Thoughts on job interviews
Two small things I’ve been thinking about
It’s all perception
In my job search, I talked to two companies recently. The first company, after I spent an an hour of talking to an elated VP about how to get a user-centered design process running in his organization, turned me down. “Needed stronger interaction design skills” was the reason.
The second company came back and said that I was clearly a strong interaction designer, but after talking to me, they realized they needed a visual designer right now far more.
And that pretty much sums up how interviews work. They have little to do with you. They’re all perception. (I wanted to get the two companies on the phone to haggle out whether I was good at interaction design or not.)
Interview retrospectives
One thing I’m doing differently this job search is adapting Agile Scrum sprint retrospectives for interviews. Within a day after the last chat session, I sit down and ask the three retrospective questions:
- What went well in that last interview?
- What could you do better?
- What’s the one thing will do differently next interview?
I try to walk through every part of the interview loop and do this cadence until I’ve identified the adjustments I need to make. They liked my portfolio presentation, but it was too long; I need to trim one story. On the design exercise, I did a good job laying out the framework, but I let myself get sucked into the whiteboarding and disengaged; I will ask more questions consistently. My mockups look good, but they’re too small in the online portfolio; I’ll change providers.
Doing this has done two things for me: One, it’s improving my ability to interview, and two, it’s not letting me get sunk in the neurotic handwringing of “woulda-shoulda-coulda” I get into after a poor (or even a good!) interview loop. Instead, I’m being proactive and adjusting. Just as football players watch film and see what they need to adjust, I’m watching my mental film of the interview to find my adjustments.
