The two-way street to getting hired at Zalando
Ready to find your fit at Zalando? Senior Product Designer, Maria de la Riva, shares her insider tips to our interview process.
If you’re of the mind that life is too short to stay in a job you’re not passionate about, then you’d agree with over 90 percent of job switchers who moved on to greener pastures during the pandemic. Luckily for us, Maria de la Riva was among them. In search of new creative challenges and growth opportunities, she positively glided into Zalando’s Size & Fit department as a Senior Product Designer last year. As part of a brilliant team, Maria is helping to break new ground in this sensitive area of design. As she puts it, size and fit technology “touches on a lot of things that make us human, including identity and insecurities.”
How did Maria find out that she was the right fit for Zalando’s Product Design community? We asked her to take us through her experience of our in-depth hiring process and to give her advice to future interviewees who are ready to follow in her footsteps.
How did you find out about Zalando?
I first heard about Zalando from recruiters who reached out to me on LinkedIn a few years ago. I looked into it and was intrigued, but I wasn’t looking for new opportunities at the time.
Fast forward a couple of years, and the pandemic pushed me (as many others) to take a closer look at my life. I realized that I got a little too comfortable at my previous job, didn’t have the opportunity to grow as much as I wanted, and that I was less and less involved in my practice. I wanted a place where I could continue to grow, be more engaged, and hold myself accountable. So it seemed like a good time for a change. This was when a Zalando recruiter reached out to me and, this time around, it worked very well. Zalando is much, much larger. There’s definitely a lot of room here for me to learn from others — everyone is super smart.
“People often forget that interviewing is a two-way street. The company is evaluating you, but you also get an opportunity to see if it is a fit for you!”
How was the interviewing experience?
The process started with a chat with the recruiter. I had an opportunity to surface the things that I was looking for in my future employer. Growth was a crucial aspect, so being surrounded by senior peers to exchange with was important. I was also looking for some interesting challenges and a certain degree of flexibility. The recruiter introduced a few potential opportunities and we both agreed that it seemed to be an initial match. We followed up with a second call, where I shared more about myself and my professional experience. A Design Deep Dive and a Design Exercise followed, as well as meetings with two potential managers. This was also something I appreciated; Zalando wants to hire great people, but also to make sure that they are invested and happy in the teams they end up in.
I was in Guatemala at the time, so aligning schedules was a bit of a challenge. But, overall, the process was pretty smooth and a lot of fun. I don’t think I ever felt stressed about any of it. Whoever I talked to was super friendly and welcoming.
What ultimately sold me on Zalando was the people. People often forget that interviewing is a two-way street. The company is evaluating you, but you also get an opportunity to see if it is a fit for you!
How would you describe your candidate experience in three words?
Engaging: Every interview was two-sided and felt like a conversation rather than a Q&A session or a presentation.
Insightful: The interviewers gave me a glimpse of what professional life looks like at Zalando. They were careful with using pronouns, polite, and most importantly, happy. I could sense that they were excited to be a part of the company from the way they described their roles, and that they genuinely believed in what they were doing. Many had been at the company for years, which said plenty about the culture.
Educational: I hadn’t been interviewed in a couple of years, so it was great to learn how a company the size of Zalando structured the process. Learning about potential challenges and how to solve them was stimulating. And now that I’m on the other side of things, I can confirm that different areas of professional development are being measured and it’s indeed a very thought-through process.
Tell us more about your role.
I am a Senior Product Designer for the Size & Fit team. We leverage new technologies to help customers solve the problems around size and/or fit. My work revolves around body measurement technology that can help customers streamline their shopping experience and find the right fit for them. It’s a very new and interesting space to be working in because it touches on a lot of things that make us human, including identity and insecurities. On the surface, it might seem to be only about clothing, but it’s so much more than just the fit; it’s about who we want to be and how we want to feel in our clothes. It’s a lot of fun.
I am lucky to be a part of a great team. As I mentioned before, everybody is experienced in their fields and has much to contribute, so it’s a great learning experience for me.
“I’d suggest opening up your dusty, old, and perhaps imperfect, deliverables. Of course your work should be organized and presentable, but it doesn’t have to be perfect!”
What advice would you give somebody interviewing at Zalando?
- Check-in calls with recruiters: There is not much advice I can offer here other than preparing the highlights of your career journey. Be ready to answer questions about who you are as a designer and what you have learned so far. But also make sure to actively define things that you are looking for and trying to avoid. It’s important to take ownership of your career and articulate that quite openly. In the end, an opportunity not being a match could be a positive outcome when you know it doesn’t align with your expectations.
- Design Deep Dive: My suggestion would be to avoid presenting from your portfolio. If that’s something you sent along with your application, your interviewers have already seen it. Instead, as intimidating as it can be, I’d suggest opening up your dusty, old, and perhaps imperfect, deliverables. Of course your work should be organized and presentable, but it doesn’t have to be perfect! You can pick one or more projects that really showcase your strengths and give insights into your thought process. The interviewers are designers too, so they will understand more from your process than a polished deliverable.
- Design Exercise: People tend to be really nervous during this challenge. Please remember that you’ve already made it to this round, you have a lot to show and you deserve to be there. It’s okay that you won’t come up with a perfect solution, and that’s not the expectation! Nobody can design perfection in the limited time that we have. What really matters is how you approach the task. It’s hard to practice for the Design Exercise because you don’t know what exactly you’re going to get. You might want to look into different approaches and methodologies beforehand, but remember to be flexible.
“Enjoying your work and the people you work with is an important part of the life-work balance.”
What do you value the most now you’re part of Zalando?
The work I’m doing is very interesting, and it’s a new field. We’re working on things that haven’t been developed before, so it has a lot of appeal to it.
The people are another aspect. People often forget that product design is a team sport, and we rely so much on the people around us to create solutions. At the end of the day, I am tired — that’s normal — but I’m not psychologically tired. I am happy to be on a team that is so positive, friendly, open, polite and fun to work with.
That’s my favorite thing about Zalando. I had high expectations around the culture of the team before joining and they were definitely met. I think enjoying your work and the people you work with is an important part of the life-work balance.
How did it feel to start remotely?
We could still go to the office when I started, so I had a chance to meet some people from my team. We had lunch and smaller working sessions together. I experienced remote work before joining Zalando, so the idea wasn’t as terrifying. However, back then, I had some pretty bad onboardings and noticed it was difficult to generate work culture remotely.
I remember joining a Product Design Campfire — an all-hands online meeting for Zalando designers — and thinking that it was a really good way to maintain culture during these times. There is a remote ritual structure and, in general, the design community is doing a great job at maintaining the culture and spreading it to the newcomers. Though hopefully we’ll be able to go back to the office soon and see some people!
Ready for a new challenge? View our current UX openings.
