Summary:
-- The interview process was a bit delayed and slow.
-- Assignment was the worst part of the interview, not expected from a company with Level 5 Certified Practice in Usability from HFI.
-- You were expected to do more than what can be done normally 1 hour.
- Feb:
I came across the opportunity from LinkedIn where the HR had posted the requirement. I replied on email with my portfolio links and resume, a quick followup call was done after which there was no update for weeks.
- Mar:
I got a revert on email confirming Interview slots for a Saturday.
- Interview Day
2 Rounds were held. One with the 2 persons.
-- First Face 2 Face Round
The first face-face round was basic with simple questions like what is your UX process. How skilled are you at certain skills.
It was surprising to know that the interviewer was not aware of Proto-Personas (Provisional Personas)
-- Assignment
The assignment was domain specific assignment related to Oil and Gas Industry.
As a result your output was impacted due to lack of domain knowledge
---- Timing :
The Assignment was timed for an hour, it was allowed to go little over that time. However, the expectation were beyond what the time reasonably allowed to.
---- Deliverables: The assignment listed 4 deliverables as below:
1. Personas and Use-cases
2. Interactions Design (Website, Mobile, Tablet,)
3. can't recollect this.
4. Visual design specifications including Assets
---- Absurd Assignment Expectations
What is weird is that for the role of a UX Designer, they are even expecting that candidates will create Visual designs.
The verbiage on the assignment is not clear that much of these are optional.
-- Assignment review
---- Assumptions made in the assignment were evaluated against the established domain knowledge of the reviewer who has experience in the domain.
---- Due to time constraints, i was able to do a good number of Personas and Use-Case but had to badly sketch high level flows for the screens. For which they expressed displeasure.
---- Incorrect Expectations: Later in the Assignment review, the reviewer asked if you have any specific experience on Analytics, Business Intelligence tools to which i said no.
---- Unreasonable expectations:
It is unreasonable to expect (Web + Mobile + Tablet) sketches with reasonable clarity of thoughts in an hour. To be precise, when the requirement is clearly defined this takes generally a day or 2 to get some high level flow.
---- Not open to feedback:
When above thoughts were expressed in a light tone, they frowned and weren't ready to take a critical thought on the feedback. As a design focused organization, it helps if you apply at hiring as well.
-- Final Words.
It was understood that i would not be shortlisted further. However, there was "Zero" communication from the HR about the status of the candidature.
Overall, this is not expected of a company with L5 Usability Certification in UX.
- Incorrect and unclear, unreasonable expectations.
- Probably the org is good at UX. But they aren't good at proper UX hiring methodology.