Mistakes i’m fed up seeing when i’m recruiting
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I've been hiring designers for 15 years, and I'm surprised to see that shoemakers children are the worst shod with regards to UX job applications... So, this session will be a refresher of do's and "don'ts for landing a new job.
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Mistakes i’m fed up seeing when i’m recruiting
- 1. Marine Barbaroux - @miss_embe UX Cambridge Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when I’m recruiting for UX designers ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 2. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Why am I here? UX Cambridge 2017
- 3. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Practice what you preach. UX Cambridge 2017 Consider a job application like any other design problem: 1. Frame the problem 2. Understand your users 3. Create your solution 4. Test and refine
- 4. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Framing the problem? Easy! UX Cambridge 2017 But if the solution is the same, the problem is different on each side ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 5. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers 2) Understand your users*: do your research. UX Cambridge 2017 * in this case, the company(ies) you want to work for ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 6. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers 3) Create: tailor your application for them. UX Cambridge 2017 Using all the media available to you: - Cover letter, - CV, - Portfolio… …and don’t lie! Just tailor ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 7. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Don’t copy/paste cover letters from random websites. UX Cambridge 2017 (even the good ones) Instead, write your own, be genuine and honest. We want to understand your personality and motivation. ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 8. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Empathise. Understand your users. UX Cambridge 2017 So don’t tell me what I can do for you, but what you can do for me. ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 9. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Don’t mention EVERYTHING you’ve ever done. UX Cambridge 2017 - 4 pages CVs don’t reflect well on you - Long portfolios won’t be looked at - Select what’s relevant ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 10. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Focus on few, relevant experiences. UX Cambridge 2017 Explain why they’re relevant: the story is more important than the end.
- 11. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers Demonstrate you can design. Pay attention to details. But don’t forget the bigger picture. UX Cambridge 2017 ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 12. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers 4) Test. UX Cambridge 2017 ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 13. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers On interview day… UX Cambridge 2017 Remember the interview starts before the interview room. Take the opportunity to grasp clues on the company culture. Ask for some feedback. ImagecourtesyofIDrinkLeadPaint-www.idrinkleadpaint.com
- 14. Mistakes I’m fed-up seeing when recruiting UX designers I hope this helps? UX Cambridge 2017 If you want some friendly advice, I’m always happy to help. I’ve set up a slack channel: uxincambridge.slack.com Oh! … and we’re recruiting ;) I’m @miss_embe
- 15. The contents of this presentation are commercially confidential and the proprietary information of Cambridge Consultants © 2017 Cambridge Consultants Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered No. 1036296 England UK Cambridge Consultants is part of the Altran group, a global leader in Innovation. www.Altran.com www.CambridgeConsultants.com USA SINGAPORE JAPAN. . .
Editor's Notes
- I thought the subject of CVs and Portfolios for UXers (whilst controversial?) was covered to death. Recently started to recruit again, and I saw quite a few poor applications, hence this talk. In this talk, I'm covering the side of UX applicants. I also think many companies recruitment process sucks: job ads not clear (often people don't know who they want to hire!), process is complicated, requiring you to updload docs, and they rewrite them in a form, etc. Add to this head hunters that often don't add value.... But this is a matter for another talk. We're designers, we can improve things!
- But who am I to talk about this? I’ve been in and around UX recruiting for about 20 years , so interviewed and sift thousands of CVs. And I'm sad to see that a bunch of highly capable, creative people don't do themselves services when they represent themselves! EARLIER in her keynote, Abby said it was our job to apply our knowledge of design to our colleagues…. And I think UX designers need to apply their skills to their job applications too.
- So practice what you preach! It’s like UCD, or design thinking (there are subtle variations of names and conventions, but it’s all about understanding the problem, Users, ideate, test and iterate) I shouldn’t have to say it… But it’s easy to forget. For some reason, people forget. Juniors and seniors alike, when it's about them.
- Everyone get this one. Someone needs some work done, and look for someone to do it. Someone else needs a job. We just need to pair these people. The pain is clear form both side. And if the solution is the same, it’s not the same problem for both sides…
- What do they do? Are you genuinely interested? Why do they need someone like you? Do they have large design teams? Or are they creating one from scratch? If you have questions, mark them down, and ask them if you can. Figure out what their problems are: if they’re a software house, look at their product demo, doc, and forums. What are their customers thinking?
- You’re there to help them solve their problem. Show them that you can, via all means available, displaying all qualities of a UX person. Empathy, Creativity, Research skills, Attention to details, etc. This isn’t about gimmick and working on style over substance. It's about surfacing the right content for the job.
- You’re a designer. You are creative. You can solve problem. Even if you don’t have the full experience, there is something interesting about you. Talk about it. People use sites (or popular letters) for inspiration. Copy past them, change the name and hop! Don't do that: it undermine you. It presents you as not caring (or lazy) not creative, and thief. That's a no-no.
- Often, a letter tell me why an applicant want to work for me, and all of what they’ll learn with me. I’m happy to help, I want people to learn when working for me, and I know they will. However, I would also like to understand why you would be better than someone else that would be love to learn from me. Give me
- A designer needs to communicate what matters most. I expect them to help filtering the noise out. It’s true for researchers too. If you put everything you’ve done, you ask me to do your job and see what’s interesting in you. That’s OK for a grad job, but not so much for more senior people. It shouldn't be extra work to do this: it's about taking things out :)
- Curate, and show what's relevant. Sometimes, it's hard, because the Job ads are vague and unclear. This is true. That's why the small research upfront is important. You can always take a stance: use 2 or 3 experience you'd put at the top (and explain why), and put the other in appendices if recruiter want to see them.
- This one is here for completeness. I know you all know this. Pay attention to: Spelling mistakes, Punctuations, Alignements, Short sentences, Date formats, (make the calculation for me: 6 months is better than from XXX to YYY) Contrast, Spacing, Etc. It’s one of the easy one to tackle. Using the CRAP principle is a good start. If you’re not too confident with your « layoutability », you can use Slacks channels, Designers hangout to help.
- You wouldn't ship a piece of software without testing it, right? So test your material too. This could be tricky, because you can’t really test it on your real target audience. But for some things you can. Only, if you test it on a friend, use a REAL friend. One that doesn’t mind saying what they really think.
- We know that people aren’t good at telling what they do, and it’s better do observe how they behave. It’s not always possible in an interview setting, but we can observe a lot before the interview. How do you speak to the receptionist? Like a good design project, we can learn from failure. What is it that didn’t work? Ask for some feedback. I’ve seen people hired after they’d been rejected for a job down to lack of releant experience. They reapplied 3 years later succesfully!
- I hope this helps. If you want to talk, I’ll be around during the conference, so don’t hesitate