How to Prepare for A Design Interview: Let Your Skills Shine and Land Your Dream Job

Your guide to finding, landing, and preparing for a product design interview, so you can land the job you want.
Dan Shilov (Instacart)
Ashley Rappa (Human Writes Consulting)
▪︎ 25 minutes read time

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

This post is excerpted from Land Your Dream Design Job

When you picture your dream design job, chances are that you envision the destination, not the process it took to get you there. Having all the required knowledge and a stellar portfolio to succeed at a job are critical, but interviewing to get the job is its own unique skill set.

Designing is hard. We spend considerable time, effort, and money learning the craft, whether it’s through traditional education, new boot camps, or on the job. We invest time in our education because we believe the payoff will be worth it. But when it comes to looking for work, we frequently find ourselves on our own. Unfortunately, the job search and design interviewing process can sometimes feel just as mysterious.

To add on to that confusion, there has been an evolution in the design industry over the last few decades, particularly when it comes to job title and scope. Previously, specialist skills present in roles such as web designer, service designer, interaction designer, UX designer, UI designer, and information architect are now commonly seen collapsed under the title of “product designer.” This sometimes adds more to the confusion since product design expectations vary by company.

confusion To keep things focused here, we’ll use the term product design to refer to UX/UI design as well.

Almost every product designer struggles with interviews, from those who are just starting out to the most senior candidates with years of experience behind them. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

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This in-depth guide reflects expertise from people on all sides of the hiring table—with one goal. So you can improve your interviewing skills and communicate in such a way that puts your best foot forward to let your skills and talents shine.

First Things First

It finally happened—you found a great job opportunity, sent in your application, and heard back. They want to interview you and get to know you better. It may feel like you’ve done a lot to get here and you’re already prepared for what’s next, but there’s no such thing as being too prepared to land your dream job.

Before we get started with the interview process, there’s some great self-prep work you can do before the official process begins.

Understand Your Superpowers

Product designer can be a generic title. Even if the job description you applied to has more specifics about what they’re looking for, it’s equally as important to define the type of product designer you are—one way to do so is by highlighting your own superpowers.

When we typically think of superpowers, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the mastery of a specific skill. Obviously this superpower should be highlighted, but don’t worry if you’re not there yet or if you can’t point to one skill that’s excellent.

What skills do you have that are above average? What work using those skills are you proud of? It could be something as simple as rough illustrations and storytelling. What missing skills or perspectives can you bring to a team? What’s your unique point of view? What unique experience do you have based on your previous roles?

Entering into the design interview process with a deep knowledge of your own abilities, strengths, and unique attributes will set you apart from other applicants and help you gain confidence well before you take the next step.

Do Your Homework

Something caught your eye about the job description, or maybe you’ve always had this company on your radar as a place you’d love to work some day. Whatever it is that got you to where you are now, homework is a tool that can help you make the most of it.

Do your research about the company itself. Pay particular attention to leadership, locations, structure, mission, values, previous work, and their track record in the industry. Make sure you have a deep understanding of the work that they do and the people who are doing that work—both are equally important.

The best places to find this information are the company website, previous publications, press releases, news articles, review sites, and their social media channels. Don’t forget to put your network to good use! Do you know someone who works there or used to work there? Or do you know someone who might know someone? There’s no substitute for first-hand insight.

Once you have a clear understanding of both your own perspective and the company’s unique offerings, you’ll be well on your way to being prepared for the interviews to come.

All About Interviews9 minutes, 3 links

The Phone Screen Interview

Think of a phone screen interview as the first hurdle you need to be able to jump over. Phone screen interviews are usually short, about 15–30 minutes interviewing with one person. They’ll give you an opportunity to present yourself, your work, and your interest in the company. They’ll talk about the role, ask some questions, and will try to gauge your interest. And they’ll usually ask you to start with a brief introduction about yourself, the first time you can let your design superpowers really shine.

important Your 30-second intro should be punchy, specific, and short.

These phone screen interviews are usually pretty formulaic. Here are some questions you can expect:

Your Story and Work History

  • Tell me more about your career journey—how did you end up where you’re currently at?

  • What would you like to do next?

  • Why are you interested in working with us?

  • Where do you envision yourself long-term?

  • What are you looking for next in your role?

Your Current Work Situation

  • Why are you searching now?

  • Would you require visa sponsorship in the future?

  • What salary are you expecting?

caution ​Remember, in most states (in the U.S.), it’s illegal for a recruiter to ask you how much you’re making. But if they do, you can give a generic answer stating that you’re being paid the fair market average. That said, it’s legal for a recruiter to ask about compensation expectations. One way you can answer this question is to ask what band they have for this specific role.

As the conversation wraps up, you’ll usually have a few minutes for questions. Have a few specific questions in mind before you hop on the phone call so you can make sure to concentrate on the conversation itself.

important​ Be sure to listen actively and take down notes during the interview.

It may feel like asking a generic question is a safe bet, but this is a chance to let your personality and expertise shine. Here are some basic questions to get you started, but make sure to make them your own:

  • How is the design team organized?

  • What challenges are you facing today?

  • What problems can I help you with?

  • What excites you about working here?

  • How big is the design team now?

Make sure you end the phone call on a high note that indicates your continued interest in the role. Something like: “It was great getting to know you and learning more about the opportunity—I can’t wait until we chat again. What would be the next step?

The Hiring Manager Interview

Unless there are obvious mismatches between your application and the role, usually most interviews proceed to the next stage, which usually means talking to the hiring manager. They should have some information about how your phone screening interview went, but this is your chance to get more into the specifics and showcase why you would be a great fit for the product designer role.

Your Design Approach and Process

The interviewer is interested to see if you have a specific process when approaching problems. What framework do you use? Is your approach rigid or flexible based on the context at hand? Are you able to bend and break the process while focusing on outcomes? Some questions they may ask:

  • What does design mean to you?

  • What is the most exciting project you worked on? Why was it exciting?

  • What was the most challenging project you worked on? What made it difficult?

  • Who was the most difficult stakeholder in this project?

These questions are designed to probe your design process, get some initial signals around your collaboration skills, and to get a glimpse of how you solve problems. Remember that initial work you did about understanding your unique superpowers? This is a perfect opportunity to put that front and center.

Questions You Should Ask

  • Can you walk me through a project that you worked on recently?

  • What was the most complex or largest project you worked on? What made it complex?

  • How does the design team work together?

  • How do you think the design team can improve?

  • Where do you envision yourself as a designer in the next couple of years?

  • What inspires you?

Just like with the previous interview, you should always be thinking about how this interview can set you up for success in the next one. Thank them for the interview, ask if there are any other open questions they have and, if not, ask about next steps.

The Final Interview

The final interview is a big step in the process. Congrats on making it this far! This is an opportunity for you to arrive with confidence, be prepared for the unexpected, and, finally, leave your interviewers excited to work with you.

Once you’ve received your plan for the day—who will be attending, how long you have with each person, and anything you’ll need to have prepared—you know by now to do your research. Look into each interviewer’s unique areas of focus, craft specific questions for each person, and come prepared with why you’re the right person for this position.

Here are some general tips that can help you approach it, engage meaningfully, have fun, and hopefully land yourself your dream design job.

Show Your Excitement

In addition to evaluating you on your skills, your potential future employers will also be looking at you from a behavioral perspective. They want to work with someone who is enthusiastic, easy to get along with—in other words, a good cultural fit.

Culture is a loaded term. That said, it’s in your interest to appear engaged and enthusiastic about the interview. The team is excited to talk with you, and they hope that you’re just as excited about the opportunity.

Rethink Stress

Lastly, if you’re starting to feel stressed out—you’re actually excited. As professor Jamie Jamieson’s research on stress suggests (recounted in Kelly McGonigal’s book The Upside of Stress), it’s not that high performers don’t feel stress, it’s that they ascribe this stress to be a positive force that helps them reach peak-level performance.

In one study, participants were asked to give a speech. Those who thought of stress as a positive force were rated higher and appeared more confident compared to those who were asked to ignore their stress response. So take that lesson to heart—if you’re starting to feel overly stressed, take a deep breath and reframe your mindset as an exciting and positive force.

Have a Backup Plan Ready

Finally, it helps to have a backup plan in case technology fails—maybe your laptop dies, maybe there’s no internet connection. It’s surprising how often simple things that should work fail during moments that matter. To prepare, aside from having your portfolio downloaded locally to your laptop, have it as a backup on a thumb drive or a private online link that you can access.

Good Luck and Enjoy the Process!

Interviews can be grueling, but if you’ve done all this work up-front, you’ll thank yourself later. With prep done, you’ll arrive with confidence, on time, and will have a process in place when facing the unexpected.

Preparing Your Portfolio for Success10 minutes, 3 links

As part of your final interview you’ll be asked to present your portfolio. See this as an opportunity to show the great work that you’ve done, reinforcing the fact that you can do it and more again.

Here’s how you can create a gripping narrative that gets your interviewers excited to work with you.

Building Your Deck

The number one person you’re building this deck for is yourself. You’ll want to create a modular portfolio that you can remix at a moment’s notice if you’re called in for an interview with another company. To help you get there, I recommend you start an assessment of your recent work.

Stacking Your Projects

What were your recent projects that you consider to be your best work that show a variety of skills? Highlight projects that played to your unique identity as a designer—your combination of skills, point of view, and process that led to a result no other designer could have achieved.

One way to put together a project stack is to evaluate each project individually on your craft skills, such as user research, interaction design, visual design, and affected platforms.

Figure: Project 1, Interaction and Research Focus

An example project with a heavy interaction and research component.

As an example, you might have a project where you were heavily involved with customer interviews, solving a complex interaction problem for a desktop app, but you were operating within an existing design system, so there wasn’t much visual design work.

Figure: Project 2, Visual Design Focus

An example project with a visual design focus.

Figure: Breadth and Depth of Skills

Combining different projects to show your breadth and depth of skills.

Combining these projects in your portfolio demonstrates that you have strong skills in many areas. These graphs were inspired by Irene Au’s article, Writing a Job Description for UX People.

You might also consider other project dimensions:

  • Project complexity. Simpler projects can span a few weeks, others might take months or years.

  • Visionary projects. Projects that were in a completely brand-new space without a precedent, going from 0 to 1.

  • Optimization projects. Mature platforms that you were optimizing, going from 1 to 10.

  • Operational projects. Initiatives you worked on to improve a team’s impact—for example, design systems or design process.

Tailoring Your Projects for the Role

After evaluation, it’s time to tailor the portfolio to the role. You’ll get a good sense of what to include (or exclude), what to show first, and what to put in the appendix based on the job description. Ideally you get a sense of their underlying needs from the phone interview. Not sure what to show? The recruiter (or a dedicated contact at the company) is your best ally in this process. Don’t guess—reach out and ask them to describe their ideal candidate and what work they’d like to see.

Storytelling for Success

To make an impactful presentation, turn it into a story. You’re the hero of your own script. What trials on your path gave way to triumphs? Let’s break this down into three parts: presentation, project, and process.

Figure: Presentation, Projects, and Process

The majority of your presentation will be spent on process, but don’t skip context.

Presentation Outline

Your overall in-person portfolio outline will be similar to this:

  • Title. Your name and interview date.

  • Background. A snapshot of your education, skills, and experience.

  • Projects overview. A snapshot of the projects you’ll be presenting.

  • Projects. Detailed case studies of two or three projects.

    Thank you. The last slide and cue for interviewers to ask more questions.

  • Additional projects. A few projects you might want to show to provide detail. These can come handy during one-to-one interviews.

Don’t skip the intro! Introducing yourself, your background, and the projects you’ll be showing sets the tone for the rest of the presentation.

Project Outline

Unlike a scannable online portfolio, you’ll want to keep your audience in some suspense and excitement. A mix of problem setting and storytelling is helpful:

  • Problem. What was the issue that was identified; who raised it?

  • Context. What was the company, the team, and the time frame, and what role did you play?

  • Process. How did you do the work from initial discovery through to concepts, iteration, research, and collaboration with cross-functional partners?

  • Outcomes. What was the result?

  • Lessons learned. What would you have done differently given everything you know now?

You’ll spend the most of your presentation on process, showing your approach, how you framed the problem and moved the project forward while overcoming obstacles along the way. This is an excellent place to think of a narrative arc for each project.

The hero’s journey is one framework you can use to add a layer of excitement to your case study.

Figure: The Hero’s Journey

The hero’s journey is a popular framework for effective storytelling.

Here’s how the framework can be translated for design:

  • You. About you and your background.

  • Call to adventure. You found a big problem that no one saw.

  • Refusal. But you already had many projects at the time.

  • Mentor. A former manager encouraged you to take the first step.

  • Crossing the threshold. You decided to re-prioritize your projects.

  • Allies. As you embarked on your journey, you found support from engineering and research teams.

  • Innermost cave. You created different concepts to address the problem.

  • Ordeal. You tested your concepts and many of them failed…

  • Seizing the sword. But you found solutions that worked and developed stronger bonds with your researcher counterpart.

  • Journey back. As you started implementing the solution and working closely with the team, new challenges emerged.

  • Resurrection. Finally, you were able to overcome these challenges and emerge with a new solution that no one had thought of before.

  • Elixir. You obtained new knowledge, moved metrics, and acquired customer love.

Don’t force yourself to use all the elements, as it might make your case study formulaic and rigid. Instead, take a few that lend themselves well to your project already and build them out.

Process Ingredients

Talking about process lets interviewers peek behind the curtain on how you approach the work. This is an opportunity to show what matters most to you and what methods you use to inform and evolve your work at each stage.

Here are some process ideas worth considering for your slides:

  • Problem framing. How did you reframe the problem you were given?

  • Synthesis. How did you synthesize data from different sources to understand the problem at hand?

  • Constraints. How did you overcome the constraints of a project (lack of money, time, and so on)?

  • Data science. What did the quantitative analysis tell you?

  • Compromise. When did you have to lose a battle to win the war? How did you navigate tough decisions?

  • Rough sketches, whiteboards, sticky notes. Don’t just include the sticky notes, but tell a story why a rough sketch helped you move forward in the design process.

  • User research. What validation have you done? Did you survey, interview customers, or test out the competition?

  • Changing requirements. Did the requirements change on you mid-project? Take that opportunity to highlight your adaptability.

  • Technical constraints. What system issues did you encounter? How did you collaborate with engineering to come to a great solution together?

  • Conflict with co-workers. You wanted to zig but they wanted to zag—how did you resolve differences?

  • Ideas left behind. You had to move fast and not everything got implemented. What was left out and what would you take forward?

Presenting a compelling (not comprehensive) narrative is your main goal, so don’t be afraid to leave things out.

important Put extra work in the appendix. It may be tempting to add a lot of context and describe your process from beginning to end. If your deck is starting to get over 60 slides however, watch out for timing. If there are additional details that don’t significantly alter your story, include those in the appendix. If questions come up, you can always pull from that section. This will also free you up in delivering a strong presentation from the beginning since you’re not worried about going over time.

Presenting Your Portfolio for Success

Though your work should speak for itself, in the product design interview process, you’ll also have to present it. It’s not everyone’s strong suit, but these tips and tricks will help make you comfortable and confident sharing your work.

Write a Script

A script allows you to see a bird’s-eye view of the presentation and ensures that you don’t lose sight of key points you want to communicate. When you’re done, present your portfolio in the mirror as if you’re interviewing yourself. Time it. Inevitably you’ll need to pause and make adjustments to the script. After doing a couple of run-throughs with it, not only will you improve your content but you’ll by then have it memorized to the point of it becoming second nature.

Involve Your Audience

As you’re presenting your work, be sure to talk to your audience, not your screen. This sounds obvious, but I’ll guarantee that you might get nervous, you might forget, and—without consciously paying attention—you just might spend most of your time talking at your screen instead of connecting with your listeners.

One way to combat this is to use notes. A simple cue can help you remember your message so you can focus on the audience instead of the screen.

Strike a Comfortable Pace

As you get into your presentation, you want to keep a good rhythm going. Sometimes nerves will get the better of you and you might speak too fast, trying to cover a lot of ground. Usually, good moments for a time check are at the end of your intro (first ten minutes), your first case study (middle of the presentation), and your last or second case study (with ten minutes to spare at the end for questions). Time checks help you keep pace and be deliberate in presenting or skipping content if you do end up running short on time.

End with Time to Spare

Lastly, you want to end your presentation with time to spare for questions, for you and the audience. This is the final opportunity for your interviewers to ask questions about the work and dive into the specifics. Most importantly, have questions for them too—this is something you can include in your own on-site packet.

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