How to shine in a job interview at Zalando
Part 2: The Design Exercise
In 2019, I wrote the article “How to survive a job interview on Zalando” focussing on the Design Deep Dive. Today, I’d like to explain the interview format that you will come across in the next stage: the Design Exercise.
Let’s start with good news: the Design Exercise is the most fun and engaging interview format. Here you are tasked to do what you do in real life: understand user problems and ideate solutions. (We used to call this the “Whiteboard Exercise” when we could fly you to Berlin and discuss together in front of a whiteboard. We’re looking forward to one day getting back to that.) Here’s a brief and friendly essential guide covering what the exercise involves, to get you prepared to make an impression.
What to expect
Before the interview:
While I am sure you will have already prepared for the interviews, I would recommend that you make yourself familiar with the Zalando website and app. Just browse around, see what we’re doing, what we’re focussing on, and where there might be room for improvement.
Open the Zalando website on your computer and prepare a pen and paper. The discussions are geared more towards quick sketching and strategic thinking, rather than creating real screens. We’re not looking for perfect solutions, so be advised that opting to use a design tool might hold you back in terms of speed and put you at a disadvantage.
Make sure that the pen you are using will be visible via the camera — a Sharpie or something similar is ideal. In case you usually blur your background, unblur it now. Otherwise, we can’t see your drawings. We’re completely fine with looking at the paper upside down, so just position the paper in front of you, so that the camera can catch it when needed.
During the session
The interviewer will start by giving a short introduction; they will tell you a bit about themselves and what you can expect from the next 60 to 90 minutes. There may be two people from Zalando in the interview. One of them will be the driver and the other one is “in training” to become a good interviewer, and will mainly be observing. Both of them will be designers, like you.
You will then get the design exercises one by one. The maximum will be three. It’s down to the interviewer to guide you on timing, so don’t worry about that. The interviewers have a mix of exercises to choose from: some are shorter and some take more time; some are consumer-facing and others are employee-facing. You can trust that your interviewer looked into your profile upfront and chose the right ones for you and your level. And yes, even if you’ve mostly worked in B2B before, we might still give you one B2C task (or vice versa), to see how broad your experience level is. All exercises were challenges that designers at Zalando actually had in the past and solved successfully, so they also give you a good idea of problems you’ll be solving if you’ll work here.
After these discussions you will still have the opportunity to ask questions — it’s totally up to you to decide in which direction they go.
Hot tips
- Fake real life. Of course, the interview setup is an artificial one, and in real life, you’d have more time and resources available to solve a customer problem. Still, try to put yourself into the mindset of being the responsible designer for the given problem. What would you do? How would you tackle it step by step? With whom? You can make assumptions where needed.
- Ask questions. Remember, the people you will talk to in the interview are (1) designers, and (2) working at Zalando. Make use of this. The interviewers want you to succeed, and they have all been in your shoes.
- Think out loud. We can only judge how you solve the exercise if you verbalise what’s going through your head at every step of the process. My advice would be to take 2–3 minutes to let the task sink in and then go ahead and let us know how you want to tackle it.
- Follow prompts. The interviewer will guide you through the exercises, especially if you get lost. Make sure you listen to them carefully and apply tips when you get them.
What’s next
When you’re done with the Design Exercise, it will usually take the interviewer and recruiter two to three days to discuss the outcome. If you interview during our fast-track hiring days, it will even be on the same day. After a successful interview, you will be invited to the last session: the job-specific interview. There you get to talk to one, two, or even three design managers, who can imagine you joining their team after looking at the interview results. The managers are actually competing a bit with each other (which can be fun for you to see). They’ll explain everything you need to know for their specific open position so that also you can assess where you might fit the best. So you are sort of interviewing the managers as well!
Let me know if you have any questions regarding the Design Exercise interview in the comments below.
