4 Must-Know Tips for Landing Your Next Product Design Job
As you can imagine, getting a Product Designer job has become a more difficult thing than before. With new tools, new ways of working, and even new types of companies emerging, hiring managers are now assessing your profile in a different way.
Just to be clear, if you are reading this article, you’ve probably read many others out there with a similar title. I am not here to rehash what they wrote, and you shouldn’t ignore those, but instead, I would like to provide some additional tips for you to take care of when applying for your next Product Designer job.
Why and how is it different from before?
1. The Interview Process
Before covid, the interview process often kicks off with a video call from the recruiter, followed by a few trips to the physical office. At the office, you walk around with a small cup of coffee, greet people around you, and then slowly get into the interview room, where you might talk, present, and do design challenges. Since people can physically feel your personality and get a sense of who you are before even speaking to you, even though you might not perform well in the technical interviews, people might still hire you when they feel like your personality fits the company’s culture.
However, not anymore.
Now, the interview process starts mostly when the candidate turns on the camera (maybe with 3 mins of coffee chat at most). The candidate got less opportunity to learn about the environment they will be working in, but instead, got more emphasis on the work and assignments they have done.
Some companies also handle interviews in an async/sync setting, where the process might be a mix of live calls with the team and loom recordings of the work you’ve done. The way you present the works is also different now. Since you can’t physically dance in front of the interviewers, you have to keep the presentation short & effective or good enough to keep people awake — and this is not easy.
2. The Tools
Before Covid, most of the main interview rounds happen with paper & pen, whiteboard & marker, laptop & presentation, which benefits a lot on the employer side as they basically control the entire settings. You will have to adapt to it within a few seconds as you have no time to familiarise yourself with the tools, projectors, or room settings.
However, now with a fully-remote setting, you are in complete control of the environment, from posture, lighting, and microphone to how you appear in front of the virtual background and how stable is your internet connection. You are responsible for the entire appearance and what the audience’s “user experience” looks like. Here are some tips from Chris Do and Petrula Vrontikis.
3. The Competition
Although it may seem that companies are returning to their offices now, remote work opportunities are still out there. In fact, according to Upwork, by 2025, an estimated 32.6 million Americans will be working remotely, which equates to about 22% of the workforce
This means two things: Job applicants from around the world are competing with one another. Although this could be good as you can apply and work at companies you might otherwise not have been able to work at before. At the same time, this also means you might lose jobs as you have top talents from other places waiting in the wings for your mistake.
Tips to do when applying for jobs
1. Differentiate yourself by adding personalities & sharing your stories
Designer portfolios have become a formula. If you search around “Product Designer Portfolio,” you will find many sources that allow you to follow a step-by-step method to build up a “Standard Portfolio.” In which, you usually start with a “positioning statement” in the hero section, followed by 3–5 case studies. Each case study starts with the timeframe, your role in the project, the double diamond process, etc. This is great, as that enables visitors to clearly see who you are. But when everyone follows the same formula and the process looks the same, you are just one of many.
Human love stories — that’s why your parents read you stories when you were a baby. We all know that the perfect design process never happens in real life, so why don’t you share a few actual stories and a few actual phrases that people told you?
“Whatever makes you weird is probably your greatest asset” — Joss Whedon
There’s no all-in-one design process that fits every project, and if you could tell the story of each project that you’ve worked on, that’s perfect.
In addition, don’t make your portfolio just like another portfolio. Use colors, fonts, and personalities to differentiate yourself. We all love apps and websites with strong brand images and visual appearance, so try to maximize that on your personal portfolio!
2. Online Networking
If you are an extrovert and love networking, you probably don’t even have to mind this section as you already know the importance. If you are an introvert like me, now is your era. People are not more comfortable with online networking events and chats in a fully remote setting. It was weird to do an online coffee chat before covid, but that’s the default now.
To be clear on this, networking is not just about bothering others to offer you a job. Instead, it is the practice of meeting other people, sharing information, and supporting each other. Try to build up some simple relationships by dropping a message to a CEO of a product that you really enjoyed, send people some warm messages when you see some news on the other side of the world, send in a message when some authors wrote some great articles that you really like. Even if you can’t meet them in person, these messages will work someday.
Why does networking help you to get a job? That’s because people love to work with people they are familiar with or know of. Additionally, it’s also always a good sign that designers are proactive or happy to give feedback. In the best-case scenario is when you can make friends through those messages, and that person might invite you to collaborate together and maybe give you a referral for a job. In the worst case, no one replies, but the person still has your message in the inbox, and maybe someday, when they are looking for someone, they will think about you :-)
Here are some additional tips for finding the right person to speak to
- Find people that share something similar to you, and reach out. Maybe someone from the same school, company, or even the same name? (Fun fact, I got several interview opportunities basically because I met someone who’s Ben)
- Find people that are active on social media and let them know how much their content inspired you.
- Look for the hiring manager of the role and reach out (if they mentioned “reach out if you have any questions”)
- Be human when reaching out. Never reach out to people and say, “Hey John, I see you work at XYZ, and I am obsessed with the product. Could you give me a referral for the role ABC?”. Never. Remember, networking is about sharing information and supporting each other. Think twice when dropping a message to a stranger.
3. Prepare. Mind how you look
The two tips above are probably just taking you to the company’s front door. Just like what you usually do in your design works, you will need to learn, iterate and improve to get a seat in that company.
While preparing your Resume and Portfolio, get constant feedback from design/career-support communities, schedule calls with mentors from ADPlist, share the works around your network, and see what’s their first impression. You might also want to integrate Hotjar or Google Analytics into your online portfolio to track people’s behaviour and see if there is anything that you can improve.
Do the same for your interviews. Make sure you look good in front of the camera, the internet is stable, the voice is clear. Probably play around with some virtual background to incorporate some personalities into the experience. Try to make the call, not like another video meeting call. Mind the appearance!
4. Trust yourself
Applying for jobs might be an everlasting and tiring process… you might face a lot of rejections and get a lot of reasons why you don’t fit their team. Don’t panic, don’t be pessimistic, but trust yourself. We are trained to be product designers, not portfolio/resume designers, so just trust yourself and keep iterating on the process.
If you didn’t get any interviews after submitting your resume/portfolio, speak to mentors on ADPlist, and find communities to get feedback. If you are having a tough time presenting your portfolio works, practice them, and get feedback from others. If you are getting rejections, ask for the main reason and how you could improve yourself. Learn, improve, and you will master the interviews.
