Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Lia Garvin www.pexels.com

Sweat the small stuff — design interview tips from a techie

You did it. You finally got the interview for the job of your dreams, and as you hit send on the email to your recruiter confirming your availability for the interview, a wave of panic washes over you because holy shit you actually have an interview. But fear not, my friends, because a tech interview does not have to be as hard as Business Insider makes it out to be.

Talking about yourself can be really difficult for people, and if striking up a conversation at a networking event seems tough, interviewing for your dream job is going to be even harder. A lot of us don’t start off as great interviewees — we have a lot of ideas but they don’t come out as concisely as they sounded in our heads; we’re on one train of thought and then remember something really important so we jump to back to that, people can’t always follow along. This is totally understandable. As long as you acknowledge it as something to work on, and put in the effort, you will get better.

Take these tips for a spin, and who knows, one day interviewing might actually become something you kind of enjoy.

Be Prepared

There is nothing in the world more important than being prepared, and the act of deeply understanding and being ready to talk about the subject you are going to dive into will immediately alleviate a significant portion of your anxiety.

When I first started out as a design project manager, I was terrified to talk to clients. I worried they would think I didn’t know what I was talking about, or would ask me something that I didn’t know the answer to. Anytime I had to get on the phone with a client, I could feel my anxiety start to rise and my nerves take over me. After pushing through the discomfort for a few months, each time dreading the client conversation, I decided to try a new approach — preparing so much that there was no way that they could think I didn’t know what I was talking about or ask me something I didn’t know how to answer. And overnight, my anxiety went away.

My fears where deeply rooted in the fear of looking like an idiot, and the second I was prepared and knew what to say and how to field questions, I looked right into the fear and said, “I’m not afraid of you anymore.” It was like client meetings were my “It” clown.

The same strategy holds true in interviews. We are nervous because we think someone will ask us something that we can’t answer — and we narrow the window of what we can’t answer by being as prepared as we can be in our domain. There may be times when someone deliberately asks you something to throw you off, I hope that does not happen frequently, but it is possible. In that case, handle it just like you’d handle a question you know. Pause, take a deep breath, and draw on the knowledge of the subject, or areas related to the subject and answer as best you can.

Understand Your Domain

Right along side of being prepared is knowing your domain. Interviewers can typically see right though someone who doesn’t really know what they are talking about at great depth, so don’t let your nerves tell a different story. Take calculated risks in the jobs that you apply for, challenge yourself, but don’t set yourself up for failure in an interview or later in a job itself by applying for a role you are completely unqualified for.

Understanding your domain goes further than being able to talk about something, it is about knowing the challenges that people face working in the field, in knowing how to work around them. AR & VR are incredibly challenging spaces to work in, not only because the design principles and best practices are being formed, but because the platforms and technical pipelines are still being defined — in addition to this, low user bases and lack of a lot of sample data make it difficult to draw conclusions around the type of content creators should focus their efforts on. This is domain knowledge. Stating that VR is challenging because it can make people sick is not domain knowledge, that is something anyone can glean from trying it once.

Slooooooooow dowwwwwn

You’re nervous, you have a lot to say, and all of a sudden, your talking points are pouring out of you a mile a minute and the interviewer can’t keep up; or you find that you’ve been talking for 10 minutes straight and haven’t stopped to let the interviewer interject. Slow down. Whenever someone asks you a question, take a pause and a slow deep breath, allow yourself to fully process the question you are being asked, and consider thoughtfully how you want to answer. This does not mean sitting in silence for three minutes between each question, it just means that you wait for a beat before diving right in.

Interviewers ask you questions because they want to learn specific things about you and your process. Take the extra second to ensure you heard the question correctly, and understand how they want you to answer it; maybe ask follow up questions to ensure you really understood, and then knock it out of the park with your awesome answer.

Practice your talking points

There is an infinite wealth of potential interview questions on the internet for you to practice with. Research the top 20–30 questions and practice how you would answer them so that you avoid as much as possible giving an answer or sharing an anecdote for the first time in the actual interview.

When I’m interviewing, I tend to list out the questions I think I might potentially be asked and write out the answers. As I am preparing, I keep a log of good stories to share that help reinforce the points I want to make, and make notes to what questions they potentially relate to. Then I run through my answers out loud on my own to refine my phrasing, and make sure what I’m saying makes sense. Last, I ask my husband to ask me the questions, and give me feedback on my answers as I say them to him out loud.

Just like with giving a presentation, it is critical to practice out loud because your message sounds completely different outside of your own head. The more you practice out loud, the more muscle memory you build with telling specific stories or making specific points, and it becomes a lot easier to improvise. A word of caution — also like with a presentation, do not get locked in on a memorization of what you are going to say. Sometimes when we memorize, if we take a wrong turn, we run the risk of drawing a complete blank and not being able to course correct. Remember the outline and main point that you wanted to share, and think of multiple ways to arrive at that point.

Demonstrate excitement about the company

I interviewed someone once who when I asked them why they wanted to work at the company, they said they hadn’t thought about it. No. Not good. Think long and hard about why you want to work someone, have a few examples, and actually demonstrate that enthusiasm.

The interviewer doesn’t want you to kiss up to them, nor are they looking for you to be an expert in the ins and outs of the company — but they do want to know that if you really want to be there, and if offered the job will demonstrate that excitement through high output.

Be Yourself

Hell yes, I’m ending this with “be yourself.” The company wants to hire you, not someone you are pretending to be. If you pretend to be someone you’re not, or take a job you don’t really want, it will eventually come to the surface. I have met a lot of people who wanted to be in a company so bad that they took whatever job was offered to them. They later realized they made a mistake and didn’t actually want to do that job or came in at a level too low, and missed out on another opportunity that would have been a better fit.

The hope here is that you are interviewing for a job that you want, in a company you want to be in — somewhere you think you have a future and can add a significant contribution to. If you are aligned with that goal, then communicate it with your authentic voice, not the voice of who you think your interviewer wants you to be. You are interviewing the team as much as they are interviewing you, if you can’t be yourself, then the role might not be a match.

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I can’t promise that following these strategies will land you your dream job, but I can say they will get you a lot closer than if you didn’t try. These softer skills are more important than you think.

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Sweat the small stuff — interviewing tips from a techie was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sweat the small stuff — interviewing tips from a techie

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