In these challenging times of a global pandemic, a lot of people will be forced to look for a new job and some will decide now is the time to finally change something. Luckily, the IT sector seems to be doing ok and is a good place to be working now, especially since remote work is something that existed even before all of what has happened in the last couple of months.
In this post I will share with you some of my experience with hiring processes and also some tips for the interviews.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked for a lot of different companies, but Undabot has the best hiring process I’ve encountered so far. The team is included in the hiring process and a new team member is never chosen without the consent of the people who will work closely with that person. From my experience, this is not the case with all companies, sometimes a new team member is chosen solely by the HR and/or management. The problem with this is that you can’t be sure how that person will fit into the team, which can lead to a lot of problems.
Due to circumstances, I was included in the hiring process very soon after I started working here. The first few interviews were very interesting, since I couldn’t help a lot with explaining the work processes in our company or give a lot of information to the potential candidates. I mostly observed the HR and our team lead leading the interview and chimed in with the things and skills I knew a potential designer should know or have.
During these first interviews the main difference I’ve noticed is the way we evaluated candidates in between us. After the interview, we have an internal sync where we discuss the candidate and decide on the next steps. I was really surprised because we had situations where I would say the candidate seemed nice and the HR said they noticed some red flags. I realized very soon how we pay attention to different things, I was more interested in what kind of projects the candidate has worked on and what are their skills regarding the work they should be doing in our team. On the other side, the HR observed body language, reactions to different questions and potential red flags.
A few months (and a few projects) later, we were hiring again and this process felt completely different, I knew more accurately what we needed. I was able to discuss things with candidates, explain thoroughly how our projects’ flow goes and assess more quickly if someone could be a good fit for us.
We’ve held a lot of interviews and I have to say, we’ve met a lot of different people. Some of them have positively surprised me. At first they seemed a bit cold and reserved, but as the interview went on and they relaxed a bit (interviews are always stressful, everybody knows that :)), the initial feeling changed and they displayed a whole different image of them. Some showed real passion and enthusiasm for the work they do, followed by their interest in further education and growth. Some were open about the things they still need/want to improve, situations where they would need some help and showed willingness to receive feedback.
On the other hand, there were some candidates that shocked me. Our HR team meets a lot of people and are used to it, but some candidates surprised me in a bad way. I find it really interesting how some people seem one way on paper and turn out to be completely different in person.
Here are a few examples of interviews gone wrong quickly:
- A candidate had, in a resume, a title “Design team lead” — we asked “So how many people are there in your team?” and the answer we got was “It’s just me.”
- When we were discussing an assignment, the candidate was asked why something was placed on that spot in the design and the answer we got was: “Because I put it there.”
- When asked which part of the design process the candidate preferred (with a side note that there is no wrong answer, it’s that we just want to know the direction they would maybe like to develop more in the future) it took the candidate more than a few minutes to say something and in the end the answer we got was confusing.
- Some candidates would talk a lot, but in the end, we would notice we didn’t get a concrete answer, or it seemed they were just repeating our questions in their words.
- Some candidates were showing us their portfolio and they didn’t know when to stop presenting a lot of variations of the same design.
The best thing I learned during this experience was not to compare the candidates. At first you may think this is not OK, but when you think about it and try it out a few times, it makes sense. Before, I used to compare and contrast the candidates, I would explore their experience, skills, portfolio and think why one would fit in/work better than the other. During this process I learned to review the candidate on facts solely connected to them, to think if they will be able to do everything that is expected from them and how they will fit in with the rest of the team, regardless of the other candidates. There was no longer “a better candidate”, just the candidate we were, or we were not looking for.
Conclusion
As someone who also went through the same hiring process, I can give you some helpful tips for the interviews in our company (which, I would say, also apply to most companies):
- Be honest - we are a company that values honesty, we are constantly educating ourselves and working on improvements. So, if you have some skills that need working on (show me someone that hasn’t), that may not be a reason for not hiring you.
- Don’t oversell - during the interview we can ask a few questions which will reveal the truth quickly. Also, in case you get the job based on things you don’t really know, it will also be noticed very soon.
- Put in your CV only the things you know or are at least somewhat familiar with -the previous comment is also connected to this one, we can easily find out if most of the things you stated are true.
- Try to be relaxed -our interview process is casual and we try to make the candidates feel good.
- Showcase your best work. Think about the good projects you’ve worked on. Also think about the bad projects, situations which required additional problem-solving are always interesting to hear.
- Say what you’re passionate about and which things intrigue you the most, how you learn and keep up to date with this ever changing area.
It may seem to you that we ask a lot, but in Undabot, designers are involved in the project from the beginning, we work on estimating the project load, communicate regularly with clients, run workshops, sync with the developers and a lot more.
If this all sounds great to you, drop us a line at jobs@undabot.com and come work with us! :)
A big thanks to our Head of HR Davor Pukšić for reviewing this post. :)
