Whiteboard Challenge As a Nonsense
First, a portfolio and resume screening. Then an HR call to check if you radiate positive vibes. Next, an interview with the hiring manager. A whiteboard challenge with designers. Maybe a test task. More interviews. If you’re up for a lead role, expect a strategic thinking task. Lastly, a cultural fit interview or a “formal” meeting with an exec who might not end up liking you. End of the line — no coveted offer. Sounds familiar?
This is how the process of hiring designers works everywhere today, from small startups to industry giants. Each time, the number of required interviews increases, and the test tasks become tougher. That’s expected, because there’s more talent in the field, it’s harder to choose, and the demands keep growing. And it’s even more so today because of the market crisis and the mass layoffs that have recently occurred around the world.
What’s gotten odd is that finding a job has become a whole new activity for designers, requiring specific skills and experience. As one designer I know wrote: “You have to flaunt 150% of your skills to utilize 50% of them in your daily work”. And one of the top asks for mentors today is interview coaching. Because despite a stellar portfolio, excellent communication skills, and all the things you get from real work experience, it’s not enough anymore. You need to learn how to ace interviews, tackle all kinds of tests, and present yourself in the exact light a potential employer wants to see.
And the Whiteboard challenge? That’s the one thing I question most. This is a situation where they wanted to do their best, but you know the rest. This challenge appeared against the background of the fact that test tasks were poorly perceived by candidates because:
❌ They view it as unpaid work, with the company harvesting ideas.
❌ The company gives a fictitious task to avoid claim #1, the result of which is difficult to assess.
❌ Both the test task and the subsequent presentation require too much time and effort from the candidate.
So hiring managers switched to giving a fictional task with unstated yet specific expectations, wrapped it in a certain whiteboard framework (real or virtual), compressed its completion to half an hour, made it as stress-inducing and distant from real work as possible, and voilà!
In my book, a whiteboard challenge is the least effective way to assess a designer’s skills. Its main purpose is to scrutinize your thinking and design process. But we, designers, don’t operate solely on process. We work to solve user problems through product creation. In this work there are many variables, many known unknowns, and the worth of our work is not in the process per se, but in the outcome. In this way, we influence processes and have the power to change them, but it is what the Whiteboard Challenge fails to examine that truly matters.
One of the key ideas of this test is that candidates should ask questions and voice uncertainties. In fact, if you’re unsure, asking unanswered questions and suggesting: “Then it would be good to do such-and-such research” is waving a red flag in your race. Every interviewer has their own criteria and expectations. Therefore, it is unlikely that a candidate will be able to easily control the fear of making mistakes, gather ideas, and at the same time craft clear and understandable wireframes, user flows, and the like.
The test lasts 30–60 minutes. The testing process itself is very far from real practice. And do design processes vary that much from one experienced designer to the next? Then why is it necessary to review portfolios, present specific work, and focus on processes that much? If you can’t determine a candidate’s process in a few interviews, you don’t understand who you’re looking for and why.
To summarize, there are three main drawbacks to the whiteboard challenge:
💔 It focuses on the process, not the outcome
💔 It is disconnected from reality
💔 It’s the most subjective way to assess a designer’s skills and experience
I’m firmly convinced that reviewing portfolios, granting a chance to present a selection of works, and conducting several interviews with a candidate suffice to determine the quality of the candidate’s professional skills and experience.
Thank you for reading!
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