Dear interviewer…
I have spent most of my career as the interviewer not the interviewee. My practice as an interviewer is for candidates leave the interview with a clear understanding of whether or not they are a fit for the role and if not, why. My recent mentoring work with young designers, and going through the interview process myself, has given me the chance to reflect on what it’s like being on the other side of the table. It is striking how many companies are so bad at interviewing.
Whether it is lack of preparation, poor interview skills, or the failure to provide clear feedback, I am continually surprised these companies ever manage to hire anyone. Not to mention the lack of alignment between what are often poorly written and vague job descriptions and the interview itself. The conversations I have had with the designers I have coached have left me looking for a broader toolkit to help them put these poor experiences into context.
A few years ago I read about a practice of self care where you write a letter, never meaning to send it, to someone who hurt you or left you in an unresolved circumstance. The idea is to externalize your feelings, explore them, and given the letter format edit and re-edit your message focusing the key issues, clearly and objectively expressing the issues, without frustration or anger.
I have started encouraging my mentees to writing a similar never-meant-to-be-sent letters after an interview. Addressing them to their interviewers, I ask my mentees to use the letter as a means of reflecting on their experience in the interview from a professional point of view.
It starts with their preparation for the interview. Since it will be their only measure of what it is like to work with these people, coming prepared to ask relevant questions about the business priorities, the design processes, success metrics, growth and development opportunities, potential career path, etc. are critical to making sure they will be successful at this company. Often new candidates don’t realize they need to interview their potential hiring managers in the same way they are being interviewed.
As soon as possible after the interview, I ask candidates to take a moment and capture their experience focusing on things like:
Where people on time?
Was the interview held in place conducive to a private conversation, or was it noisy and distracting?
How did you greet each other? Formal—stand up, shake hands; or laid back—keep sitting, etc.
Was everyone prepared? Were they familiar with your resume?
Were their questions based on the job description? Or just general questions?
Did they ask you follow-up questions? Really exploring your capabilities?
How well did you answer their questions? Were your answers on point?
What were the non-verbal cues such as posture, eye contact, body language, tone and pacing, etc.
Did you check your own non-verbal cues? posture—did you lean in or lean back? Did you make eye contact? Did you smile? Were you tense or relaxed?
Were there any follow-up interactions as they were leaving?
I coach my mentees on how to closely observe the interviewers’ behavior during 1:1 interviews as well as their own, and to reflect on the overall interview process—from the recruiters, to the coordinators to the receptionist and the hiring managers. Then after the interview, take a moment to reflect on how they feel coming out of the interview. What is the first word that comes to mind walking out of the building? The longterm goal is to make candidates more self aware in the moment and to learn how to assess the situation as it unfolds, to trust their gut and to most importantly to own their part of the conversation.
Then I ask them to summarize their notes into a set of bullets, a formal assessment of both the interview and their performance in the meeting. Then translate that into a never-meant-to-be-sent letter to their would be manager.
My own recent interview experience
After three rounds of interviews with a “unicorn”, the last one ending with a conversation about salary, equity and start dates, I was excited about the company and the role. At the end of this third interview the C-Level hiring manager, I will call this person “Pat”, said the numbers looked great, reconfirmed that the whole team loved me, that he loved my portfolio, and he was looking forward to next steps. His body language suggested the feeling was authentic. The conversation ended with his commitment that they would have a final decision the following week. So the next day when I received an invitation for a face-to-face meeting the following Tuesday, I thought awesome. Over the next couple days, “Pat” and I exchanged messages about parking, their office’s mask policies, and how we were both looking forward to Tuesday’s conversation. However, soon after I arrived on the following Tuesday, I realized something was off… My expectations for a job offer were quickly replaced with a sense of confusion. What follows is are my meetings notes and the never-meant-to-sent letter I wrote “Pat” the evening after my final interview. I am sharing this as an example of the never-meant-to-be-send letters and their ability to provide forgiveness.
While this letter was never sent, I still took it very seriously; I used it as an opportunity to practice my professional writing style, carefully phrasing the intent without expressing frustration or anger, with making over bold or provocative accusations. I wanted to phrase my feedback in objective, business terms. It’s not always easy, and it’s very tempting to simply vent, but I have found treating these letters as if you are going to send them to be a great practice for when you find yourself in a situation where you have to give the other person clear feedback on their behavior.
My notes
These are my initial notes from the meeting and immediately following the meeting:
(You) late to the meeting.
(You) stepped out to return an “urgent” call to your CEO—but then he didn’t pick-up your call? (why isn’t he taking your calls?)
(You) left to use the bathroom and returned with a bag of chips—ate them while asking me questions.
(You) didn’t take notes, nor refer to any notes. Didn’t have a copy of my resume.
Questions to re-familiarize yourself my resume or portfolio
You asking me the same questions you had asked in our previous interviews — what?
Your only follow up question was why I left my last start-up — right after I had just explained why I had left that company. (It’s worth noting, you asked me that same question in our first interview as well…)
Throughout our meeting, you were continually distracted by things taking place outside the conference room, going so far as to make the universal “call me” hand gesture to one of your colleagues after you waived to get his attention.
Then, out of the blue, you said let’s brainstorm the design for our new product
it “connects our customers and their users to our team and our network of venders”
included account profiles, scheduling, messaging, notifications, and billing
and of course everyone gets their own customized dashboard
When I asked you to clarify the product (who, what, when, why use cases, each of stakeholder group’s their needs, expectations, devices, etc., as well as SLAs, business goals, success metrics, reporting requirements, etc.) your responses were either vacant or tinged with frustration.
When I tried to engage you in actually brainstorming, you backed away. (1 person ≠ brainstorm)
At that point it was clear to you didn’t want to collaborate, did you want to see me “perform”?
As I framed up the product using my best guesses, you shared that you and your team of four designers and a couple PM’s had spent the previous weeks ideating on this same product—weeks?!
Finally, after a couple minutes of me trying to diagram out this system, you said “can’t you just draw some wireframes”. Really?
You were visibly frustrated when I replied creating wireframes without requirements, or even a high level use cases, probably isn’t going to give you what you want, but I did what you asked and drew a simple set of wireframes. (I should have stepped back at that point.)
When I walked you through the wireframes and asked for feedback, you had nothing to offer—even though you had apparently spent the last couple weeks working on this same problem…
Throughout the “brainstorm” you again allowed yourself to be repeatedly distracted by you phone and people outside the room.
You concluded our meeting saying it was great—without making eye contact. Again looking more at your phone than at me, you said you needed to circle back with your team and you’d be in touch about next steps. It was clear from your body language you did not feel this was a great interview. The feeling was mutual the interview sucked.
On the way out I tried to engage with you, to understand what you had been expecting, what you were really looking for from this role, etc., you said you had to run to your next meeting. It was 6:00pm.
My Assessment: Decline
Reviewing my notes and the overall experience the decision was frankly an easy one. There was no way I was going to take this role. While I love the company and its vision, and I believe it has the potential to be very successful. Nevertheless, it was clear that “Pat” had all the making of a terrible boss.
You were completely unprepared and unprofessional in this interview
You fail to set clear expectations.
You lack humility.
You hold you team to a higher standard than you hold yourself.
You do not set clear priorities.
You lack focus
You don’t provide your team what they need to be successful.
You avoid confrontation.
And you are really bad at follow through
And you need to work on your communication skills.
And it is clear from the brainstorm performance, your view of design is out of date. And in all probability you have no idea how to maximize its value in a development organization.
The Dear Interviewer letter
Hi Pat,
I love the vision, mission and potential of <company> and I believe with the right people in place it has the opportunity to change the market.
At the end of our meeting last week you committed to having a final decision today, which was reiterated in the follow-up calls from your recruiter last week and yesterday. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I was disappointed when our meeting today meeting turned out to be yet another interview. But on the plus side, today’s conversation gave me a clear understanding of you, your expectations for the role, and how you see design fitting into your organization. It is obvious to me that I am not a fit for your team, and that I have nothing to learn from you as a leader, so I am withdrawing my candidacy for your VP of Design. I have already informed the agency of my decision.
Good luck with your search.
Kind regards,
Matthew
As always, please feel free to share your thoughts.
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