8 Things We Look for When Hiring
The UX team at Sumo has developed a sort chemistry that’s difficult to put into words, but if you spent any amount of time with us, you’d recognize it.
We take the bond we’ve built as a team very seriously. It involves a mutual respect for each other that allows us to work with the level of trust you don’t get with most teams. We’ve always got each others’ backs, no matter what. This kind of magic stuff is difficult to find and if you’ve got it, you don’t want to let it go.
This is why hiring the right people is so critical to us. We’re not trying to be exclusive — we just want to make sure that anyone who joins our team is going to help build upon the culture we’ve so carefully fostered over the past few years. We want someone who shares our values, who gets our jokes, who understands all the nuanced ways we use emojis. And we want someone who can bring their own unique perspective to the table — who can challenge us to be sharper, stronger, better human beings.
We won’t bore you with the technical skills it takes to be a UX designer or researcher that you’ll find in any job description. Those can be learned. Instead we’ll try to put into words some of those ineffable qualities that we think are vital to building a team dynamic that produces great work, and more importantly, gets us excited to come to the office everyday.
1. Can you talk about absolutely anything?
Our daily lunchtime chats are pure gold. This hour of banter, full of questions and tangents, is fiercely protected. It allows us to recharge our batteries, get to know each other better, and discuss some of the most important topics of our time. For instance, today we covered:
Are mushrooms vegetables?
Has anyone heard of the corgi convention?
Have you tried putting apple cider vinegar in your hair?
We scroll deep into the archives of The Bachelor contestants’ instagrams, discuss in depth the perfect cookie texture, and make guesses about how much we think John Cena can squat. If you only want to talk about work or Bitcoin over lunch, this is not the place for you.
But if you do swing by the lunch table to ask us something work-related, we’ll be happy to make you one of our signature ketchup wireframes. Which leads us to our next point…
2. Can you improvise?
One of our favorite questions to ask candidates who interview is: which TV show character do you most identify with and why? We recognize that this an incredibly difficult question to answer given the overwhelming number of options. But the important part in answering this question is not necessarily the show nor the character chosen, but just the fact that you answered the question and were able to explain your choice. We want you to think on your feet. The worst answer you can give is an “I don’t know” followed by silence. If you need a few minutes to think, we totally get that. But be sure to provide us with an answer later! Even if you’re Toby from The Office, we’re just happy you picked someone. (No disrespect, Toby).
Improvisation is an essential tool in meetings too. If you’re put on the spot answering a question you haven’t prepared for, or presenting work that isn’t quite finished, how do you handle that situation? Do you get tongue tied? Do you lie? It’s ok to admit that you may not be prepared or don’t know the answer, but don’t end the discussion there. What other ideas might you have? How are you going to follow up? Instead of shutting down conversations, try the classic improv technique of yes, and thinking by expanding on others’ ideas. We don’t want to hit conversational dead ends.
3. Can you present your work with confidence and openness?
When you have a concept to share, we want you to really believe in it. You should have carefully thought through all decisions, corner cases, and possibilities for failure. You should come to the table with a solid argument for why you think this solution is best for the user. That being said, we believe in strong opinions loosely held. If research proves your idea was not the best, move onto the next one. The adage of don’t fall in love with your work is something we stand by.
4. Can you tell a story?
Storytelling is critical in user experience, for both understanding our customers and convincing stakeholders of our ideas. When you’re telling your story, whether that’s why we need a new persona, why our buttons should have gradients, or why we need to hire 10 prototypers, you need to sell it. Do you keep the audience engaged throughout your story? Do you set the stage and provide enough context so the audience can understand the importance of the main point? Does the audience empathize with you or the characters? Are they left wanting more, and most importantly, are they convinced?
5. Will you represent the team?
Do you use “we” instead of “I” when presenting work that others had a hand in? It’s important to recognize that nothing great gets accomplished alone — it takes a group of people with diverse backgrounds, skills, and opinions to make something successful. You look good when you make others shine. If you scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours. Great leaders create more leaders.
Are you willing to share your thoughts publicly? We don’t need you to be a Shakespeare, or even a Stephenie Meyer (no disrespect, Twilight), but we do want you to write from time to time. Sharing your thoughts with the world through written content gives you a voice outside the organization and helps build a brand for the Sumo UX team. It’s another outlet that can help you to reflect on what you’ve learned and how we can grow as a team.
6. Can you handle uncertainty?
We’ve intentionally designed a lively and playful work environment because most of our time is spent in deep technical conversations. Sumo Logic is full of really smart people who like to talk about really smart things. This is great for the product and company, but it also means that not a single day goes by without a moment of wtf are we talking about?
Everyone loves when things are clear and certain. It gives us warm fuzzy feelings inside when we know what the future holds and how to get there. Wouldn’t it be nice if that were ever the case? Anyone who joins our team needs to be okay sitting in conversations that are ambiguous and way over your head. And when you reach the point where things are about as clear as mud, you have to be willing to ask all the dumb questions, dive headfirst into the details, and emerge with understanding. Without going through this uncomfortable process, how can we build a product that truly solves problems for our users?
7. Are you willing to challenge yourself?
We want to be surrounded by people who aren’t complacent. Not just in work, but in life. Are you pursuing side projects or acquiring skills outside of the usual day-to-day? Do you try new things in the hope of becoming a better person?
We regularly do uniform challenges to streamline the process of choosing clothes to wear. This year, a few of us decided to do a year of no shopping (clothes, shoes, and jewelry) in the hopes that we might become a little less materialistic. We’ll jump at the chance to learn new skills from others, whether that be calligraphy, the science of small talk, or a new stretching technique. A few other skills we’ve picked up include speed jigsaw puzzling, event planning, and the art of the haiku. (The art of the boomerang just comes naturally.)
8. Do you know how to play?
This might be the single most important skill on this whole list. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, and anyone who does is not going to be invited to play games with us on Fridays. And it’ll probably be a lot harder for us to work with them too because levity is very, very important to us.
It’s rare that you’ll find us talking seriously about something for more than 10 minutes without making some sort of joke. We’re avid users of emojis, memes, and GIFs to express every degree of emotion. We celebrate just about everything, from birthdays to minor holidays to a new snack in the kitchen. We take constant boomerangs to capture the most mundane of moments (as evidenced throughout this article), and our Slack is full of ridiculous channels like choose-jasons-vacation, the-ice-cream-channel, and lets-find-leo-a-dog. We recently invented Meeting Lingo Bingo, and its spinoff, Design Lingo Bingo, to help keep us alert and engaged during meetings. Play is essential for keeping our ideas fresh and our minds sane.
If what we’ve described seems like your cup of tea, we’d love to get to know you. But please come prepared to talk about your favorite GIF. You can email us to learn more about our team and ask about current opportunities at join-ux@sumologic.com.
