Hiring UX Designers Part 1: Who’s this?
The six questions I ask when reviewing design portfolios
As a designer with 11 years of experience, I’ve applied for a lot of jobs. In the beginning of my career, I found the job application a mysterious dilemma. What were they really looking for?
Now, I’ve spent a lot of time on the other side of the table. I’ve been reviewing applications for UX designer positions for about five years, starting with my job as a Product Designer at Citrix. I started out screening applications for internships, then reviewed resumes and portfolios for junior and senior designer roles, first as a Lead Designer and then as a Design Manager in 2015. I haven’t counted, but I’d guess I’ve reviewed hundreds of resumes and portfolios, done screenings with at least another hundred candidates, and eventually hired several full time designers and a few interns.
Reviewing cold applications is a skill all on its own, and while I still have a lot to learn, I'd like to think I’ve gotten better along the way at picking out the people with potential. At the beginning, I was terrified of missing someone good just because they made a bad first impression, which meant that I tended to err on the side of being too lenient.
“Sure, their portfolio isn’t showing any updated work in the past 3 years, but maybe they have some new projects they haven’t had time to add yet!”
“Yes, their cover letter is extremely long, impersonal, and rambling, but they probably communicate much better in person!”
This led me to waste a lot of time doing phone screens or coffee meetings with candidates that were too junior, didn’t have the right skills, or worse, didn’t have any sense of self-awareness and knowing where they needed to improve.
Since then, I’ve learned to trust my gut a lot more. And as scientists have found, intuition isn’t magic, it’s just a quick way of making a decision based on a lot of experience with similar situations. In my case, it’s the data I’ve collected from those hundreds of applications over the past years, and remembering which candidates were a good fit.
Recently, I’ve thought it might be helpful to step back and formalize the semi-subconscious checklist that I automatically go through in my head when I review a resume and portfolio. Of course, the specific skills and qualifications I’m looking for will vary depending on the role. But in general, there are a few important yes/no questions I ask myself when deciding whether to have a first interview with you. If I answer “no” to the first two questions, I don’t bother considering the next ones. If I answer “no” to a few at the end, that’s ok; it’s just something to watch out for in the interview process.
My hope is that designers of all levels can use my perspective to get some tips on how to present themselves for a potential job. It’s still important to me that everyone who is qualified, no matter their age, education, or personal background, has the best possible chance of landing an interview. And if you’re a new manager, I hope you’ll gain some inspiration as well.
Question 1: Do you have the basic experience needed for this role?
This seems like such a no-brainer. Of course if we’re looking for a Lead Designer and the person has only done a couple internships, it’s a no-go.
But there are some nuances here. For example, I hire designers who will work in-house, usually as the only designer on a multi-disciplinary product team. If you only have experience at agencies or as a freelancer, my answer to this might be “maybe”. You’ll need to show me during the interview that you have the stamina to work on a product long-term, without getting frustrated or bored.
You’ll also need to demonstrate that you have the qualities needed to advocate for design and the user when you’re the only designer in the room. In my current job at Trustpilot, we expect our UX designers to do concept testing and user interviews, which requires experience (or at least being comfortable with) talking to people you don’t know about your designs. Some basic leadership skills help in this role at all levels.
There is also some flexibility in this question. If I’m trying to hire a more junior designer (say, less than four years of experience), I might be willing to hire someone who’s only done internships but seems really talented. Which leads to my second question…
Question 2: If you don’t have the ideal experience, does the work in your portfolio show enough potential that I could take a chance on you?
This is a difficult question to answer, and sometimes applicants make it even more difficult. It’s extremely hard to judge someone’s potential when their portfolio only shows final visual comps (or its just a link to Dribbble). I love when a portfolio shows early sketches, diagrams, wireframes, explorations that were discarded, animations showing how an interaction works, and then a few beautiful screens. I’ll be honest: I’m not going to analyze your sketches in detail (I don’t have time), but seeing that you considered many different directions, made a lot of iterations, and went through a solid process to end up at that beautiful design is important.
Showing your process is especially important for junior designers. If your visual UI skills aren’t great, but maybe you’re really good at ideating and thinking through workflows, I won’t know this if you only show your final design comps. If the answer to question #1 was “maybe” and you’re only showing me a mediocre final UI, you’re selling yourself short. I hired a guy at Citrix who didn’t have a formal education and had only done freelance work, but he showed us an incredible amount of process work in his portfolio, which demonstrated that his thought process was rock solid. He turned out to be a great hire.
A few notes about a portfolio:
- I do think it’s better to have it online, but I’ve had to relax that rule since moving to Denmark as having a web portfolio didn’t seem to be as common here. But really, as a digital UX designer, shouldn’t you be making some sort of experience that can be found easily by anyone, on any device? More on this later.
- It’s been said before, but bears repeating: a few high-quality projects > many mediocre projects.
- Always note whether a project was for a client, a company, or done as a school project. Credit any work you didn’t do yourself and make it clear which parts are yours.
- Let the content speak for itself; making an overly-designed UI for your portfolio can look like you’re over-compensating (and often just looks bad)
- Favor scan-friendly headlines over a lot of text. Usually I have just a few minutes to look at a portfolio; I just don’t have time to read the details.
These are just my thoughts; much has been written about UX portfolios elsewhere so use your research skills and go learn more on your own. In the end, a good in-depth portfolio (along with an easy-to-scan resume) helps to answer…
Question 3: Which area(s) of design do you seem best at? Which area appears to be your weakest? Is this ok for the role?
Most product-driven companies today, I’ve found, don’t separate “UX design” from “visual design”— UX or Product Designers are expected to do the whole process. And in my current role as UX Director at Trustpilot, the designers I manage do an even wider range of activities: they talk with users, take ideas from conception to prototype, create journey maps, do usability tests, design the final UI (and more!). It’s a lot for one person, and I don’t expect everyone who applies for a job to be an expert at every part of the process. But each designer we hire should be very good at one part of the process, and willing and eager to learn the other parts.
We hire a designer to work on a specific product team, so I always have a good idea of the skills which are crucial for that product. If you’re working on our consumer-facing website, you need to have solid visual design skills. If you’re working on onboarding, you need to be comfortable testing concepts with users and thinking in workflows.
I look at a person’s education, work history, portfolio, and even the skills and tools they list in their resume, to see if they seem like a good fit for the team. So if you tailor your application for the job description, that makes it easier for me to answer yes to this question. And if you seem to be light on a key skill, that leads me to…
Question 4: Do you show self-awareness and a desire to grow?
If I’m looking at someone who’s really strong in UI design and doesn’t have experience talking with users, I want to find out if they’ll be willing to learn. I can dig into this in our first conversation, but it’s even better if you include a cover letter that tells me you’re excited about improving certain skills. Mentioning a few (relevant) classes you’ve taken and conferences you’ve been to, or linking to blog posts you’ve written, shows me that you take personal growth seriously.
Self-awareness often comes through not only in a cover letter or resume, but also in portfolio project descriptions. I’m more impressed when someone mentions how they would do things differently in the future than when they brag about how perfect and awesome their design is.
Side note: graphs listing your skills as a percentage are not useful, usable, or delightful. I have no idea what “100%" in UX skills means to you. At best, I ignore these graphs; at worst, I will think you are an egoist. I’ve seen way too many resumes from designers with two years of experience who rate themselves as 85–90% in everything. I would advise you not to do this.
Question 5: Do you have good communication skills (visual and verbal)?
Design is so much about communication, and a long, rambling cover letter or badly formatted resume is a turn-off. If you’ve taken the effort to format your resume so it’s easy to read on a screen (does anyone print them out any more?), leave plenty of white space, and use color to communicate rather than decorate, I already have a great impression of you.
If English isn’t your first language, I will need to know that you’ll feel comfortable working in an English language environment; a few mistakes here and there aren’t a big deal, but a resume riddled with spelling and grammar errors is a deal-breaker.
A job application is a story that you’re telling about yourself. Make sure it’s a good one: this UXPin article has some tips and examples for good storytelling in portfolios.
Question 6: Have you tailored your application to the job description? Have you done any research on the company, or me?
I have a friend who made a custom “digital cover letter” (his words) for each of several jobs he applied for. It was basically a one-page website that showcased his work that fit the company’s needs. It looked beautiful, and the custom aspect made him stand out in a great way. He got several offers, and one of them was his dream job.
As Pete Lacey puts it (in a short must-read post for job seekers),
“Before you apply for your next role, I beg you to design your application. I don’t mean choosing the right typeface, colour scheme or getting your parallaxed-to-the-death website developed. I mean figuring out who your user is, the best way for you to attract (and hold) their attention.”
It is incredible how many people send in a generic resume and cover letter (or no cover letter) for a job application. Of course, it’s not always the hiring manager looking through the initial resumes, but it’s going to be someone well-versed in design. At a small company you can usually figure out who you’ll be working with: sometimes the hiring manager is named in the job posting; other times someone will tweet or post on LinkedIn about the role.
When thinking about how to attract someone’s attention, a good way is like this, described by Jon Schlossberg in his December 2016 interview on the Design Details podcast:
“You are a human, and there is a human somewhere out there on the other side of an internet connection, looking at a screen, just like you are, reading the thing that you’ve sent, looking at your portfolio. Try to connect with that human.”
I love that thought.
If you’ve connected with me as a person, and if on top you have the experience, portfolio, growth potential, and communication skills we need for the role, then you’ve definitely gotten your foot in the door! I already can’t wait to talk with you.
Ready for Part Two? Find out what I’m looking for in the next step: the phone screen or coffee chat.
