a difference! I totally missed out on this gem of a person, because he wasn’t able to show who he really was. Similarly, we want to be able to show our best and authentic self in interviews, which requires interview specific skills.

When I first started interviewing, I thought great work should speak for itself. Unfortunately, our work doesn’t have a mouth, and it needs us to speak on their behalf. Talking about our work and showcasing design skills in an interview setting require separate practice. For instance, you may have done a lot of brainstorming with your team, but a problem-solving interview with live white boarding requires you to gain contexts more quickly and generate a lot of ideas in a short time.

Don’t be discouraged by rejection

Many designers get discouraged when they didn’t get an offer after interviews. This is something even seasoned designers struggle with. If you went on a blind date, and the person didn’t like you, would you care as much? Most likely, you’d just move and date other people.

Similarly, if you didn’t get an offer after an interview, it just means that you and the company weren’t a good fit. It’s not a reflection of you as a designer. I interviewed a lot of people who would be rock star designers at other companies, but weren’t a good fit for the company I was at. For instance, I interviewed a designer who won multiple international awards and had an amazing visual design skills. However, we had to turn the candidate down, because the team was looking for a hybrid designer with a strong interaction design skill.

Each company generally looks for a different type of talents. For instance, Airbnb tends to look for designers with more focus on crafts and visual design. Apple tends to look for a designer who doesn’t mind digging deep into a single problem for a long time. Meta prefers generalists who have balanced skill sets across the board. Not getting an offer after many interviews can be frustrating, but you only need 1 offer from a company that’s a good fit for you.

Closing thoughts

There are much research that show parallel between interviews and dates. For instance, research shows that the results of interviews are determined within the first few mins. (link) Another research shows that people with taller heights make more money on average. (link) It would be problematic if these were proven to be true, given results of interviews will be heavily influenced by an interviewer’s inherent bias. While I hope that we continue to strive towards hiring the best talents instead of relying on our bias, thinking about interviews as blind dates made me more at-ease and helped me a showcase my best self in an authentic way.

Please let me know if these mindset shifts resonated with you. I am curious about your thoughts.