UX interviews: what to expect & how to prepare
Make your next interview your last by following this guide
Looking for UX interview questions you are likely to be asked? Questions you can ask the interviewer? Or how to better prepare before an interview? You’ve come to the right place!
I recently interviewed and moved into my next role after a redundancy thanks to a company restructure. I was fortunate enough that my previous employer paid for a career transition company called LLH to support me.
I want to share with you what I have learnt and help others successfully find their next role!
Pre-interview, be prepared
If there is one thing I’d want you to take away from this article it’s this, memorise your exit and positioning statement plus a summary of your last job including actions/results/achievements. Practice them over and over on your family or friends. My partner and I laughed at first being so serious with each other (we mess around a lot), but trust me it really helps!
Exit statement
This is used in response to “Why are you looking for a new job?” It doesn’t need to be long but should sound positive, non-defensive, and explain it was no fault of your own. It needs to include why you left and what you are looking for. Here is mine as an example:
As a result of a company-wide restructure many functions across the EMEA and AMER regions became redundant and moved off-shore to APAC. This included my position as a Product Designer. I’m now exploring new opportunities that will take full advantage of my digital product design experience to guide products and projects to success through strategic design thinking.
Positioning statement
This is used in response to “Tell me about yourself?” Make sure to include your profession, what makes you competent at it, the types of projects/organisations you have worked on, and your unique strengths. Here is mine as an example:
A strategic product designer with some developer experience who is competent at all stages of the design process. Including research, ideation, prototyping, and validating solutions to ensure project success. I have worked across B2B, B2C, and SaaS companies on projects that explored solutions for data visualisations, diagramming tools, NHS health, social media, e-commerce competition portals and more. I communicate and collaborate effectively to help define product strategy, generate ideas as a team and facilitate design reviews.
Job summary & results
This is used in response to “Tell me about your time at [Company name]?” Include your position, what you worked on, how you worked/your process, and your actions/results/achievements. Here is mine as an example:
I was a UI/UX Designer at a company called [Company name], I managed the design function on a B2B Saas web application called [Product name] which is a business process diagramming tool. I also worked on a data visualisations tool called [Product name] and helped to rapidly create a money lending application by combining multiple [Company name] products together.
I was involved at every step of the project journey including influencing the requirements through research and analysis, generating ideas as part of a cross-functional team, and prototyping interfaces and testing them with users and iterating on the feedback.
When I joined, the design function was very immature and missing a lot of the needed tools and processes. During my time there I was able to: [Listed my actions/results/achievements]
Try using the SOAR method to highlight your best achievements but only include the action and result in your summary.
The Interview
Introductions
An interview usually starts with an introduction around the room. This is where you can combine your Exit & Positioning Statements to give them a good understanding of where you came from and what you can do. They will be looking for any differences between your answers and your CV. You’ll be prompted for:
- Skills
- Experience (you’ll most likely be asked separately about your previous job)
- Career goals
- Biggest career successes
Tip: Include it all in your statement and remove the need for them to prompt you for more.
Once you have expertly cited your exit and positioning statement, you may be asked questions to understand your attitudes and beliefs, like:
- What does success mean to you and what motivates you to come to work?
- How do you adapt to different cultures around you?
Tip: You love what you do! You enjoy contributing to the business’s success through usable and accessible solutions. Like me, you might also spend your free time designing.
The final part of the introduction is to understand how well you know the business. Did you do your homework? If you haven’t make sure you do!
- What do you know about [Company name] and why do you want to work for us?
- What interested you about this position and why do you feel you are suitable for this?
Tip: Look for connections between your own values and the business. Is the business similar to your previous? does it look like a great place to continue doing what you do best?
Company values
Some companies like to follow up on the introduction with questions that assess how well you fit with their values.
Research the companies values before the interview!
You can decide if they match your own or give you an idea of the types of questions likely to be asked. Each interview will be different and you may need to think on your feet. Here are the 4 questions I experienced at my last interview:
- Tell me about a time when you witnessed a colleague do something you thought was unethical, what did you do about the situation and what did you learn from this?
- What situation gets the best out of you and what is the biggest change you have had to deal with?
- Tell me about a time when you had to work in a team to achieve an objective in a short space of time? What role did you take in the team, would you do anything differently next time?
- How do you vary your communication approach according to the audience you are addressing?
Tip: If you haven’t experienced something, be honest, say what you would do if the situation ever happened. For example, I have been fortunate enough not to witness unethical behaviour but if I did I’d report it to a manager to be investigated and resolved.
UX questioning
Eventually, the interview will get to the UX specific questions, the ones that certainly went over and over in my head. Especially when I tried to sleep… What will they ask me, will I be able to answer, my process is.. step 1…. check…. step 2…. check….
Fear not I have a list of likely questions you will be asked, so you can avoid those restless nights.
- What does good UX look like to you?
- Talk me through your standard workflow?
- What makes a Great UX designer compared to a good one?
- How do you see the relationship between the business and customer experience?
- Tell me about your most successful design project and why it was a success?
- Tell me about your least successful design project and why it wasn’t a success?
- What do you think is the next big thing in UX design?
- How do you practice inclusive design? (accessibility)
- How would you rate your ability to effectively use qualitative and quantitative data? Are you better at one more than another?
- How would you approach a situation where you’ve come up with a design but a key stakeholder wants it a different way?
- What do you think of our product/website? What would you change?
Ask lots of questions!
Before wrapping up any interview the interviewer always asks if there are any questions. This is the time to really shine! 1 or 2 questions is not enough to look impressive here. Remember you really want this job, you should be full of questions on how they work, what the team structures are, how is UX thought about and integrated, etc.
Start by finding out more on the position:
- Why is this position open? Am I replacing someone? If so, why did they leave?
- What would be the extent of my authority to carry out the responsibilities of this position?
- Which of my decisions would require approval? Who would approve?
- What’s the most important contribution you would expect from me during the first six months?
- What situations need immediate attention?
Then explore the team and department you will be working within:
- What is the team setup like?
- What experience do the employees in the department have?
- Can you describe the interdepartmental relationships? (UX should communicate with multiple departments)
And finally, is their room to grow and progress:
- What is career progression like? What would be the next step?
Add in your own questions if you have them, remember the interview has a timelimit, try not to go past it. If you still have questions, politely ask if you can email them over.
Tip: Don’t ask questions on holiday, working hours, salary, etc. This should have been discussed beforehand, if not email the recruiter/HR member or wait for the offer to find out.
Wrapping up
Hopefully, you now feel more confident, clearer and ready to ace that next interview! Don’t forget to be prepared, practice, memorise, research and nail those statements and summaries.
Share any other questions you may have been asked in the past via the comments! I’d also love to know if this article has helped anyone secure their next role. happy interviewing!
