How I got, handled and aced UX Interviews at companies like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and more!

It’s interview season again, and you know what that means — That crippling feeling of not knowing how to actually handle and ace your interviews. Well, fret not, because it isn’t quite as challenging as it probably feels right now. Like any interview the purpose of a UX interview is to sell yourself as a designer, but more importantly as a communicator.

Getting an Interview

Getting an interview is the first step to getting the job (or internship) of your dreams. I’m coming at this from the perspective of a college student. My experience has been on college campuses, but I’d imagine some of the general procedures should apply even outside of the college setting.

The first place to start is probably your college’s job/career fair. Almost all colleges have a job/career fair once or twice a year. For art schools this likely also includes a portfolio review. Making sure you look through and identify the companies that are going to be at your school in advance is a great idea. There’s a bunch of companies that register to be at schools, and you don’t want to be blindsided by the sheer variety in companies being represented. Once you know who’s coming, it is always a good idea to create a prioritized list of companies you’re both most interested in, and most qualified for. That second part is important. I’ve often seen sophomores with little to no portfolio work feeling dejected after a lackluster conversation with a company at a career fair, when they just didn't have the experience or work to show the company. This doesn’t mean they didn’t like you, or that there isn’t a chance with them in the future, it just means you’re not ready yet—and thats ok! Because some day you will be, and between now and then there’s just more time for self-improvement, learning and personal growth! 😄

Once you know who’s coming, it isn’t a bad idea to give LinkedIn’s search tool a whirl and look for recruiters at those companies. Recruiters can have conversation with literally hundreds of students at career fairs, so connecting with them beforehand, introducing yourself and expressing your interest in the company, and in meeting them in person can’t hurt. So, when you eventually see them in person there’s a mental connection, and reinforcement. You’re more likely to have been on their mind, because somewhere they were likely expecting to see you. Now, this technique doesn’t always work out, recruiters are EXTREMELY busy people, they arguably have some of the most stressful and thankless jobs out there, but it can’t hurt your chances to try. (This has worked for me in the past!)

Outside job/career fairs, portfolio reviews are a great way to create connections at a company. Career fairs normally have recruiters representing companies, and while these are great people to speak and connect with, if you get the opportunity to spend some time with an actual designer at a company it will behoove you in more ways than one. To start, it’s an opportunity few get to get eyes on their work from practicing designers in industry. Getting feedback on your work from these designers is extremely valuable for your own growth as a designer, but also serves as an opportunity to present your skills as a designer and communicator right to the people you want to be working alongside. I have personally had portfolio reviews lead to job interviews and have seen this happen with friends and other peers as well.

Finally, it may seem pointless but online applications do actually work. It feels like you’re throwing a heartfelt cover letter and your precious resume and portfolio into the ether where no soul will ever see it, but it does actually work. I applied to Apple on their careers page with no belief that my application would ever be seen. How wrong I was. It took a while, but a little over a month after submitting my application I was contacted by a recruiter at Apple. A month later I had a job offer from them! (Which I didn’t end up taking, but for which I am also EXTREMELY grateful!) The lesson here is, make sure you genuinely put effort into putting together convincing online applications, because even though it seems like they’re pointless, you never know when the right person comes across yours.

You’ve got an interview, what now?

Alright, this is the exciting part, but also probably the most intimidating. You actually got an interview! Who would’ve thought, right?! (😂 ) Don’t fret! This is going to be easy, I promise! Interviews (believe it or not) are actually my favorite part of the process. I love talking to people, and there’s nothing I enjoy talking about more than my process and how I create my work. I can understand that I’m likely one of a small minority who genuinely enjoys this, but I also wasn’t always like this. I, too, was nervous. Nervous about how I was presenting myself, if I was saying the right things, if I sounded sensible, if my justifications for design decisions made sense at all, and if I was truly connecting with my interviewer. Then one day I realized that the amount of mind space I was occupying with all of these secondary and tertiary thoughts was all sacrificing my actual ability to descriptively convey my ideas. Now, this isn’t to say that feeling all those feelings isn’t normal, it’s probably a good thing if you’re feeling them, because it means you truly care. Thats the first step!

Harnessing these emotions and using them as propellant to help drive your conversations is the key to a successful interview process.

So, once you have that interview scheduled it’s important to remember that what interviews want to see are a combination of factors. A common mistake I see a lot of my peers and other young designers make is that they tend to focus on one specific part of their application. (By application I mean what they’re presenting to someone. This is a combination of a Portfolio, a resume, potentially a cover letter and design challenge, as well as interviews) They will focus either on trying to make their portfolio site look great, or try and make sure that they’ve researched every “UX Question” a company might ask. While on the surface all this seems like preparedness, in reality it’s the manifestation of “perfection is the enemy of the good.” All thats happening here is that you focusing too hard on what might get you the job, and not on being the best designer and version of yourself you can be. The latter will always behoove you, the byproduct is getting the job, too!

“perfection is the enemy of the good.”

When recruiters and designers are looking to hire an individual, the only thing more important than your work is what kind of person you are. 99% of the time, most people are looking for someone who is a good cultural fit for the team. When someone gels well with people it is automatically a signifier that they’re going to be someone people will want to work alongside. In a career like design which is so multifaceted and where people have to work in teams more often than not, interpersonal skills and being a good team player is of primary importance. It is important to remember that if you’ve got an interview, then a company likes your work. They’ve looked through your portfolio at least once, and they’ve already seen that you most likely already have the technical skillset to be able to execute their daily processes. This is typically the least important part. Learning technical skills is no easy task, and undermining it I am not, but what typically takes priority over technical skills is interpersonal and communication skills.

Of course your design skills are why they are looking to hire you in the first place. The last thing I’m trying to say is that you can compensate for a lack of design-thinking skills with being able to talk someone’s ear off (a method I tried earlier in my design career journey!)

Typically a design interview process consists of a primary interview with a recruiter. This interview is normally about 30–45 minutes long and is them making sure that you meet qualifications such as work eligibility, year in school (if you’re still in school) etc. The next one is likely going to be what’s commonly referred to as a phone-screen. This is a 30–45 minute interview with a designer who has reviewed your portfolio. This interview is normally about 5–10 minutes for introductions and information, and then the candidate spends about 10 minutes per project to walk the interviewer through about two projects from their portfolio. The interviewer will be looking at the project on their end and hearing you out. So, the important part — what do they want to hear? While every company is looking for something different, the basic formula for what makes a good candidate has some key elements.

1. They want to be able to see that you work well with others. They want to see what sort of contribution you’ve made to a larger team and project, and how it had a positive effect on the task at hand.
2. They want you to be able to justify your design decisions. Too often this is somewhere I’ve seen people trip up. Younger designers will tend to either work off of intuition or make quick decisions without as much consideration, and then have a tough time backing them up. Always having a good reason for having made a design decision will serve you well. This doesn’t mean that you can’t sometimes say things like “because I believe this is what will work best”, after all, your skills and taste are what define you and your work. It just means that having most of your decisions based on empirical data such as user testing will make for a better argument in your arsenal.
3. Interviewers always want to see that you’re able to convert learned skills into actionable output. Having projects in your portfolio outside of classwork will serve you well. Being able to see that you’ve taken the core principles of what you’ve learned in school about design and applied them to work in a real-world environment shows your ability to work dynamically.
4. Interviewers want to see how you think and problem solve. Make sure to ask questions! Feel out what the balance is like based on how much time you have available over the phone, and this is as much an opportunity for you to learn about the company as it is for them to learn about you. I spent a decent chunk of my time at my interview with AT&T asking questions about how a designer like me would fit in to their teams, and what kind of projects my interviewer had been working on to learn a little bit more about them and the company design culture.
5. Finally, interviewers are looking for personality. Have fun! Being professional doesn’t mean you can’t be personable. Some of my richest conversations with designers have come from me turning something into a humorous situation and going from there. (My first interviewer from Microsoft and I probably spent more time laughing than talking seriously 🤔)

The first interview went well! What now?!

Ok, this doesn’t always happen. I’ve been through interviews with companies, such as a cybersecurity company I interviewed with in Colorado for an internship where they definitely didn't have the budget to fly me out. But what I did have next was a design challenge. Design challenges are interesting. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of them but I understand why companies do them. Companies like Google and LinkedIn have design challenges, whereas companies like Microsoft, Apple and Facebook don’t. So it really is very company-specific. Sometimes companies want to see what your decision-making process looks like under pressure. Typically, these design challenges are to get a taste of what your skills manifest into without a lot of outside resources for research and user testing. In the workplace you will likely always have access to that information, but think of this as a stress test. My interviewer at Yelp specifically told me that the design challenge I had been given was to see how I make design decisions to achieve a certain goal without outside help or resources.

Design Challenges? Final Interviews?

A design challenge will typically have a week’s deadline from when it is assigned. Make sure you really dissect the assignment and get a good understanding of whats been assigned. Don’t be afraid to email the company back and ask clarifying questions. This isn’t a sign of weakness, instead it shows them that you care enough about the task at hand to not waste either party’s time, and would like clarification to do your best work. Asking questions and making sure you know what to do is so much better than working on something you don’t totally understand and eventually presenting something they weren’t expecting. Take your time with the design challenge. Often this can make or break your chances with a company. While this isn’t my favorite way of vetting candidates, it is one that is relatively commonplace, so you want to do your best in the time available.

Once you’ve gotten through the design challenge you’re likely going to have another interview, or in Apple’s case, 6, (yes, 6 interviews, all over FaceTime, but all super interesting, and they didn’t have a design challenge, so that was nice 🤷🏻‍♂️) and these are really going to be where you have to prove yourself as both a designer, and as a team member. Some companies will fly you out to their headquarters for these types of interviews. Microsoft, Google and Facebook all do, Apple, Amazon and LinkedIn don’t (well, not yet. Also, Amazon may ask SWE candidates to be physically present for coding challenges etc.). Typically these are a day long (or multiple over video/phone) and you speak with designers and project managers from different teams and at different levels. These interviews are really about connecting with the design team. Talk to them about your passions, what drives you, why you’re a designer, why you’re the kind of designer you are, and where you see yourself, your work, and the world of design going. You’re likely going to have some specific questions, but the overarching theme of these last few interviews (again) is to really make sure you’re the right cultural fit for a company. Companies may ask you specific questions (not sure how much I’m allowed to talk about this, so I won’t mention the company’s name) like “what is an example of a mobile app that has had a really great desktop version, and why?”, or in Facebook’s case, you may have a whole app critique where you and the interviewer will mutually agree on a mobile app and talk through why you believe it exists in the form that it does, what works, what doesn’t, why, and so on. These questions test both your problem-solving skills on the spot, and also show the interviewers what your process is like. It’s how they internally evaluate you as a candidate.

The best advice I can give anyone is to be the best version of yourself you can. I choose those words very purposefully, because the last person you want to be is someone you’re not. The ruse will never hold up long term. You want to be authentic, personable, sensible, insightful, empathetic, with a hint of humor. Everybody’s personality is different, but if you express yourself as the skilled designer and interesting person you know you are, well then there’s no reason for you to ever doubt yourself.

Design isn’t easy, but there’s a reason we choose to be designers. While the reasons that drive us are different for everyone, we all also do this for the love of design, and to try and help make the world a slightly better experience for others and ourselves every day.

p.s. I tried to do little doodle-type illustrations for this. They were super quick, let me know if they were effective! 👨🏽‍💻