4 rounds of interviews with different members of the company: 1. The first interview is a quick call with a recruiter, where they just want to confirm the info you entered in the cover letter and CV. ). (30 mins) 2. Second round is a case study review and a Q&A with 2 product designers. (1 hour) 3. White Board Challenge. (2 hours) 4. Final interview. (1 hour) Judging from their initial positive feedback, I first understood that I’m a great candidate in all the important aspects: 1. Similar ways of working (product, design, eng trio) and team set-up to TravelPerk & experience in scale-up environments. 2. I made good use of data to identify user patterns. 3. Well-organized design process, starting with a clear problem space and then research, competitive analysis, refinement, handoff, etc. 4. KPIs to measure success linked back to the initial goal and showed the business impact of the solution. But then I received plenty of negative feedback that seemed to clash with the positive ones above, leaving me with even more question marks about this interview process: 1. I’ve been criticized for not being able to provide a more confident and thorough answer to the challenge around what research I would have done if resources were not a blocker. I thoroughly explained to them that due to a lack of budget, I couldn’t rely much on user interviews but I had to rely on market research for my personas and user goals instead and then moved on to explain what I would have actually done if I had the budget. It seems like they were not really satisfied with the answer but didn’t give me an exact reason why, and didn’t ask to provide further explanation. 2. I’ve been criticized for my presentation being ‘hard to follow at times, but since the Q&A included questions from both the interviewers' and interviewees' sides, I would have expected them to ask for clarification on the points they felt were unclear to them. 3. During the interview, I was asked about how the company workshop was organized and proceeded to explain that the purpose of the workshop was for the company to understand how to move further with the project; I then explained what happened in the workshop. I wanted to put emphasis on what the actual outcomes of the workshop were, but it seems like the interviewers didn’t really appreciate my answer and, instead of asking me specific questions to clear their doubts, they just left feedback saying they ‘would have liked to get a clearer understanding of which role you played in the workshop’. 4. Regarding the last negative feedback, where they said I was ‘unable to confidently explain prioritization of the project’, I realized during the presentation that I should have been clearer on that point, therefore I explicitly explained it better towards the end of the presentation. I would have appreciated it if the interviewers were more communicative and empathetic, as at times it felt like talking to myself. Given that and the endless interviewing process (4h 30m in total), it makes total sense to me why they struggle to find a Product Designer for their position. A more conversational approach would help them better assess a candidate for a Product Design position. I don’t recommend to any Product Designer coming from a small startup environment to apply for this Mid position, since they seem to give priority to those who already have experience in a large corporate sector, with plenty of budgets.
