Bringing your whole self to the product design job search
Stand out by highlighting your personality and superpowers
This is the third article in the series mastering product design interviews. Now that you’ve done an exhaustive inventory of your skills, thought about your ideal job, it’s time to put the two together.
“Finding and winning a great job is a competitive sport that requires much career athleticism and perseverance as making it to the Olympics” says Debbie Millman in Tim Ferris’ Tribe of Mentors. So what does it take to land that perfect job? Let’s look at couple of things that will help make you stand out by,
- Targeting your job search to focus on roles that are the best fit
- Brainstorming your superpowers and highlighting personality
We’ll wrap up with a pitch about you that gives people a good idea of who you are and leaves them excited to learn more about you.
Two ways to apply to product design jobs
Broadly speaking you can apply to jobs in two ways, casting a wide net and by applying to several dozen companies or targeting your search to companies and roles that fit your skills and needs best.
Casting a wide net
With the first approach you can reach out to several dozens of companies in a short amount of time. Unfortunately that means you’re right there in the sea of resumes and portfolios with a lower chance of standing out. You’ll get some responses but the rate will be in the low single digits.
Even if you do get a response, it’s hard to tell if the role is a good fit with you personally. When you’re desperate it might feel like anything that looks decent enough is a good fit but it might not be the right opportunity for you, leading to frustration when you actually start working there.
Targeting your search
My recommendation is to target your job search and apply to places and roles that fit your skills and needs best. This doesn’t mean excluding yourself from roles that might be a stretch (that’s ok!). Rather you should be picky your job search and by doing some work now you’ll save a lot of time later.
Finding and winning a great job is a competitive sport that requires much career athleticism and perseverance as making it to the Olympics.
-Debbie Millman
You’ll focus your efforts and ultimately will be able to find a satisfying job with a culture that fits you best. It will also give you a sense of control and the power to persevere in a process that might at times feel opaque and frustrating. Being intentional in your job search will help you stay focused and lend you a sense of autonomy and ownership over a process that sometimes feels chaotic.
With a targeted job search approach we’ll take a look at how you can use your superpowers and your personality to stand out.
Uncovering your hidden 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 though 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? Where are you proud of the work you’ve done there? 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?
Transferable skills as superpowers
Another way to get at your superpower is to look at transferable skills that you’ve employed at other jobs. Think about the past experiences you’ve had and how they’ve equipped you to understand the customer better, to collaborate, or to be meticulous in one’s craft.
For example if you’re coming to design from a different field, let’s say education — then you’ve known how to run experiments, how to present to a room full of kids (not too dissimilar from stakeholders ;-), how to get everyone on the same page, and how to manage their performance over time.
If you have a degree in psychology, you understand why people do things the way they do, the complexity of human interaction and why people, as Daniel Ariely calls it, are “predictably irrational”.
Unique experiences as superpowers
Your unique experiences can also be your superpower. No one has the same experience of the world as you do. Given your background, your environment, circumstances and your unique upbringing, there’s something different that you bring to the table. I can’t tell you what it is, that’s up to you to uncover.
For example, in one of my jobs I got to design the UI for Google Glass in the medical field. This was always a good cocktail party conversation starter — that thing is still around? If you have designed services or experiences it shows that you know how to flex and apply the design process in different contexts beyond the digital realm.
Ask your friends and colleagues
If you can’t think of anything — ask a friend or a colleague. That perspective is helpful as we’re sometimes too close to ourselves and everything we do might seem average to us but extraordinary to others. Another resource to check out is Heather Phillips’s article on how to find your design superpower.
Exposing a bit of personality
You are more than a collection of skills. When you start interviewing with employers, they also want to see who you are as a person — after all they’ll be with you and you’ll be with them for 8+ hours each workday. Now this might seem a bit like you’re revealing too much or maybe you’d rather be a chameleon and blend-in with the environment in order to fit in. Don’t.
In addition to your skills you’re hired for your opinion—your views and your unique perspective that you’ve been honing for all of your life. Of course there’s a subtle art to showing your personality strategically as you don’t want to go overboard revealing everything all at once. Focus on things that are unique, relevant and ones that people can relate to.
Let’s see how this can work. When I was presenting my portfolio I highlighted a couple of hobbies or activities that interest me that would make a good impression,
- Cooking, which is an nice metaphor for design — you can be making something based on a recipe or you can create something new based on the underlying science and principles
- Visiting museums and new exhibits, where I highlighted the (then recent) designed in California exhibit at the SF MOMA
- Attending design events and doing sketchnotes, showing that I’m passionate about continuous learning, meeting other folks in industry, and sharing what I learned
- Interest in speculative futures, showing that I’m curious about experimental parts of design
Yeah I guess most of mine are design related 😂 but you don’t have to be a design-aholic like me. Here’s a non-design example…
Continue reading an updated and refreshed version of this article to learn more about how you can craft your unique designer identity to stand out from the crowd in my latest book from Holloway, Land Your Dream Design Job.
Land Your Dream Design Job is a comprehensive book about landing a product design role in a startup, agency, or tech company. It covers the entire design interview process from beginning to end, and will arm you with techniques and strategies to navigate the (at times) turbulent waters of job searching with confidence. This book will help guide you to a role that plays to your strengths while providing enough support for professional growth.
You’ll learn:
- What skills are expected of designers
- How to demonstrate those skills throughout the job search process
- How to identify your next opportunity
- How to target your job search process to stand out
- How to build a stand-out portfolio and tailor it to your dream opportunity
- The ins and outs out of various design interview types from portfolio presentations, whiteboard challenges, app critiques, to take home design exercises and many others.
You’ll also find in-depth advice on how to apply beyond the job boards, and how to conduct due diligence, negotiate compensation, and accelerate onboarding to your new role.
