Week 4: Interview Skills

Today we coved interview skills, what to talk about how to answer questions and what questions we should expect. Talking about yourself can be an awkward and hard skill to learn.

 

• Never Done = Willing to learn
• Challenge Convention = Push the boundaries
• Impact Together = Be a team player
• Bring You = Personality (enthusiasm)
• Be an Advocate = User-centred approach

We talked about how you should always answer a question and then back it up with some form of evidence to prove that you are who you say you are.

This means if they ask you if you would fit in well with a team you should explain why and possibly a time you’ve worked well with another team.

daniel then mentioned a design task which I didn’t think was a thing in the design work for job applications, I know these from when I was more code orientated as these are quite common to see your practices and thinking.

This is a useful link to use when completing a design task for an application.

https://uxplanet.org/how-to-ace-the-design-task-to-get-an-interview-951ae91ca7c2

 

You should also always bring hard copies of sketchbooks and backup material to help show your process, no matter how messy or insignificant.

Interview questions:

• Tell Me About Yourself.

I’m Leander a 2nd-year interaction design student currently studying at ulster university and currently searching for a placement opportunity. In my spare time, I film and edit videos and promotional content for galleries and companies, which is something I love doing. But a lot of the time I am training to compete at an international level in canoe polo.

• How Did You Hear About This Position?

I had seen you online as a company when I research design companies in and around belfast and saw that you have a placement opportunity and thought there was no harm in applying.

• Why Do You Want to Work at This Company?

I think you have a great work ethic and an experienced team that take on interesting work that id love to be a part of. That’s pretty much why.

• Why Do You Want This Job?

I think the placement is great for developing your skills can help develop as a designer and I think it’s crucial whenever you’re studying in University forget that experience for you to understand what you want to do and give you the motivation to do.

• What Are Your Greatest Strengths?

I’m not one point to point out my own strengths however if I was I would say I’m pretty good at communication. I’ve worked with a lot of people and teams manage people and I think this is one of my strengths just because of the number of times I’ve had to do it. I think I’m also great at communicating with customers and clients through my experience with my own work I know when to take criticism and also push my intentions and design plans and ideas onto the project when the client is uncertain what they want.

• What is your workflow?

When it comes to taking on a UX or UI project I have a pretty simple workflow. Usually, I begin by writing and ideas sketching out some plans most of the time on paper and then I might go and do some research on my own to inform my design so that I can come back and all the time completely scrap what I’ve done and start afresh then I usually upgrade my paper sketches Mason cleaner easier to read. Then usually at this stage probably take it in the Figman start wireframe and throwing in ideas such as colours and fonts on site maps help a lot and it’s probably something I would do while sketching but I would just do a lot of planning. I find planning really helps with the workflow later on.

What I Learnt:

Today I learnt quite a bit, I’ve never really been in a formal interview and struggle to talk about myself, but I definitely understand that being confident and open is the key to doing well. The design task was something new and actually very interesting, i think this could be really cool especially if it’s for getting a placement. I think this would give me a lot of motivation to follow all the steps and present all my work alongside all the supporting work.

Things I Saw:

https://www.stayathomehun.com/

This is an excessivly gross website I found that made me chuckle. Its created by an artist to display her work. I don’t really have much to say other than it has a lot of pink and it really speaks for itsself.

https://levonaronian.com/

This is an amazing website with amazing typography (in my opinion) and great animations.

This was designed for chess grandmaster Levon Grigori. As you scroll down the page the chess piece falls and tumbles reflecting the website around it. Text slides and animates around it falling into place like a chess game. The website reflects the chessboard in its design and imitates the gridded layout of the game and maintains the black and white aspect the whole time. With the modern design and animations, the designer has juxtaposed it with a traditional serif font.

I love this website. As an avid chess player, I have seen quite a few games from this man and studied a lot of his books. I had never realised he had such a great website, so now I’m stuck searching up other famous chess players hoping they have something anywhere near as cool.