One year earlier, I applied for intern position, got interview opportunity from a very nice recruiter, end in 4th round. That was a good experience though I did not got an offer. That recruiter left last year. This year, with 2 more internship experience in big names, I apply again, using the same portfolio with several more projects on it. However, I did not even get a first round of interview. It feels that they don't bother to talk to a candidate, they want to see all the NDA project online but not in interview, they also prefer template instead of hand-coded portfolio because they expect your portfolio works perfectly without any bugs. They also hate gif because it's fuzzy, if it's gif, it need to be 15mb so they can see it clearly because they don't have time look at your prototype. If you don't have a perfect portfolio with fantastic user experience, it means that you are a bad designer that don't worthy them spending time talking to you to know your soft skills and design process. It makes me feel that LinkedIn is the only company in the universe and the other 2 big names must be idiot to hire me.

It was pretty intense. It was 4 rounds - started with a recruiter phone call lasting 30 mins, then 2 back to back 45 minute interviews with designers, then a one week design exercise, than a full day onsite with a 1 hour presentation and 4 1-1s with designers. While it was a pretty meaty process, I really enjoyed it! Every person I talked to during the process was super friendly and all my interviews really felt like conversations rather than 'interviews'. It was my favorite interview experience I've had with a company. They really want to get a sense of who you are, both as a person and as a designer. You should be able to articulate your end to end design process, how your designs add value, and defend all your design decisions.