I couldn't make it to a job through this assignment, what did I do wrong? šŸ˜

I was given a task in the interview as mentioned in the document, Iā€™d like to learn where did I mess up and if my design approach itself is crappy. Iā€™m a beginner and the interview was for someone with a 3 year experience, however I gave it a shot to try to learn. Where do you think it all went wrong for me? (The task had to be performed with Axure only) I replied with all my study and design approach, I was declined a further interview :sob: :smile:

The task and answer link https://goo.gl/5tlCkj . Please help me by leaving a comment on the document if possible https://docs.google.com/document/d/12rQld2b1dJT7RRF5GZexZiz2frEMWVK2h-DinGVEJhc/edit#

Weā€™re happy to help! A little more informaiton, if you would-- what type of interview was this? Was it something you had a chance to work on at home beforehand, were you at a whiteboard designing in front of a group, or something else?

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Thank you for taking your time, Iā€™m happy that I can approach someone regrading this and ux mastery is my go to for now.

About the question, sorry I missed out some details, so this was a UX designer full time position at a saas company, their product was a recruitment software. I applied, the recruiter called and said that my profile was selected and explained me that there would be three phases : 1. Phone interview 2. Design Task (Which is given a time frame of 3 days) 3. Onsite interview with the hiring manager where I had to present the task and talk about design and UX decisions I took.

  1. Phone interview: Was good and the manager informed me that I have to focus on explaining more of a psychological approach. The recruiter got back to me saying that I had passed the first round of the interview.

  2. Design Task (To be performed at home) : As you can see in the document the task was given to me and was informed that I can work on the task for 3 days and send the links to the recruiter/manager via email. I did the task and got a reply from the hiring manager that I have unfortunately failed in the task.

I would never apply for a job where they expected me to work on something for free for 3 days. They could ask 20 other people to do the same thing. They then have a mass of design work that they havenā€™t paid for for but could then potentially use. I didnā€™t look at your work but suspect that you where going up against other people and you didnā€™t fail but perhaps the ā€œwinnerā€ had more years experience or somesuch.

I would consider it an unfair hiring practice that discriminates against people who have a life outside of work.

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Ask them why you werenā€™t selected for the next step. You committed three days work so they should be able to give you some detail in return.

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I agree with @rachelreveley and @Remah

Thatā€™s a hefty recruitment process and you deserve proper feedback. It may be that there is nothing to fault in your process, but that they had other exceptional applicants and one was a better culture fit, or had more relevant experienceā€¦ or anything else!

Iā€™d be upfront and say that you appreciated the opportunity to apply and respect their decision, but would appreciate a followup call to get some feedback on why you were unsuccessful so you can learn for future opportunities.

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This is fantastic advice!

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While I agree, many companies do require a design challenge. For passionate designers eager to get their foot through the door, this is the kind of thing we have to do.

Easy to say, ā€œjust redesign existing apps and documentā€ to gain experience. Hard to actually bridge the gap from being a beginner or jr. designer to mid-level designer that can come on board and contribute right away.

What advice, or what do you think is most important when trying to land a new UX gig?

Ty!

Like wise! Iā€™m in agreement with @rachelreveley after looking at your project. You did great, but Iā€™d argue that there was probably just more qualified folks you were up against. Keep your chin up though!

ā€¦and absolutely take @HAWK advice to follow up. Continuously update your portfolio or your soft skills based on that feedback.

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This only happens because passionate, eager designers are willing to do it. Itā€™s a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg game, but I can say that if designers as a whole rejected these types of design challenges in job applications, they simply wouldnā€™t happen.

Whatā€™s more, these type of challenges arenā€™t particularly effective at finding a qualified candidate. In a worst-case scenario (for the employer), whatā€™s to stop someone from farming out the work to someone else and landing a job they are wholly unprepared for, on the basis of someone elseā€™s work? In a best case scenario, the work is a reflection of the candidateā€™s ability to work in the dark, with poorly-defined business requirements, unable to ask clarifying questions and unable to work with stakeholders to provide the best-guess solution possible to compete with other candidates and the interviewerā€™s own biases.

Iā€™m going to go off on a bit of a tangent, because why not? and because this is a topic about which Iā€™m particularly passionate.

Iā€™m not against design challenges, per-se, but in my opinion they need to conform to a specific set of rules to give useful results:

  • Design challenges should be done in-person. This helps the interviewers gain real perspective into a candidateā€™s interpersonal interactions and communication skills. It also helps interviewers visualize how a candidates synthesizes information from different sources to gain specific design direction.

  • Design challenges should not focus on the companyā€™s existing product. Thereā€™s too much bias built in for candidates to be truly successful on the existing product, and itā€™s patently unethical to ask candidates to complete work for free on the basis of the possibility of employment.

  • Design challenges should be done on a whiteboard. A lot has been said about whiteboard interviews, both good and bad. Certainly it has its drawbacks, but they do allow for clear communication and invite collaboration. Additionally, the ability to effectively whiteboard ideas with stakeholders is paramount to the success of any UX designer. Nowā€™s the time to find out just how good they are at it.

  • Design challenges should be done with a fixed time limit. Apart from evaluating their ability to work on a deadline, setting a time limit helps to ensure that the candidate doesnā€™t get tied up too much in nitty-gritty details and focuses on achieving their goal. It also helps move things along in the event of multiple interviews being scheduled on the same day.

  • Each candidate needs to address a unique challenge of relatively equal difficulty. This helps avoid biases against specific design solutions and focuses the interview on how candidates think and interact with business stakeholders.

  • Speaking of stakeholders, business stakeholders should be represented at the interview by the interviewers. The candidate should be able to ask clarifying questions across business units. This helps evaluate the candidateā€™s ability to ask appropriate questions, to work across business lines, and build a consensus before diving into a project.

  • There should be some sort of monkey wrench or two thrown into the works-- a requirement that changes mid-design, a stakeholder that gets replaced with a new individual with new ideas, or an increase/decrease in time to deliver a design. This helps evaluate how candidates react to a changing design environment, an important aspect of their overall ability as designers.

For what itā€™s worth, you can find a wealth of simple UX challenges all over the internet, but some of my favorites are here.

Get experience in any way you can. Practical experience will trump education 10 times out of 10. Work on your own projects, do UX evaluations, work on an open-source project, volunteer your services to non-profits-- in short, do whatever it takes to get some work under your belt.

Keep learning. This isnā€™t optional. The nature of the internet is forever fluid, and nobody ever knows everything about a particular topic. The more you learn, the more youā€™ll find what interests you, and youā€™ll begin to develop your own specialty. The more specialized and exacting your knowledge becomes, the more valuable and effective youā€™ll be in particular roles. Seek out jobs that cater to your strengths.

Network. Go to meetups, conferences, hand out business cards, and be a personable person-- even if you donā€™t feel like it. You can never know too many people in the business, and opportunities will come your way based on the people who know you and your expertise/passion.

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I can understand your argument here. iā€™ve had this before away from UX and I didnā€™t even get a reply back. I wrote an email, a pretty angry one as I had spent days on this project - i deleted the email eventually after looking at it from a different angle.

  1. I kind of enjoyed the challenge
  2. I learnt a great deal from it
  3. Companies who treat candidates unfairly, probably do the same to colleagues
  4. I knew iā€™d be more prepared next time round and Iā€™d have a good change of cracking it
  5. F*** them

And thatā€™s exactly what happened. Minus point 5.

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One of the biggest lessons I learned early on in my corporate career, especially as someone who communicates best in written form, is to never e-mail while angry or annoyed. If that means I have to let the situation stew for a bit, or look at it from a different angle, or just turn off my computer and go scream at the prairie dogs in our parking lot (not that Iā€™ve ever done that), then so be it. Though they might feel good in the moment, angry emails never lead to anything good, from a business perspective.

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Fully agree.

Adapting to the office was always a big struggle for me to begin with. If I ever felt hard done by, I would say so. Now, when I look back, I like to think i never took the route straight into UX because there were things I had to learn that couldnt be taught in a book. Some things are best left unsaid.

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Doug, you know what i have never seen on UXMastery - a post on communication. Tips on how to communicate in the right way. Lets sayā€¦ someone suggests an idea that you feel would never work, how you respond to that.

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So true. There are so many soft business skills that need to be learned, and for most people (myself included) they are learned on-the-job. The unfortunate truth of employment is that soft skills like communication and navigating office politics play a big role in oneā€™s overall success. The only way to really get good at these is to practice them on the job.

I smell my next blog post/forum topicā€¦

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Looking forward to it!

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@natassja Something we could look into.

@natassja @HAWK Iā€™ve already started writing a post but havenā€™t published anything yet. Let me know if youā€™re interested!

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I reckon we prob are. Iā€™ll chat to Tash.

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