 Why do you want to work with us? I mean... Hey, are you f**king up your UX job interviews? Throughout the years we have seen so many applicants commit the same mistakes while interviewing for UX designer product position. And hey, we've committed all the same mistakes as well. So in this video we'll share real-life advice from our UX designers to really ace that interview, stand out from the crowd and ultimately let that dream job of yours. If you want to get more resources like this, tips on UX and UI, product design, all the latest tech news and career advice then you have to subscribe to our newsletter with send weekly advice and insider resources, the link is in the description below. As you watch this video, do let us know in the comments below which piece of advice you find the most useful and what do you struggle the most while interviewing for UX design and product design roles. Okay, let's jump right into the video. In an interview, try to be humble and honest about what you don't know but say that you will learn it rather than trying to make up stuff. So actually I applied for a job at Nokia and I was interviewed by nine people and I think about six of them thought I was good because they liked my personality, they liked my drive but the last two people wanted to... They knew I didn't have a lot of work to show off because I was a junior, I was like, you know, I don't know, I was basically, I had nothing but they wanted to see if I understood why I made some of the design decisions I did in my portfolio and I couldn't really answer those questions. You know, they would say, so why is this button red with a rounded corner and this button is green with a, you know, but it's actually square and I wouldn't really have had the answers to those questions and I think actually the mistake I made was not that I didn't know the answers to these questions, it was that I tried to answer them even though I had no idea what I was talking about and everyone can see through both. So I think just being a bit more honest in the interviews and saying, hey look, I really want to work here, I'm a hard worker, I'm a very fast learner but I actually don't know why and that's why I want to work here, right? That's the reason I want to work here. Instead, my ego was getting hurt and I decided to just try to make up some answers and I even could tell that I didn't know what I was talking about. So I didn't get the job, they did a good job not giving me this job. I'd say the biggest mistake that I've made in the past and that I see a lot of people doing is just applying generically to all different types of companies without really researching the company and writing a motivation letter specifically for that company that addresses the job posting that they made and saying how I can add value and what unique things I can bring that would make me stand out from other people applying for the job. And I know this now when we get applications to Agents Smart and I see the difference it makes when I see that, oh, this person knows exactly how we work, they know our products, they already have suggestions for the areas that we could improve in, that makes them stand out a lot more and maybe doing something a little extra, like doing a video even if they didn't ask for it and putting a link to it in your resume, just doing that extra step instead of just doing one copy of your resume or CV and then sending it to all types of companies. So one thing I wish I had done right at the start is just constantly keep myself up to date with the Apple and Google design guidelines because they basically control the entire market if you're working on mobile apps and it's just this source, right? Not just at all these other apps and trying to get inspiration, but just looking at Apple's human interface guidelines and Google's material guidelines, I wish I had just looked at that more often instead of looking all over the place for different ways of getting inspired and finding out how interfaces work. Like, why do I need to spend three hours figuring out how the back button could look and could work in my app when you go into a new category and you go into an article page when these guidelines show you the way these platforms would prefer you to do it anyway. So that's something I don't know. I was trying to be too clever and most of the most successful apps actually stick to these usability guidelines except for TikTok. So one of the biggest mistakes that I see with junior designers who are putting out their portfolio is that they upload some really nice designs and apps and websites and all of that but they don't explain the process that they used to design those apps and websites. And that would be a lot more interesting to someone looking to hire you because they can see what your thought process was like. They can see how well you thought about a problem, what your take on it was, how big the challenge was and what you were able to design in a certain amount of time. So you really need to give the context of everything that happened and it makes your portfolio a lot more rich and a lot more useful just a collection of pretty images. So one big mistake that I made in the past when applying for jobs is not practicing the job interview with someone before the actual interview. If you haven't done a lot of job interviews then you really don't know how you're going to be during the interview. You might think you're going to be confident and talk really well about all the stuff that you did but you find out that you're really nervous and you get caught off guard by even easy and simple questions. So what I would do differently when applying for a job is practicing with someone before the interview and ask that person to be really harsh so like prepare for the worst case scenario instead of expecting the other person to be engaging and easy going and practicing for the hard interview will make you a lot more comfortable because chances are the person you're going to talk to is going to be nice and you're going to be a lot more confident because you've prepared for a lot worse. I'm 32 now. So for most of my work life I didn't know how to give or take feedback. I was especially bad at giving feedback and not in the way that I was being mean it was just that I would be passive aggressive or give no feedback. And the book that I read that changed, slowly changed my perspective on how to give feedback and also revealed to me that it was a problem is a book called Radical Candor and I actually had it on my podcast Jake and Jonathan podcast you should listen to it and that will sum the whole book up for you but for me and for a lot of designers you know you just don't learn how to give people feedback because you've never had to do it in your entire life you don't have to do it with your family you don't have to do it with your friends you don't have to do it in college and the first time where it actually hurts you in your life is in work. The problem is you actually can get away with it forever but you start to hate your work life if you can't say what you really think and also let other people say what they really think to you so that's definitely my biggest problem. This might be controversial but it's really hard to stand out if you just work nine to five meaning like just the standard hours and you don't do anything outside of that time to help your career. Now I don't mean that you should be a workaholic or just work overtime but if you are in the fortunate position to be working in an industry that you like then doing that extra stuff will not feel like work so picking up a book that will improve your skills in some way will be a great investment and just expecting that if you just do your work if you just do what you're told that you're somehow going to be noticed and people are going to praise you and you're going to be promoted I don't think that's going to happen. So if I could meet my 20 year old self right now 12 years ago and just appear in front of him without him somehow freaking out I think what I would tell my 20 year old self is to be a bit less arrogant and very specifically it would be I was quite arrogant about listening to people who I didn't like or I didn't think were intelligent enough to give me advice so I would just switch it off if there was someone like above me who was my boss but I kind of thought it was like ah this person doesn't know what they're talking about I just had that attitude when I was younger which is by the way an arrogant egotistical attitude but because I had that attitude I just learned less right I learned less things from other people because I was blocking myself off from learning so I think I would be ask myself to be a bit less cynical be a bit kind of more open to taking advice from other people but I also know that Jonathan of 20 years old would also not even listen to myself so probably it wouldn't work anyway so if I were to give advice to my younger self it would really come down to telling myself to find a way to teach myself discipline because that's the thing that I lacked when I was starting I was all over the place I would get excited about a million things and I wouldn't stick to anything I would keep changing my focus all the time if you don't have the discipline you'll make your life a lot harder because you'll make yourself less hireable because when you're applying for a job chances are the position you're applying for will want someone who's great at UI or great at UX or great at research but they will not want someone who's okay at 3 or 4 things and so the lack of discipline and lack of specialization makes it really hard for you to land a job when you're applying for one and that's it from us today if you enjoyed this video do let us know in the comments below which piece of advice you will start implementing first and what do you struggle the most with while interviewing for UX and product design positions also hit the subscribe button if you liked this video give this video a thumbs up it will really help us spread the UX knowledge even further and that's it from us today see you next time bye so not knowing how to start projects was the biggest mistake if you enjoy videos like this hit the subscribe button and be notified whenever we release this juicy videos juicy videos okay once again what do you think are your biggest weaknesses? yeah that's a very nice question product design role I don't know link is in the description below produce yourself in 10 years oh 10 years I guess I want to okay thanks now let's jump into the video let's jump into the video actually let's dive right in Kala told me not to clap I'm sorry okay it's just hard to convey excitement without clapping