The three questions I ask every designer I interview
They’re not tricky, but they are revealing
When I’m interviewing you for a design role, I want you to succeed. I’m rooting for you. I’m not trying to trip you up or hit you with some kind of “gotcha” question. When you’re struggling, my empathy kicks in and I’ll try to help you out. When it’s going well, it’ll feel more like a conversation than an interview. But when your answers fall flat, I’m duty-bound to take note.
Over the years, I’ve come up with a number of questions that help me understand what kind of designer you are, and what it’ll be like to work with you. Of these questions, there are three I ask during every interview. They’re neither novel nor clever, but they are telling.
1. What’s your design story?
This is one of the first questions I ask. To help you get started, I’ll often add, “Not your résumé or work history. Your story as a designer. How did you get to where you are today?”
Despite the prompt, many designers recite their LinkedIn profile, starting with their education, then plodding through their work history, job by job. Instead of a story, I’m getting a grocery list. Good news: this is really the only wrong answer.
A decent answer follows the same pattern as the grocery list approach, but it’s told with some context, some backstory or color. A decent answer helps me understand the decisions you made along the way, and how they shaped you as a person and as a designer.
A good answer doesn’t just tell me how you came to be here, but why. Whatmotivated you? What surprised you? What were some wrong turns you took along the way? A good answer is honest and, frankly, interesting.
One designer told me his parents always expected him to “do something serious” for a living, so he studied biology, thinking he’d go to medical school. After taking the MCAT, he realized he didn’t want to be a doctor. When he reflected on what interested him about biology, he recalled all the beautiful diagrams in his textbooks, the way they made the complex comprehensible. Despite the financial hardship and pushback from his family, he returned to school to study design. During his career, he said, he’d always tried to find opportunities that allowed him to do what those textbook illustrations did: make the complex comprehensible.
Another designer told me about an accident that left his sister with a traumatic brain injury, one that would affect her life ever after. While taking a graphic design class, he decided to create a book in two parts: the first part was an almost scientific detailing of how the injury affected his sister’s brain; the second was her story, from the day of the accident onward, told with his own illustrations. He found the process so rewarding, he switched his major to design. As a recent grad, he told me hoped to solve similar communication problems, the kind that combined research and storytelling.
Want a design story with twists and turns? Check out Luca Orio’s design story in the Discovering Design podcast. His path from drummer to design manager at Netflix is fascinating and revealing.
While these are great origin stories, yours doesn’t need to be so dramatic. One designer told me about her time working as an administrative assistant in a law firm. The work was mind-numbing, until the day she was asked to design an invite for the firm’s holiday party. A lightbulb moment. She had never thought of herself as creative until she worked on that invite. Her journey, she said, was one of uncovering her own creativity, of finding her voice.
Another designer talked about the envy he felt when his friends were touring in bands or making indie movies. He got the idea that he could design their promotional materials. He picked up some design books, learned the software basics, and started doing just that. His work was good, and his side hustle quickly turned into a career. Even though he’d worked at prestigious agencies, he still felt he was faking it. He envied those who had formal design training. His solution was to keep learning all he could about design.
Here’s the four-sentence version of my own design story: I studied painting. After grad school, I quickly realized I loved painting, but I didn’t want to be a painter. I wanted to make useful things, not just beautiful things. This love of purposeful creation has shaped most of my journey as a designer.
Tell me how you got here. What were the events or moments, relationships or conflicts that shaped you. How do they relate to what you’ve done, and what you want to do next.
Tell me a story.
2. Where do you find inspiration?
This used to be one of my favorite interview questions. The answers were rarely the same, and the candidates seemed to take such joy in sharing what they loved, where they went when they were stuck, what kept them going.
In recent years, though, this question has become a source of dread, a kind of scab I know I shouldn’t pick at, but pick I must. Why? Because these days I get the same answer more than half the time: Dribbble. (Okay, sometimes it’s Behance.)
Look, it’s an honest answer, and it’s probably not a terrible answer. I mean, who among us hasn’t found themselves searching for salvation from a thorny design problem in the work of other Dribbblers? I’ll cop to it. But Dribbble isn’t inspiration; at best, it’s lightweight research. At worst, it’s grasping at straws, hoping for something to copy.
At this point, I’m willing to say any answer other than Dribbble is a good answer. Still, I miss the days when I’d regularly hear fascinating anecdotes and examples of inspiration.
Like the designer who said he’d sit on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown where he’d people-watch during lunch or when he was stuck. I asked why he found that inspirational, and he said it was just a feeling, something he couldn’t quite explain. After a beat, he said he started the practice after reading George Nelson’s book, How to See. Something about watching the city, about being surrounded by human activity, moved him, made him consider who he was designing for.
Then there was the designer who told me she had a shelf of architecture books within arm’s reach. She had no interest in being an architect, but she found inspiration for her digital design problems in the ways architects solved physical ones. Another designer told me she had a text document filled with her favorite quotes about design; she’d pull it up whenever she needed a jolt of inspiration.Her favorite quotes were the ones that reminded her why she was a designer in the first place. (I adopted this practice myself; I highly recommend it.)
Some designers say they get inspired when they run, spend time with their kids, meditate, lie on the grass looking up at the sky. Some mention their go-to designers, like Ray and Charles Eames (personal favorites) or Dieter Rams. When I worked in SoHo a billion years ago, I’d go to this little Japanese store that sold art books and toy robots; it was an expensive but effective source of inspiration.One colleague used to walk over to MoMA to sit in a room staring at Monet’s giant Water Lilies panels. She described the feeling as deeply serene and trancelike, and noted that losing herself in the brush strokes always caused something creative to bubble up inside her.
My advice here goes beyond the interview process. If you’re a designer and you think Dribbble is inspiration, you need to dig deeper. Dribbble is an endlessly deep well of eye candy. There’s great work there, no doubt, and you’ll probably find some kind of solution for your own project if you look hard enough. But a solution is not the same as inspiration.
I’m hoping to hear something deeper, something that tells me what motivatesyou, how you get unstuck, and maybe even why you do what you do.
3. What would you like to ask me?
At the start of every interview I let the designer know I’ve reserved 10–15 minutes at the end of our time together so they can ask me any questions they’d like. When the time comes I say, “So, what would you like to ask me? Nothing is off limits. It can be about the job, the organization, me…really, anything that’s on your mind.”
There’s only one wrong response—do you see a pattern here?—and it’s this: “I don’t have any questions, but thanks for asking.” I’ll prod a bit if I think the candidate may be shy; nonethelss, many designers insist they have no questions. At this point, I have to chalk it up to a lack of curiosity. I consider a lack of curiosity a cardinal sin, a fundamental flaw, for any designer.
Acceptable responses include questions related to the details of the role itself,team structure, organizational culture, and so on. Better are the kinds of questions that might be hard to ask. I realize a younger designer might not feel comfortable going there, or may not even know what these deeper questions might be. But if you’ve been designing for even a few years, you’ll know the kinds of questions I’m talking about. “How do you manage conflict? What’s the biggest challenge your team is facing right now? Is design considered a strategic partner by other teams? Why do designers leave?”
Feel free to go deeper. I said, “Ask me anything,” and I meant it. I’ve given you a blank check. Make it out to “cash” and go on a spree! I’ve had designers shoot my own questions back at me. “So, what’s your design story?” Great! One designer asked me if I had any regrets about my career choice. Love it. Another designer asked how our team decides what challenges to tackle, or whether problems were simply handed down to us. Awesome.
Some designers whip out a list of questions and fire them off, a race against the clock. Yes! They’re engaged and curious, as they should be.
Your questions tell me about your courage (something designers need in buckets), your curiosity (obviously), and what matters to you. I’m giving you the opportunity to ask me questions so that you can be as informed about us as we are about you, but I’m also doing it so I can understand what makes you tick.
By the way, if a hiring manager doesn’t make time for you to ask questions, consider it a warning sign. The interview process should be a two-way street, a chance for both parties to get to know each other. If you ask for the opportunity to ask questions and it doesn’t happen, walk away.
Look, interviewing sucks. It just does. That’s why I started out saying that when I’m interviewing you, I’m on your side. Even if you stumble on the questions above, I’m not ruling you out. I know there’s a lot more to you than your responses to a few questions. Just be authentic, open, and honest. Let me know who you are.
And whatever you do, don’t say Dribbble. Unless you worked there.
This story was originally published on Medium.