Overall, Canva's recruiter was very organized and easy to communicate with. They gave me clear and prompt feedback after each interview round.
However, their design interviewing process showed some cracks in their internal Design culture:
1. Design candidates are given a broad, take-home task where you are expected to deliver end-to-end assets, from wireframes and flows to high-fidelity, interactive prototypes, and business strategy ideas for implementing the idea. I intentionally limited the amount of time I spent on the exercise, but still ended up spending 6–8 hours on it. Candidates aren't compensated for their time. During my interview, I received negative feedback for spending too little time on one step (user story mapping). They seemed to expect unlimited time investment from candidates.
2. The take-home task also included one pre-alignment meeting with a Design Lead, before the final presentation for the take home task. I ran a design thinking workshop, where the Design Lead asked me prioritize to one theme (Social Impact) over other considerations like Feasibility and Business Impact. I mentioned this in my final presentation to all of the interviewers, which included the Design Lead. But the final feedback was that I prioritized Social Impact too much. I was surprised, given that this direction was given to me by the Design Lead.
Their recruitment process was smooth, but I could see miscommunication and misalignment within the Product and Design team. I had the impression that Designs who work towards clear, pre-defined business targets will thrive at Canva, rather than Designers who think outside the box and push the envelope. My other suggestion to Canva is to not over-index too much on the solutions that candidates present from take-home exercises, since it's only an illustrative, time-constrained exercise. Instead, consider solution-agnostic qualities like product thinking, craft, and communication/collaboration.
