IXDA 2024
DESIGN RESPONSES FROM THE FIELD
ETHICS FIELD REPORT
CHALLENGES INTERVIEWING @ TESLA
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Jane Doe “However, the recruiter keeps pushing Interviewed in 2022 me and encouraging me to work on the design challenge. [They] said I was the most favoured candidate by the team. So I ended up with spending more than 40 hours on that, which proved the wrong thing to do. Once I submitted the project and provided it to the recruiter, he just disappeared and a few days later, he comes back to me says I was rejected because my design doesn’t match with the team. I really don’t understand what it means the design doesn’t match with the team? This is the only feedback that I got after I spending 40 hours on the project.”
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HOW ARE WE PREPARING?
ASSIGNMENT Provide an end-to-end solution for an existing Tesla product.
HOURS ASSIGNED Unlimited.
Prompts related to the companies product suite should be avoided.
TIME SPENT 40 Hours
WITH DESIGN INTERVIEWING @ AIRBNB
HOURS ASSIGNED Unlimited. TIME SPENT 15 Hours
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TIME
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John Doe “→ Received an email from a recruiter Interviewed in 2023 and scheduled our first initial call. → Had a call with the recruiter and a design manager. → Had a 1:1 call with a design manager. → Received a design exercise and was asked to complete in 1 week. → Spent 15 hours working on the exercise and sent a presentation by email. → Got a rejection email a week after I sent the presentation. → They just sent me not accepted without a hiring manager call. → Wasted time and effort because I didn’t have a chance to present my work.”
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WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS?
ASSIGNMENT Reimagine and redesign an existing digital product of your choice that showcases your skills and abilities to solve a complex problem as a designer.
Short challenges can cause issues if time limits are not enforced.
CHALLENGES
IXDA 2024
DESIGN RESPONSES FROM THE FIELD
ETHICS FIELD REPORT
Assigning challenges outside of the interview disproportionately benefits designers who can afford to dedicate time, setting those who can't behind. Design is an iterative process, often collaborative, individual take-home assignments fail to compensate for this.
TAKE-HOME CHALLENGES Fewer companies are choosing to employ take-home challenges as part of their standard interview process. Due to their similarity to course projects, there is not a strict guide to succeeding at them. We provide an overview of the process and high level guide to help you prepare as you start your job hunt.
PREPARING FOR EVERYTHING.
MICRO TRENDS?
OH THE TYPES OF HOMEWORK YOU’LL SEE LONG OR SHORT?
Times are changing. Design managers are increasingly favouring whiteboarding challenges over traditional take-home tasks, emphasizing real-time problem solving and on-the-spot creativity. This shift prioritizes candidates’ abilities to spontaneously generate and communicate design ideas, interfaces, and user flows directly on a whiteboard. That being said—young designers will inevitably run across takehome variants. Thus understanding their structure is pivotal in succeeding at them. While there is less preparation that can be done, due to their similarity and often overlap with standard academic courserelated projects, understanding what companies want to see and deducing goals based on leaked prompts and important first steps.
LONG Long assignments can range from as little as 5 Days to upwards of 3+ weeks.
SHORT
DELIVERABLES Common deliverables include: Research Findings, Sketches, User Flows & Journeys, Lofi & Hi-Fi Wireframes, Presentation Decks
WAIT? SO WHAT SHOULD I DO? Design challenges vary, this makes them difficult to prepare for opposed to whiteboarding challenges. However, there are a number of things you can do to prepare.
RESEARCH → PREPERATION → PLANNINNG
Research the Company.
Prepare Your Materials
Time Box to the Minute
Find past accounts of the process.
Create a component library + slide deck.
Create a strict timeline before hand.
EXECUTION Design take-home assignments are most similar to class projects. Often these assignments want to see a clear depiction of the double diamond process, along with a well researched design solution.
WHATS HAPPENING APPLE Take Home Challenge 4 – 7 Days Long, Uncapped Hours
IBM Take Home Challenge 1 – 2 Days, 4 Hours
The lay of the land in 2023.
Tesla Take-Home Challenge 14 – 21 Days, Uncapped Hours
ServiceNOW Take Home Challenge 1 – 2 Days, Uncapped Hours
Intuit In-Interview Challenge 1 – 2 Days, Uncapped Hours
Airbnb Take Home Challenge 4 – 7 Days, Uncapped Hours
IXDA 2024
DESIGN RESPONSES FROM THE FIELD
ETHICS FIELD REPORT
DO YOU KNOW WHATS BEING EVALUATED? Collaboration Skills Ability to Articulate Thoughts Creativity + Solution Uniqueness Ability to Translate Thoughts into Visuals Consideration of Users + Research Understanding of Storytelling Ability to Create Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Charisma + Personality Problem Solving Ability User Centered Mindset Understanding of Context Product Launching Experience What Assumptions Are Being Made Open to Critique + Self Critique
Problem Framing Skills Innovation Process Creation of Task & User Flows Understanding of Constraints Brainstorming Ability Articulation of Next Steps Consideration of Developers
IN-INTERVIEW CHALLENGES 4 of the top 7 tech industry giants have dropped the take-home assignment in favor of the whiteboarding challenge. More ethically sound, it allows for a better judge of character and though process.
DEVELOPING TACTICS
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREPARE?
WAIT, WHAT’S BEING EVALUATED? Hiring managers aim to learn several things from a whiteboarding challenge. The primary focus is understanding how you think, how you solve problems, and how you work with others.
PRODUCT THINKING, PROBLEM SOLVING, COLLABORATION
HOW SHOULD I APPROACH THIS? Whiteboading challenges can be approached with a formula. Due to their timeboxed nature and inherent limitations, you can practice and apply a formula that will work in most scenarios—ensuring you demonstrate the required skills and appear calm and charismatic.
While in-interview challenges are pragmatically and ethically better they still carry some issues. Whiteboarding challenges for instance, favour extroverts, those that are comfortable thinking out loud and working with the facilitator. Creating a list of questions to ask, as well as madlibs, can help reduce stress, and increase feelings of preparedness. For example, regarding product vision you might prepare the phrase, “Our long-term vision for the product is [blank], which means in the short term we will [blank].” Regarding success metrics you might prepare, “If there is [blank] then we will assume our solution worked.” Generating your own madlibs will make you appear not only more prepared, but more confident and sure of yourself.
EXECUTION 10 Minutes
20 Minutes
30 Minutes
40 Minutes
EXPLORATION
IDEATION
DESIGN
VALIDATION
Define Problem Set Scope & Context Define Goals & Needs Set Constraints
Diagram Cost Vs. Impact Focus on Best Fits State Solution Cost State Assumptions
Stay UX Focused Create User + Task Flows Consider Devs Create Lo-Fi Wireframs
Define Metrics Of Success Define Next Steps Summarize The Process Ask For Feedback
MICROSOFT Whiteboard Challenge 40 Minutes—Part of a 1:1
AMAZON Whiteboard Challenge 60 Minutes—Part of a 1:1
META Whiteboard Challenge 45 Minutes—Part of a 1:1
Netflix Whiteboard Challenge 50 Minutes—Part of a 1:1
Sales Force Whiteboard Challenge 60 Minutes—Part of a 2:1
Spotify Whiteboard Challenge 30 Minutes—Part of a 2:1
DESIGN RESPONSES FROM THE FIELD
WHERE POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES?
FROM THE CHALLENGE TO THE OFFER
13
APPL
12 11 10
SPOT
9
NFLX
8 GOOG
7 TSLA
6
META
5
ABNB
AMZN
8
9 10 11 12 13
MSFT
4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF INTERVIEWS →
CAMPUS OUTREACH
NEW TACTICS FOR NEW TIMES
ETHICS FIELD REPORT
Campus outreach provides one possible alternative. Getting your company involved with your nearest university's design program can bypass the need for take-home and whiteboarding challenges in design hiring interviews. By integrating your industry-specific projects into design courses, you can work can directly with faculty in order to influence the skills taught, ensuring portfolios reflect the relevant, professional competencies you are looking for.
1 NUMBER OF WEEKS →
IXDA 2024
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5
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REFERENCES Asking candidates for references (and following up on them) provides an additional stream of information to the hiring process. Gather better data on your candidate—get a read on them before you bring them into the interview room. Verify their skillset, collaborative skills, and mindset before you commit to a lengthy interview loop with them. As an added bonus, they will thank you for saving them time if the match was never going to work out.
STILL WANT TO SEE THE WORK? WORK FOR A DAY (PAID)
OFFER A INTERNSHIP
Still needing to see work, perhaps even how teachable a candidate is? Try bringing your candidate into the office to work with you team for 1–3 days. This has benefits for your team as well as the candidate, allowing them to get to know each other and see how their chemistry aligns. Additionally, you will be able to see your candidate in action—actually working on your product, a benefit that even the most ethical take-home assignment fails to achieve.
Still not satisfied? Or wondering if there is another way to better understand you candidate? Try offering a short, or part-time internship. Not only does this have all the benefits of bringing your candidate in for a day, but you have a specified end date, avoiding any awkwardness for candidates that do not gel with the rest of a team. This approach is similar to hiring contractors—what separates this approach is the embedded nature of the process into the team you're hiring for.
ARE WE
CAN BIG TECH LEAD US TO A NEW ERA? HIRING @ GOOGLE “On the hiring side, we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time...They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart”, said Laszlo Bock, the SVP of People Operations, “Instead, what works well are structured behavioral interviews, where you have a consistent rubric for how you assess people, rather than having each interviewer just make stuff up.”
HIRING @ META “It's very much a two-way street," Kalinowski said. "They can find out more about us, and we can find out more about them...The interviews are subject to the role and department. For example, an engineer may go through a coding interview, where an employee sees how quickly and accurately a candidate can write code on a whiteboard in response to a given situation.”
HEADED
Say No—Leave Design Homework in the Classroom. Respect Your Candidates Time — Pledge to Leave These Challenges in the Past. TAKE THE PLEDGE #DROPTHECHALLENGE