Design Interviews

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Lifecyle of an interview

A very common mistake I see when designers are interviewing is that they focus on one of the stages of an interview but not another. That often will prevent them from getting enough interviews that make it to onsite or block them from offers.

It’s important to understand each stage so to know exactly where you’re getting stuck.

Stage 0 - Win over the computer, get your resume seen

Programatic filter

Years of experience

Titles

Keywords

How do I get this in front of a human?

Cater your resume/LinkedIn

In person sessions

Referrals

Outreach

Cold emails/inMails, etc.

Friend of a friend

Introduction through a friend at a company

Stage 1 - Win over the recruiter

Recruiters know very little about the real job

Look polished

Good summary sentence

Good detail

Right keywords

Good profile photo, background photo a plus

LinkedIn referrals

Look experienced or opinionated

Blogs posts

Hobbies

Initial recruiter screen

Great narrative

Easy to understand

What you’re looking for in your next role

Your list of things you’ve

Easy to convey and remember

Matches company vision, needs, JD requirements

Stage 2 - Win over the hiring manager

Recruiter gives a filtered set of candidates for Hiring manager to review

Hiring manager is comparing each of these candidates to one another in the set Hiring managers compare candidates in sets to one another

Can’t avoid this

Like Section 1, need ways to stand out

Exercise: Look at other LinkedIn profiles for similar roles or for people at that company

Exercise: Look over 1-2 similar job postings and make sure you share the same language

Initial hiring manager phone screen

Great narrative

Exciting and compelling

Why you’re such a great person to work with

What you’re looking for in your next role and how that matches perfectly with what the company needs and wants

It should feel like a natural progression that this next role is a logical next chapter

Watch a lot of interviews and podcasts

Search executives or leaders names on Listen Notes or YouTube

Search the hiring manager’s name or interviewer

Stage 3 - Exercise

Prepare as it comes in

Tareq to provide examples

Stage 4 - Screener product intuition interview

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https://www.tryexponent.com/⁠

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Stage 5 - Onsite

Eng interview

Design interview

Hiring interview

Panel interview

Portfolio/walkthrough a product you launched

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