Questions to vet your future manager & why 90% of designers are unhireable
5 things good managers focus on and how to vet them during your interviews. Why Matej Latin has turned down 90% of 1000 applicants and how to avoid the "low UX maturity" loop.
Hey design enthusiasts, hope you’re ready to survive another week. Thanks to my reader survey I learned that a few of you are Researchers, so I switched up my intro!
If you haven’t taken 2 min to fill out these short questions please do. I’m really interested to get to know you guys better and it really helps me ensure I’m sharing the right type of content 🙏 🙏 🙏
In case you missed it:
I’ve started sharing my process for creating the 3-5 year vision for one of the worlds top travel companies. Lots more to come, so follow if you’re interested.
I’m LIVE on Tiktok again this Wednesday. Register if you want a reminder. We had at least 3 people with over 16 years of experience last week 😎
I already shared a follow up video that you guys asked for. Going into a lot more detail about what it’s like to be a Design Manager.
Speaking of managers…
What good design managers do
I was reading over this article by Hardik Pandya, and I couldn’t agree more on the fact that a good design manager focuses on 5 key responsibilities to build a healthy and happy team:
Ensure a steady stream of challenging and meaningful work for you & your team
Show where the quality bar is, by doing exemplary work yourself
Protect time and focus of your reports so they can do their best work
Communicate timely & clear feedback to every team member
Create a personalised growth path for every member in the team
Last week on my tiktok live I think 4 people mentioned they had interviews! Congrats again! So, I wanted to take that a step further and give you some real questions you can ask during your interviews to vet your future manager:
Ensuring a Steady Stream of Challenging and Meaningful Work
Question: "Can you describe a time when you had to balance multiple, competing priorities for your design team? How did you ensure everyone felt challenged and engaged while delivering on deadlines?"
Question: "How do you stay updated on industry trends and emerging technologies? How do you translate these into actionable opportunities for the design team?"
Demonstrating Exemplary Work
Question: "Can you share an example of a design project you personally led that you're particularly proud of? What were the design challenges, and how did you overcome them?"
Question: "How do you define design quality? How do you ensure that the design bar is consistently raised within your team?"
Protecting Time and Focus
Question: "How do you handle competing demands on your team's time? How do you prioritize tasks and say no to low-value work?"
Question: "How do you create a culture where interruptions are minimized and deep work is encouraged?"
Providing Timely and Clear Feedback
Question: "Can you describe your approach to giving feedback? How do you balance constructive criticism with positive reinforcement?"
Question: "How do you ensure that feedback is actionable and leads to growth for team members?"
Creating Personalized Growth Paths
Question: "How do you identify individual strengths and weaknesses within your team? How do you create tailored development plans?"
Question: "How do you foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement within your team?"
90% of designers are unhirable?
A rather harsh look at why Matej Latin has turned down 90% of 1000 applicants he’s reviewed. But he’s not wrong about getting stuck in the “low design maturity” loop. Something to seriously keep in mind as you want to grow in your career. I’m keeping this one bookmarked.
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Why I ditched user need statements & created the CMBAT framework
Establishing a new framework that helped one of the biggest travel companies in the world define & prioritise their product vision. User needs & JTBD are still super valuable and have their place in the design process because there is one fundamental difference between them and CMBAT statements. The difference being, when to use them in your process. CMBAT statements are intended to articulate the experiences you have prioritised. The experiences you ‘MUST’ bring to life. (at all cost 🫵)
But wait, there’s more
Like videos about UX & Product Design? Follow me on Tiktok or Insta
Looking to level up? Here’s some resources I’ve created specifically for designers
I go a bit more in-depth on specific topics over on Medium and LinkedIn but sub to this newsletter for regular goodies in your inbox 😎