Recently I’ve encountered a lot of conversations around design tasks, for and against, pros and cons. I support giving tasks during the interview stage in most cases, and I’ll try to demonstrate why it is important. Bear in mind that most companies who hire a lot and dedicate tremendous amounts of attention to their hiring process have tasks in their pipelines for candidates.
Let’s define a design task:
Usually, tasks are the second stage in design interviews. The first step is usually some sort of phone or online screening. Designers usually prefer to see their future boss, see the atmosphere in the workplace and then consider whether they are willing to invest the time in doing a task. That is statistically different to developers who on average prefer to know if they can do the job and come confidently to an interview. Designers would also prefer to know what they’re destined to work on, so they can assess it and see if that is interesting for them.
What’s a task good for?
In an interview process, there are a few unknowns about the designer you are seeing. The goal of the task is to decipher these unknowns. It is true that you can potentially dig into a person’s behavior, idea generation and problem-solving in an interview, but I would argue that 60 minutes isn’t enough time and that someone put on the spot would yield mediocre answers at best unless we are talking to a really senior, thoughtful designer.
The things I find out from a task:
“Great portfolio, what did you do?” — It is standard procedure for designers to send over their CVs and portfolio and get filtered towards a first interview using these. I’ve noticed designers can talk for hours about their projects, which is expected. The explanation for this is that they have spent a lot of time working on them. Additionally, they’ve heard other people pitching these projects and are therefore able to reiterate that. Hopefully, these are successful projects (otherwise they wouldn’t have ended up in their portfolio). Moreover, the designer has probably pitched the projects in other interviews, so they are fully trained in talking about them. Consequently, this can make it hard for an interviewer to tell what they did in these projects as opposed to what others did. What elements were they truly responsible for?
To counter that I’d usually try to structure the interview and limit the time for portfolio walkthrough. After 15 minutes I’d start digging into a specific project. I’d expect candidates to have prepared a case study (which most don’t). I prefer to see three projects in depth rather than 20 one-pagers. I’m also going to be quite disappointed if the candidate just takes me through the portfolio they’ve already sent. I expect a different, more detailed version; after all, I’ve looked at it and read through it thoroughly before I invited them over.
Change of context — I find that many times people who are good at communication can speak very eloquently about anything they know. They can sell the case study even if it doesn’t exist. Putting them in a different context helps flesh out their improvisation skills and shows how they approach a design problem rather than a communication problem. It’s the difference between seeing a Jony Ive narrated advert and seeing how he speaks in an interview. The gaps are outstanding! (sorry Jony, you are still great).
Assess speed — It is always good to know when things got done and how long they took. But time and estimations are a slippery concept for doers (ask any PM). There is also a huge difference between a sketch and a finished product. Designers sometimes spend weeks on their portfolios, which are the accumulation of years of experience. When you set a task you can really see if there is a gap between the time someone spent on a task and what they say they did, and whether they can measure time accurately. Because it’s an after work hours activity, it forces them to spend less time and focus on speed. Measuring scrappiness is an important skill as some projects they’ll encounter will have tight deadlines. Dealing with scrappiness is also an ego measurement. How does the designer deal with the fact that they’ve submitted something half-baked? That, later on, helps you assess their approach to feedback when you ask them about the details in the task. If every answer is “well I didn’t have time” rather than “I think that my next steps should have been XYZ,” you can tell what kind of attitude they have.
Assess commitment — Commitment is a provocative concept since some managers would argue that workplaces should respect people’s free time and not hammer them with tasks. After all, people have families and can potentially be doing other workplaces’ tasks too. It can become a burden on people’s lives.
However, it is essential and useful to question their motivation, and to know how much a designer would like to work for you; for their sake and for the longevity of their employment in your company. I’d specifically look at this factor if I’m hiring for a company that the candidate hasn’t heard of. Is the designer looking for a job because in your industry you pay more? Is it because you are just one out of hundreds he applied for in his search (it can be easy to click the apply button)? On the contrary, is it because your company is famous? Some companies have more fame and status in comparison to others. In these companies, people may come to gain a reputation rather than because they really want to work there. Not every company is Epic or Nike. It might be interesting to know how long that person would stay in your company but that is really hard to guess.
Commitment is measured unfortunately by how much time people spend on the task and your ability to see it in the result.
Assess market understanding — Some designers will have pre-knowledge that is useful to you. Perhaps they’ve worked in your industry or fields. But usually, designers move horizontally and don’t stay in the same industry for very long (curious bunch). A task can show how fast the designer can get up to date with the quirks of your industry and how thorough their research skills are.
Process and planning — Since the task time frame is short, the manager can measure how systematic the designer is. Seeing how far they took it when they stopped helps to understand the designer’s planning skills. It is also important to see if the designer flagged open questions, what assumptions they made and whether they thought of what’s next (if they could have spent more time on it).
Related or not related to your business? — Many designers will feel used if you ask them directly about your business. “Oh, they are just trying to source ideas from us”. However, if you design a task that is completely unrelated to what you do it might destroy your chances of measuring how they do research about your industry or understand your domain. So my advice is to set a task that’s kind of related, but detailed enough for the designer to feel that you’re not just going to take their ideas and implement them tomorrow without giving them a job.
Tasks also always have cons to them
Too big or vague — that’s on the company to figure out. A task’s goal is not to trip up the designer, it’s to learn more about them and flesh out your understanding of them. Unfortunately, sometimes you’ll need to throw the task over to people to see how well it’s understood and then improve it as necessary.
No time — it’s hard to assess how long candidates spend or will spend on it. It is very important to be very specific about the time needed or the results we expect. For example, are you looking for pencil sketches or a high fidelity prototype?
No place — consider giving designers the option to have a room in your company’s offices for them to do the task and for you to see that it is done in the time required.
Flexibility — tasks are not flexible, you give it to someone and they complete it or they don’t. Consider accepting different people’s processes. Some designers might not be able to do a task because of a physical disability or a true lack of time. I suggest you have a different route that supports such cases (if you value diversity).
Exceptions
As a designer, I’ve seen people invent tasks or send materials before the first interview. That helps to leapfrog ahead in the interview process. Obviously, this demonstrates a lot of will power and extreme excitement and commitment towards your company. Not sure I’d recommend to always ‘try this at home’. But there are better ways to approach it if you want to be noticed. I would also argue that people who do personal projects — through which they demonstrate that they are passionate about design in their free time and that it’s not just their way to make money in this world — deserve to be cut some slack when it comes to doing tasks.
Ideas on alternative approaches to giving a task
I always love places that tell me who I will meet and what we will talk about. It seems to be a recruiter’s thing but I think it should transition to the business side too. Based on that I think that it might be a good approach to give talking points to someone rather than a task and have them do research so they’re prepared to come in to talk about it or take on a small thought process task on the spot.
I don’t see tasks disappearing anytime soon. It’s a good way to see how someone thinks in a scenario where you can’t hire them for a week to test how they might fit with your company. Converting freelancers to perms would be too hard in that respect. The benefits of tasks are too big to ignore. I would also argue that the designers themselves can learn a lot by doing a task; such as whether they’d like to work for the business, how smart the task is, or what interaction within the workplace looks like.
Yes, you need to do stuff that is out of your normal routine if you want to work for a particular place. Transitions require time and attention, as well as resources and that’s only fair. If someone doesn’t have holiday days, weekends, free hours then they should just dedicate themselves to what they want to do, self-select, do one task rather than ten. Sure, that will mean it’ll take them longer to find a job but very much like a relationship, if you invest you yield and if not then…you don’t.