Design Hiring: Part 01 — For the candidate

Photo by Edmond Dantès from Pexels

This is the first part of the 2-part series on Design Hiring. Part 2 is for the Interviewer. For now, let's jump right in.

After hiring for design roles across levels for years now, and talking to several friends in leadership roles across organizations, I’ve tried to sum up the current design hiring process in India in the diagram below:

🤢 — I’m personally, strongly averse to the whole design exercise practise in the industry. This warrants an article in itself at a later date

Your Resume is the first Design Project that the hiring person will see.

The problem isn't that you don't realize this. The problem is that you understand this very well and under the pressure of making an impression, go overboard. I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time effort and energy on this. But please understand, your Resume is not a blank canvas for you to paint intricate colourful pictures. It is a document that helps the person filter you out. And so, making a good resume is of utmost importance. And to help you keep in check, here are five mantras for a good resume:

1. Simple — Refrain from un-necessary visual elements just to make the resume seem “designedly”. That bar-graph that shows 64% proficiency in Photoshop and 92 % in Sketch is in my honest opinion — useless (what is the definition of your scale? What is 100%). I have made the same mistake when I started out ages ago.
2. Legible — Avoid being verbose and have legible font-size and font-style
3. Sectional — Allow quick browsing of the sections of your resume: Education, Work Experience, etc
4. Printable — Yes, even though people view your resume digitally, today's resumes are still being printed. Folks involved in your hiring process will print it and annotate on it and share it. A4 is the way to go.
5. Linkable — Hyperlink your LinkedIn Profile, Portfolio sites etc on the resume.

Resume and Portfolio are different. Understand the difference.

Quality / Quantity

Even though Quality OVER Quantity has been said and shouted from the top of the lungs and people nod vigorously in acceptance, yet they just don't abide by it. Don't be that person. Quality over quantity is not just a cool phrase. Internalize this when making/presenting your portfolio. I am very happy to simply go through one or a maximum of 2 of your projects in depth to gauge your thought process and problem-solving approach. If you want to showcase more work simply browse through to give me an idea of the various areas you might have explored in your years of experience. When applying for a UX job, avoid presenting the logo design that you made for the college fest in a week's time or the poster you made for your curated Instagram account.

Have a Conversation

While presenting your portfolio, don't drone on. Be succinct. Quickly browse through the process and then ask the interviewer, if he or she would like you to get into detail about any aspect. Talking for half an hour endlessly about a project will only induce sleep in the interviewer. I get it. You’re passionate. You enjoyed working on the project. You have a complete context of the problem. Well, I didn't and I don’t. Refrain from using abbreviations only your team uses. Make it short and sweet for me. Make me curious about your project and encourage me to ask you questions. Have a conversation. Don't Lecture.

This is applicable during one-on-one interviews as much as portfolio discussions.

Listen to what the interviewer has asked. Understand the questions. Ask follow-up question if you didn't understand or want more information. Think and then answer. And never ever never never NEVER EVER lie. or fudge the data. The probability and possibility of the person across you knowing the right answer or right people to cross-check are super high.

Enjoy yourself

It is but natural to have butterflies in the stomach or feel a little nervous about the interview. But understand this. While you might want that job badly, the person across you is equally bent on giving the job to the right person. And the person across you at the end of the day is just another person. Another human who has also been in the same seat as you are right now. So enjoy yourself. Be in good spirits, smile, and feel comfortable.

Part 2 of this article will tell the person hiring on how to make you feel comfortable.

All the best folks :)