You found the perfect job. You’ve applied, and now they’re interested. Where do you begin to prep so that you ace that next job interview?
There’s so much to consider: You need to prepare to speak intelligently about your work. You need to get your elevator pitch prepared. You need to prepare for any interview questions that might come your way. You need to get your webcam set up. You need to get your nicest shirt dry cleaned. You need to prepare for salary negotiations! It can all be overwhelming, and it might be difficult to know where to start.
Jay Casteel, Sr UX designer at AWS joins us to discuss the interview process and offers a lot of helpful insights into how to ace your next big job interview.
Before the Interview
• 03:34 – Where do we start when preparing for an interview?
• 04:48 – Read between the lines of the job description
• 07:36 – Interviewing is a skill. Practice! Practice! Practice!
• 09:11 – Take every interview just to get practice doing interviews
• 09:46 – If you’re not a good fit for that role, they might open a role that is right for you
• 10:47 – Sometimes you can leverage another offer against the job you want
• 12:16 – Treat all the interviews as an experiment
• 13:02 – You’re not wasting anyone’s time, because you may be surprised what they say
• 14:07 – What do we do when we get the callback?
• 14:54 – Be ready to step up and deliver your portfolio review or technical test. You never know who is on the other line
• 16:37 – What types of interviews should we expect?
• 17:10 – Prep for the behavioral interview
• 18:15 – Research the company and the industry
• 19:00 – Don’t overlook researching yourself
• 20:29 – Research the position you’re interviewing for
• 23:07 – Read between the lines of the job description
• 25:28 – What if the job description has things we don’t know?
• 27:28 – Research the interviewers
• 33:22 – Find something in common to break the ice
• 36:11 – Prep for the Tell me a time when…” questions with the STAR format
Day of the Interview
• 40:03 – Get your remote meeting gear set up right
• 44:38 – What do you wear for an interview?
• 49:14 – Treat your interview like a date and act and dress to impress
The Technical Interview
• 52:18 – Technical interviews are your time to shine
• 52:39 – Set yourself up for success
• 54:12 – Find design prompt websites. Practice. Practice! Practice!
• 55:17 – Take-home challenge tips
• 56:41 – Don’t get “Silicon Valleyed”
• 58:56 – Take-home challenges are dumb
Post Interview Steps
• 01:01:59 – Don’t send a LinkedIn connection request right after the interview
• 01:04:26 – How do you negotiate your new salary?
• 01:09:02 – The person who gives the number first loses
• 01:10:06 – Beware the “what’s your current salary?” question
• 01:19:56 – If you’re a mid-career shifter, tell your interesting story
Post Offer Steps
• 01:12:35 – The thank you note
Helpful Links:
• Some various STAR method articles
• Blind App – An anonymous professional network.
• Levels.fyi – Salary info for negotiations.
• Sharpen.design – Design prompt generator for practicing whiteboard challenges.
• Fresh2Design Slack – Austin & Dallas UX design professionals Slack group with over 2,000 members.
• Ulanzi webcam light
• Blue Snowball USB microphone
About Jay
Jay has been a UX designer for over 10 years. he’s currently a Senior UX Designer at AWS where he works on SageMaker, which is a framework for Data Scientists and Data Engineers to build Machine Learning models. Our product encompasses the full ML pipeline from preparing data to training and tuning machine learning models, all the way to deploying and monitoring the performance of those models (and lots of stuff in-between like detecting bias and helping make AI responsible).
His work history is pretty darn interesting. He’s had gigs all over the graphic design and software industry. Working for large and small ad agencies, software startups, and now at Amazon.
Jay has added a layer of complexity to his role with each career move over the years: Freelance Graphic designer, Graphic designer at an Ad agency, Web designer, Web developer, Front-end engineer, UX designer, UX specifically for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
—–
Thanks for listening! We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a comment and a five-star review. It helps us out a ton.
If you haven’t already, sign up for our email list. We won’t spam you. Pinky swear.
• Check out our website
• Follow us on twitter
• Find us on Facebook
• Subscribe on Google Podcasts
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify
• Subscribe on Stitcher
Episode thumbnail by Hunters Race on Unsplash
Guests
