How to wow, Part 3: The graphic design job interview
In the previous two parts in this series, we talked about how to impress with your graphic design CV and how to curate a portfolio fit for your “client”, i.e. the agency you’re applying to. But now that you know how to get your foot in the door, it’s time to look at what to say and do in order to ace the interview. Again, Moskito Design’s co-founder Giulia Salvioni gave me some insights from 10 years of hiring and team-building for her company.
The interview format
Before we get into the tips, though, it’s important to understand what to expect. Your interview might be one-on-one with the agency owner or, in the case of a larger agency, with a human resources manager. Or with a team. At Moskito Design, Giulia and co-owner Evelina Borghesan select candidates they’d like to interview from the applications received. Then they share those applications with the team leaders. The interviews are usually done in four: Giulia, Evelina, and two team leaders. It’s an opportunity to discuss your portfolio, experience and technical expertise. And most importantly, show your personality.
So what can you do to get ready before the big day?
Know your role
Research the role you’re applying for, particularly in the context of the type of agency you’re applying to.
“A lot of candidates coming out of university seem to confuse designer for developer,” Giulia says. “In the interview they tell us about how they developed all the code for their personal website. But that’s not what we’re looking for. When we’re looking for a designer, we want someone to design web pages, newsletters and banners. We have developers to develop the code. They’re two different jobs. You have to work together, but they’re different jobs.”
Find out about the agency
While you should have done some basic research before sending in your application, when you get called for the interview you need to dig deeper. Research the agency’s website, blog and social network pages and come armed to the interview with a better understanding of the agency, its clients and its work. Most importantly, this understanding should help you to articulate why you want to work there.
“Sometimes we ask questions about us,” Giulia says, “what you know about us and why you want to work here. Of course, if you’re young, sometimes you’re just looking for any job you can find, but you should find out something about the agency. We’ve had applicants show up who didn’t even know who our main clients are when it’s clearly written on our website. Sometimes we get an email that says ‘I’ve been following your work for years,’ but honestly we’re not a huge rockstar agency so that doesn’t need to be the case. But why should we invest our time considering you if you don’t invest some time into figuring out why you want to work here?”
Practice how you play
Why is preparation so important? Because in an agency like Moskito Design, where most of the graphic designers, even in junior positions, deal directly with clients, the interview is the first opportunity for agency to see how you might approach client work. As Giulia says, “your preparedness for the interview is really a test of how smart you work.” So take the opportunity to show that when it comes to client work, you’ll do your homework and show up prepared.
Show your best work
We’ve talked before about how to curate your portfolio, but make sure in the interview you can articulate why you’ve chosen those projects and what they say about you. And be clear about the extent to which they fit with the agency’s portfolio and clients.
“If you’re a junior designer, show the best projects you’ve done. If you’re a senior designer, you should show personal projects to show your personal style, but also projects you’ve done for clients, and done well. We’ve got to see how you apply this style to clients. It’s the reality that you’ve got to work with clients and adapt to their guidelines.”
Personality is paramount
More important than assessing your portfolio and your preparedness, the interview is a design agency’s chance to determine if, personality-wise, you’re a right fit for the team.
“In agencies like ours you may take on more responsibility for dealing with clients, and you’ll have to face pressure from them. How you behave in an interview will tell us a lot about how you interact with clients. If you can explain your work well, if you’re polite, engaging, this tells us a lot.”
“Confidence is important,” Giulia says. “Being shy is ok, too, but if you’re very shy and you can’t explain your experience it’s going to be difficult to make a good impression. And don’t go on forever. Explain your projects briefly.”
“We also want to know how you deal with feedback, both from the clients and from us. And one of the best ways is to give you some about your portfolio,” Giulia says. You don’t have to agree, but “if you get angry, or don’t listen, it’s not going to look good.”
Important qualities
Team leaders will also want to understand how you work in a group. “Our job is social. You have to work very closely together, 8 hours a day. So in the interview we try to understand how you’ll fit into the existing teams.”
“If you don’t have experience, we’ll ask about your university projects, and how you worked. If you have experience, we’ll ask about how your agency was structured.”
Never, ever be negative
Whether it’s about your former colleagues or employers (or fellow students and professors), one of the worst thing to do in a job interview is trash your former workplace. An agency owner or team leader can only assume you might talk bad about them, too. “Not every place is a great workplace,” Giulia admits, “but an interview is not the time to be negative about your former employer.”
As Giulia concludes, “the only real deal-breaker is a personality that doesn’t fit. Even if they’ve got the best portfolio in the world. All things being equal, personality will always win.”
And now for the final test
If you wow them in the interview, the next step for many agencies is a trial period. For them it’s a way to see if you can back up a pretty portfolio and all that talk with deeds.
As Giulia says, “Once we sign a contract, by law there’s a 3-month trial period. But before we even do that, we like to give candidates a brief trial to understand their capabilities. Sometimes we ask for a project from home. A newsletter perhaps, with a brief and a three-day deadline for proposals. Or we can do two or three days here in the office. It’s useful, because in one case we knew on day one that a designer wasn’t going to work.”
“There was one guy who interviewed and he had a beautiful portfolio with complex projects. He interviewed well ― really nice, really well-spoken. But when he started to work it became clear he had trouble doing the simplest work. Which meant that his projects had always been built on someone else’s work.”
To be honest, there’s no way to prepare for this phase ― you just have to know it’s coming and rely on the design skills, intelligence and sensibility you’ve honed over the years to do the best work you possibly can.
But if you’ve made it this far with a winning combination of CV, portfolio and a successful interview (and you’ve been honest with the yourself and the agency about your strengths and weaknesses and where you’d like to grow), you should be all set to turn in your best trial work. The agency won’t necessarily love it, but they’ll clearly see that you’re on the right track to grow into doing the great work the agency needs.
Good luck on that next job application!
