Deny one click, or as a designer get a dream job
Sergey Solovyov, Head of Interface Design at Kontur, and IT-Recruiter at IT-People.ru, Rushan Kayumov, at last year’s DUMP conference , talked about errors in resumes and portfolios that even the most experienced designers allow, how to do the right test, how to pass an interview and not bring to tears recruiter and art director.
The report did not lose its relevance for the year, so under the cut we publish its video and text version.
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Rushan. I am Rushan Kayumov, an IT recruiter at IT People, so I think that I have a moral right to speak out sharply and radically. And Seryozha Soloviev, the head of the interface design department in Contour, will argue with me and, maybe, even upset a little.
Our report is not for nothing called "Deny one click." This is what a button on one of the work sites looks like. Sometimes when searching for designers, recruiters and art directors get sick and want to immediately click on it. Every time there are annoying mistakes, and they are both for beginners and experienced designers. Today we will tell you how not to make mistakes and still get the job of your dreams.
Sergei. First of all, our story will be useful to children who are thinking of becoming designers, or those who want to change jobs. We will tell about the test, resume, portfolio and interview. But if you are already working as a designer and do not think that you need to change the company in which you work, it is still useful to have a current portfolio and it is useful to periodically go for interviews.
When you look at your work and think about whether it should be placed in a portfolio, you sort of summarize your work and give yourself an estimate. It is always helpful. The same situation with interviews. If you are fine, but your name is for an interview, do not be lazy to go. You will learn what tasks there are in the market, how much you are in the labor market now. Well, and periodically attending interviews, you will begin to do it better. You will be less afraid, and interviews will be more comfortable for you.
Rushan. The main task of the resume is not to spoil the first impression. When we are looking for designers, we draw the most basic conclusions from the portfolio, but the acquaintance begins with the resume. The most important thing is not to screw up.
For many, this is captaincy, but this is a separate pain for recruiters - a third of the resume comes without files, without attachments. I was born, studied, worked, and no examples of work. So do not.
Description of tasks must be in the summary. Only the name of the company and position is not enough. Try to succinctly explain what you did at the last places of work, what tasks you faced. If you designed, write what you designed. If you created icons, write.
Do not forget to specify the toolkit, Serezha will share his pain further about him.
If possible, indicate in the resume, with whom you worked. Maybe you worked together with an art director, maybe with a marketer, maybe you had a whole design department. This is also worth telling.
Yekaterinburg is a small city, the IT sphere is even smaller, and there are very few designers. Aichi recruiters, which everyone knows, and through which almost all designers have gone, can be counted on the fingers. Lies will always pop up. Be honest.
Sergei. I want to say a few words about the appearance of the resume. This is a picture from one of the sites that allows you to generate a summary by filling in several fields. If such a resume is made by the welder or, as in the example, the project manager, probably, against the background of other candidates, he will stand out. He will have an unusual, bright, neat summary. But with designers it's not like that. In the case of designers, such a resume does not show your individuality, it, on the contrary, hides it. Because here you did not choose the font, you did not choose the composition, you just wrote the text.
Summaries made in such a program are rare, but circles are regularly encountered, as in an example — some kind of pseudo-infoography about program knowledge.
They look different. There are such:
These are all examples from real resumes. There is an inverted histogram:
Well, the most popular option is filled circles:
What, in my opinion, is the problem with such an infographic? For example, Photoshop. The author of this summary believes that he knows Photoshop on 7 out of 10. Here you can doubt that this is true, Photoshop is like Excel, the whole universe, and knowing it at least by half is not enough life. But even if the candidate really knows Photoshop on 7 out of 10, this does not mean that he really knows how to do it in Photoshop. For a designer, it’s important not to know the number of features in the program, but what the designer can really do with his own hands. And here nothing is clear about this.
Specifically, in this picture, to me, as a person who can view this summary, one place tells about the designer: when a person did not enter a line, and he simply pushed the circles off. In this place I get more professional information about a person.
If you want to make your resume interesting, add pictures - it's fun, it will be remembered, it can help you find a job. It is better to specify not the list of programs that you know (this list is similar to the designers and is very short), but the skills you possess.
For example, in the Bureau draw octopus. This is an example from an article by Kolya Taurovsky , where he talks about this tool.
What is the fundamental difference between octopus from the list of programs that you know? The list of programs for all the same, and the skills that you include in the list will be individual. Think of your forte and put it on the list.
In this example, there are, in my opinion, non-trivial things: courage, problem solving - this is already interesting, this can already be discussed at the interview. Why is this or that person included in the list? You can ask the question: why do you have the courage to solve problems shorter? Then a story appears, and no one will ever discuss the knowledge circles of the programs, it is not interesting.
The octopus itself may also look different. For example, in our Contour, the designer, after a probationary period, fills out a questionnaire. And this form can be accompanied by a picture. One of the variants of the picture is such an octopus, which illustrates the skills.
A couple of examples:
If you have the courage to insert such a thing into your resume, it will surely be remembered, and your resume will not be lost in the list of the others.
Rushan. Another captain slide, but I still say about him. As a rule, if you indicate in your resume that you prefer to call rather than write, then your working day is likely to overlap with the recruiter’s working day, plus or minus. This means that a recruiter can call you right at the height of the working day.
I have a story. Once I call a candidate, I say: “Hi! I am Rushan from IT-People. I liked your work, I have a couple of projects, maybe we will communicate with you sometime? Is it convenient for you to talk now? ”To which the candidate says:“ Hello, Rushana! No, I'm not very comfortable right now. ” And I understand that I need to call back later. The next minute, his boss writes me in a telegram: “Hello! I just heard that my employee called you by name. It seems he wants to leave. ” If you do not want anyone to know about it, do not indicate the phone.
Mail is indicated most often, but rarely checked. Two months later I receive: “Oh, hello, I missed your letter. It seems to be in spam. ” Check email and spam at least once a day.
Rushan. You all know the common meme about the seven deadly sins of the applicant. There are seven adjectives that always indicate in the resume about themselves: sociable, stress-resistant, responsible, fast-learning, hardworking, independent, the dream of the hostess.
The guys are discussing this block in the form of the game “One Hundred to One.” We recommend to watch it on video , it's fun
Look at this list again and forget forever. Of course, you are all like that, but there is much else in you.
How to?
In the summary behind the enumeration of facts and achievements, we want to see a live, real, cool person. The “About Me” block allows you to write in a human way, kindly, like you want to be introduced.
For beginners, this is a great place for you to write why you decided to do design. If you have been working as a sales assistant for 8 years and decided to do design without experience, it is in the “About Me” block that you can tell that you are interested in, that you have already read, tried, what test works you have, What test tasks performed. Try to write about it humanely and briefly.
Guys with an impressive resume, give yourself free rein, fantasize. Someone goes in for sports, someone conquers Everest, someone seals cats, someone bakes pancakes on weekends. Write about it. When you talk about yourself as a person, you immediately want to go and meet.
Many work sites offer a cover letter template. I, perhaps, later regret what I say, but it is better to no cover letter than the sample. They are absolutely the same, they occupy two lines and look like this: I ask you to consider my candidacy for the vacancy "". In quotes, a job is automatically inserted. It's pretty shabby, it's boring. It seems that it was too lazy to write a normal letter in one or two paragraphs.
The cover letter is a cool place to show what kind of person you are. If you want to find a dream job and it seems to you that it is in this project, in this team you will be able to realize yourself coolly, just write in normal human language. “I heard that you have cool projects,” “I saw your speeches at any conference,” “I congratulate you on some kind of reward,” “my friend has been working for you for two years, I can’t look at him, because I envy. " Write about this, most likely you will want to meet.
Sergei. The difference between the “About Me” block and the cover letter is that the “About Me” block is always in the summary, it is universal. A cover letter, ideally, should be written for each specific job. When I receive a good cover letter in which a person explains why he wants to work in our company, I always read him carefully, this is important to me.
In general, our report is not about what design to do, but about what a designer should think as a designer, not only when he draws mock-ups, but also in some related activities.
The requirements for a designer’s resume are slightly higher than the requirements for an ordinary person. There should be no mistakes in the summary. If I see errors in the designer’s resume, I understand that there will be errors in his layouts. If there are no mistakes in the resume, this does not mean that there will not be any in the layouts, but if they exist, then they definitely will.
Typography. You are designers, make the text be neat, so it was nice to look at. Quotes, dashes right and so on.
A designer should not only draw pictures, but also write good texts. Text is a very important part of the interface and design. Show on your resume that you can write good, capacious texts. Re-read Illyakhov and check the text in Glavred. This, too, will not go unnoticed.
Rushan. Portfolio needs that the person who watched it, immediately wanted to send or test, or call for an interview.
Once again I will say that a third of the resume comes without a portfolio. So do not.
Sergei. Portfolio should show your taste. At least in what of your work you have chosen. It should also show the breadth of your interests and capabilities as a designer.
What should be in the portfolio? A very small portfolio is weird. A very large portfolio is redundant. It seems to me that 7-12 works are enough so that you can be looked at as a designer and appreciate your possibilities.
It is usually advised to sort the works in the order of coolness so that the most interesting works are on top. It will be harmless to write the time of its creation next to the work so that a particularly inquisitive person who checks the portfolio can see the dynamics of your development. If he sees that the work is weaker, and it was done two years ago, he finds a clear explanation for this.
Rushan. Again about newbies. Sometimes people come to me and say: “I have not worked anywhere, I have no projects, I cannot put anything in my portfolio”. In this case, invent yourself. Perhaps you studied somewhere, and you had projects on which you got your hand. Choose the ones for which you are the least embarrassing.
If you go to interviews and they say “we need someone more experienced,” ask for a test and do it. As a rule, recruiters know test 5-7 large companies. When we see them in the portfolio, we understand how the person approached the solution of the problem, what he thought about, how he reasoned, what tools he used. Once again for newbies: feel free to invent and feel free to use test cases in your portfolio.
Sergei. How can I make a portfolio? The main advice: to create a resume and design portfolio, approach as a design task. How does the designer solve the problem? He tries to imagine who and how will work with this design, in what conditions, what people will pay attention to.
Unfortunately, getting a portfolio of designers, it does not always seem that the designer tried to look through the eyes of the company at his portfolio. For example, what is the difference in how an experienced speaker calls his presentation at a conference compared to an inexperienced? An inexperienced speaker calls his re-presentation, for example, “DUMP, final 17”. Because for him it is really the seventeenth version of the presentation. An experienced speaker calls the presentation his surname or the title of the report, because the person responsible for the section will collect the presentations in one place and he needs to be guided by them. And if they are all called final 17, it will be impossible to understand who, where,.
Same with portfolio. Look at him with the eyes of the person who will check him. Often archives come to me, there are daddies in archives. The more experienced a designer, the more levels of daddies he has and the more daddies at each level. At the root are "Web Design", "Interfaces", "Illustrations", "Identity", "Children's drawings." You go inside, and there everything is laid out for years. Inspect until the end is simply impossible. It is not comfortable.
How to do? Instead of an archive with daddies, post your work on Bihans or make your own website. If you do not want to upload your portfolio somewhere on the Internet, make a neat pdf-ku. Even the way you designed your work in this pdf-ke will present you as a designer.
In the portfolio, I always want to see mockups at one hundred percent scale. I love looking at the details, the devil is in the details. Any design, if it is reduced several times, as a rule, several times becomes prettier. Probably, if you have a portfolio on Behans and you collect employers' orders, then small neat pictures, also called cases, help you find an order. But when another designer evaluates your work, he wants to see full-scale layouts to examine them carefully.
A few words about the cases that make on Bihans. The person draws the design, and then inserts it into the iPhone screen. IPhone at such an angle from another. Then there is a macbook on a wooden table, and then an aimak against the background of bricks. Behind this all design, as a rule, is not visible. And the customer may think: “What a beautiful picture”, but another designer understands that these are some kind of free mock-ups, you just opened a layer in Photoshop and copied the picture.
There are some good cases on Biehans, for example, JetStyle lay out their cases, and, in my opinion, this is a good example.
If you have made a design, and someone's illustration is used in it, or you have taken a free set of icons. This is normal, it happens in the work, it does not need to be shy. Worse is the situation when you did it all, took it somewhere on the Internet, made your own design with the help of this, and then signed it only with your name. This is not entirely fair.
At the interviews, I ask: “Do you draw these icons?” At this point, the person has a fork: lie or tell the truth. It’s better, of course, to always tell the truth. At this moment, the impression of a person spoils a little. The man signed his work with his name, and then it turns out that he downloaded the icons somewhere, copied the illustrations, and so on.
It is better to always indicate honestly: he took three icons, completed, added a few of his own. There is nothing terrible in it, on the contrary, it will show a professional in you - you are not ashamed to indicate any sources of artifacts in your design.
Rushan. Test must be taken and done. If you are not the coolest designer that every recruiter and every art director knows, then most likely you won't be hired without a test.
Sergei. The test should show how you approach the problem. During the test, you will not have time to do something super cool, but you have to show how you think, what you pay attention to.
Rushan. When you agree to take a test, the timing is always discussed. Someone immediately says you have a week, someone asks for how much you will do. This is a very tricky question. Closer to the date you called, I start to contact the candidate and ask, as a test, are there any questions? The statistics are very bad. Of the 10 people I give the test to, 5 people go missing around the third day, another 2 people go missing on day X. Of the three remaining, at best, he will send one on time, the rest will say that the cat is sick and they don’t have time to due date.
If you have taken a test and it seems to you that it is some kind of dumb, or you have taken another offer, it is better to just honestly tell the recruiter about this.
By the way you approach test execution, many employers judge how you will relate to your future deadlines.
Sergei. I'll be a little devil's advocate. Why does the designer merge the test?
When a designer is asked when he makes a test, the designer understands that here it is, the verification has begun. “You can't call a big term because they think that I am a brake. It is necessary to immediately show that I am a cool designer, I do it quickly and coolly. ” The designer calls a very optimistic term. When the time comes, the designer looks at the test and understands that it is not perfect. And this is true because it is not perfect. He begins to complex, and at best suffers a deadline (my cat is ill), and at worst he is afraid to endure the deadline, thinks he has started, and it is better not to come at all, not to admit it because he is ashamed. The designer thinks: "If I disappear unnoticed somewhere, then no one will even pay attention."
In fact, it is not. My advice on how to behave in order to avoid such a situation. First, do not call too short a term. If you are working, then the task that can be done within one working day is not a shame to take a week, because you will solve it in the evenings. This is normal.
Secondly, when you look at the results of your test and see that it is not perfect, this is also normal, because the test should not be perfect.The test should not show any ready-made design, it should show how you think, how you approach the solution of the problem. The test should hint at how you will do the task if you have a real normal deadline.
Thirdly, if you do not have time, tell me honestly that you need a few more days. In the work it happens, the timing has to be postponed. If you postpone the term, but then do it well, then no one even remembers about it.
Sergei. I want to say a few words about the explanations for the test. Sometimes, together with a picture, an explanatory note is sent. This note can go up to several A4 sheets.
If the designer has made a good design, he does not need an explanatory note. If the design is bad, an explanatory note will not save it. The design should be clear without explanation, users will perceive it that way.
Here you can compare the explanations to the test with contextual help manual. Previously, the programs had a user guide that was opened separately. If you had a problem, you had to re-find the screen with which you had a problem in this hierarchy, and sort out something there. This does not work. Users do not want to read this entire Talmud. Users want to solve their problem.
If you know that in this place the user may have a problem with some field, you can put a question there, when you click on it, a short comment will open that will explain what needs to be done in this case. The same can be done with the test. Do not write a long explanatory note, put a few comments in the margins that will show any additional work that you have done, solving a problem that is not visible on the layout.
If such comments are located next to the layout, then the look itself reaches for them to read them. A long explanation of several pages is rarely read.
Rushan.If it seems to you that your work was not appreciated, did not understand, ask a question. If you take a test and understand that at some point is not clear, you need more data, more input, do not hesitate to ask right away. Or later you can write to the recruiter or art director who gave the test. Perhaps these questions are expected of you. I know at least two teams that say: “Mmm, he did a test, on the whole, well, but he didn’t ask a single question, it makes me think.”
If something is not clear, be sure to ask.
If you are told: “Do as you like, so do it”, then when you surrender, indicate in short comments your thoughts that led to this decision.
If you are told that the test is not done very well, go and ask why. Few employers and recruiters like to answer these questions, but if you write a good, humane letter, like “I understand that my test is not perfect, but I want to understand where I was mistaken. Please tell me, most likely they will answer you.
Sergei. We in Contour decided to give feedback on each test done.
Rushan. The main task at the interview is to compare the expectation and reality. An interview is always a two-way process. Not only the team is looking for a new person for the project, but also you are looking for with whom you will further develop. The result is 50% dependent on you, 50% from the employer.
Sergei. I believe that the most important thing in an interview is to be as natural as possible, the way you will be in work. Well, it is worth expecting that the employer will be as sincere. Then, if you like each other, you will not be disappointed in a few months, when it turns out that everything is really wrong, because at the interview you were unnatural.
Rushan.If you are not going to an agent recruiter, but to the company you want to get, read about it. Unfortunately, this is often the case: - “What do you know about the company?” - “Nothing”. The company probably has a website, that will be enough.
Questions from the slide are almost all interviews. If you are not very often interviewed or feel anxious, rehearse the answers at home. At the interview will be much easier and calmer answer.
Learn how to tell what tasks you worked on, what part of the work you did, what kind of tasks you came from, from whom, you were written detailed terms of reference, or it was a short setting “make the icons cool”. Learn to answer these questions.
There will also be questions about your independence. You yourself evaluated your work or did you have a team that accepted - did not accept?
This is again about the attitude to future deadlines. An employer may think this: if you are late, then maybe you will be late for the deadline.
Sergei.I really like it when the designer at the interview asks questions. It tells me that the person does not care where he wants to come to work. If the designer asks a lot of questions and these questions are not about the beginning of the working day, not about the white salary, but something related to my professional activity, I answer them with pleasure. And it gives me confidence that if the candidate then chooses our company, then he probably will not be disappointed in us, because he really chose the company that suits him.
Rushana has already said that the interview is a mutual process. Not only do you choose, but you choose. And the more experienced designers you will become, the more the balance will shift in your direction.
Rushan.I often ask designers at the interview: “What would you like to do?” And I talk about two great ways for a designer. Surely you know the pros and cons of each.
If you want more different projects, different audiences, different tools, and plus or minus a large community of designers around you, then this is an agency story.
If you don’t like it when audiences, projects, products change, you want to dive into the same product as deeply as possible, you want to study your target audience as deeply and thoroughly as possible and try to reach it in different ways, then you will be in a grocery company.
Sit, think, answer this question for yourself, and then it will become clearer to you which company to go for an interview with, and with whom it is worthwhile to wait.
Absolutely normal story when "I worked in the studio for 5 years, got tired and now I want to deal with the product," and vice versa.
There are no bad and good candidates, there are no bad and good employers, there are more suitable and less suitable. And this is an axiom. And if someone said “No” to you, then it’s just not your company.
Sergei. Regardless of which company you choose, an agency or a grocery company, choose a company in which you want to work a year, and preferably three years. And remember that an employer only pays you money, and you spend a part of your life on it. It is very important.
I would like to finish with the phrase that I say at the interview towards the end: “Ask us something now.”
I have a question about the portfolio. What do you think should be a portfolio of a product designer, who in the company does not do some kind of wow thing that Bihans doesn’t post, he just makes a tool. Gray, boring, tables, everything. What should he put in the portfolio? How to evaluate such a person? What is expected of him?
It seems to me that the product designer should focus not on beautiful pictures, but on cases. Description of the problem, how he solved it and, most importantly, what result was achieved by this design. Designers in agencies, as a rule, made the design and forgotten. The grocery designer knows how he worked, what the conversion was and so on. This is a strong place for product designers, you need to use it.
For example, there is some candidate designer in the team. Sometimes it is hard to give a test, because the person is experienced, there is a lot of work, you have heard about him. In this case, is it still useful to give a test or not?
If I look at the portfolio and understand that this is it, that one, I can put pressure on the employer and ask me not to give a test with the words: “He’s great. If you give me a test now, you will lose it. ”
What valuable information will the recruiter get from who the designer did this job with? What is the difference: with the analyst, marketer, director, other designer? What conclusions from this will be?
Conclusions on how to formulate tasks. For example, the tasks from the analyst will be formulated, most likely, in the form of a rather detailed text. If from the art director, they probably sat together, thought, poshurmilis, and invented. I think so.
I wonder how the HR filter works. Suppose they sent 50 resumes. They have good portfolios and good descriptions.
This is the perfect world! 50 resumes with a good portfolio and good descriptions do not exist in Yekaterinburg.
Abstract situation :) Will all resumes go to the manager or will there be some kind of filter?
If it seems to me that the work was done very untidily, “on the back”, did not think about the person who will look, then most likely I will write that we have a slightly different view of the vacancy.
If I doubt the portfolio, then I'll just come up and torment the art director.
There are not many good specialists on the market, so “I will not show this” - there is no such thing. I am rather a person in whom I doubt more, I will go and show. “Maybe he still has the opportunity to fix the jambs in the next two months in your team, and then figure it out at your desired level?”
What do you think about the resume adjusting for each company? What is your attitude to such a resume?
I think that, at a minimum, a person is not lazy, he is confused, he is motivated and wants to. There is such tedious advice from recruiters: make a separate resume for each company in which you want to work. Of course, no one does this, because we do not have so much time in days, but, in general, the advice is not bad.
If you have not yet decided, you want to go to the studio or to the product, you don’t know which studio to choose from three, it’s normal if you write a cover letter and correct your resume in a “do not lie” condition for each of the vacancies. This, on the contrary, will show what you really want.
It is clear that the designer shows beautiful pictures, but what does the interface designer have to show you to say that he is great?
I think the question is very close to the question of what to show product designers. They do not wrap, they do what is under the wrapper. If you did not make bright pictures, but prototypes of interfaces, and you come to a company that needs a designer, they will see in your soft pictures whether they are good or bad. There is no need to complex and paint something bright especially for the portfolio, although you didn’t do it.
If your forte is convenient interfaces, well-thought-out logic, make it visible in the portfolio.
The report did not lose its relevance for the year, so under the cut we publish its video and text version.
')
Rushan. I am Rushan Kayumov, an IT recruiter at IT People, so I think that I have a moral right to speak out sharply and radically. And Seryozha Soloviev, the head of the interface design department in Contour, will argue with me and, maybe, even upset a little.
Our report is not for nothing called "Deny one click." This is what a button on one of the work sites looks like. Sometimes when searching for designers, recruiters and art directors get sick and want to immediately click on it. Every time there are annoying mistakes, and they are both for beginners and experienced designers. Today we will tell you how not to make mistakes and still get the job of your dreams.
Sergei. First of all, our story will be useful to children who are thinking of becoming designers, or those who want to change jobs. We will tell about the test, resume, portfolio and interview. But if you are already working as a designer and do not think that you need to change the company in which you work, it is still useful to have a current portfolio and it is useful to periodically go for interviews.
When you look at your work and think about whether it should be placed in a portfolio, you sort of summarize your work and give yourself an estimate. It is always helpful. The same situation with interviews. If you are fine, but your name is for an interview, do not be lazy to go. You will learn what tasks there are in the market, how much you are in the labor market now. Well, and periodically attending interviews, you will begin to do it better. You will be less afraid, and interviews will be more comfortable for you.
Summary
Rushan. The main task of the resume is not to spoil the first impression. When we are looking for designers, we draw the most basic conclusions from the portfolio, but the acquaintance begins with the resume. The most important thing is not to screw up.
For many, this is captaincy, but this is a separate pain for recruiters - a third of the resume comes without files, without attachments. I was born, studied, worked, and no examples of work. So do not.
Description of tasks must be in the summary. Only the name of the company and position is not enough. Try to succinctly explain what you did at the last places of work, what tasks you faced. If you designed, write what you designed. If you created icons, write.
Do not forget to specify the toolkit, Serezha will share his pain further about him.
If possible, indicate in the resume, with whom you worked. Maybe you worked together with an art director, maybe with a marketer, maybe you had a whole design department. This is also worth telling.
Yekaterinburg is a small city, the IT sphere is even smaller, and there are very few designers. Aichi recruiters, which everyone knows, and through which almost all designers have gone, can be counted on the fingers. Lies will always pop up. Be honest.
Sergei. I want to say a few words about the appearance of the resume. This is a picture from one of the sites that allows you to generate a summary by filling in several fields. If such a resume is made by the welder or, as in the example, the project manager, probably, against the background of other candidates, he will stand out. He will have an unusual, bright, neat summary. But with designers it's not like that. In the case of designers, such a resume does not show your individuality, it, on the contrary, hides it. Because here you did not choose the font, you did not choose the composition, you just wrote the text.
Summaries made in such a program are rare, but circles are regularly encountered, as in an example — some kind of pseudo-infoography about program knowledge.
They look different. There are such:
These are all examples from real resumes. There is an inverted histogram:
Well, the most popular option is filled circles:
What, in my opinion, is the problem with such an infographic? For example, Photoshop. The author of this summary believes that he knows Photoshop on 7 out of 10. Here you can doubt that this is true, Photoshop is like Excel, the whole universe, and knowing it at least by half is not enough life. But even if the candidate really knows Photoshop on 7 out of 10, this does not mean that he really knows how to do it in Photoshop. For a designer, it’s important not to know the number of features in the program, but what the designer can really do with his own hands. And here nothing is clear about this.
Specifically, in this picture, to me, as a person who can view this summary, one place tells about the designer: when a person did not enter a line, and he simply pushed the circles off. In this place I get more professional information about a person.
If you want to make your resume interesting, add pictures - it's fun, it will be remembered, it can help you find a job. It is better to specify not the list of programs that you know (this list is similar to the designers and is very short), but the skills you possess.
For example, in the Bureau draw octopus. This is an example from an article by Kolya Taurovsky , where he talks about this tool.
What is the fundamental difference between octopus from the list of programs that you know? The list of programs for all the same, and the skills that you include in the list will be individual. Think of your forte and put it on the list.
In this example, there are, in my opinion, non-trivial things: courage, problem solving - this is already interesting, this can already be discussed at the interview. Why is this or that person included in the list? You can ask the question: why do you have the courage to solve problems shorter? Then a story appears, and no one will ever discuss the knowledge circles of the programs, it is not interesting.
The octopus itself may also look different. For example, in our Contour, the designer, after a probationary period, fills out a questionnaire. And this form can be accompanied by a picture. One of the variants of the picture is such an octopus, which illustrates the skills.
A couple of examples:
If you have the courage to insert such a thing into your resume, it will surely be remembered, and your resume will not be lost in the list of the others.
Rushan. Another captain slide, but I still say about him. As a rule, if you indicate in your resume that you prefer to call rather than write, then your working day is likely to overlap with the recruiter’s working day, plus or minus. This means that a recruiter can call you right at the height of the working day.
I have a story. Once I call a candidate, I say: “Hi! I am Rushan from IT-People. I liked your work, I have a couple of projects, maybe we will communicate with you sometime? Is it convenient for you to talk now? ”To which the candidate says:“ Hello, Rushana! No, I'm not very comfortable right now. ” And I understand that I need to call back later. The next minute, his boss writes me in a telegram: “Hello! I just heard that my employee called you by name. It seems he wants to leave. ” If you do not want anyone to know about it, do not indicate the phone.
Mail is indicated most often, but rarely checked. Two months later I receive: “Oh, hello, I missed your letter. It seems to be in spam. ” Check email and spam at least once a day.
"About Me" block
Rushan. You all know the common meme about the seven deadly sins of the applicant. There are seven adjectives that always indicate in the resume about themselves: sociable, stress-resistant, responsible, fast-learning, hardworking, independent, the dream of the hostess.
The guys are discussing this block in the form of the game “One Hundred to One.” We recommend to watch it on video , it's fun
Look at this list again and forget forever. Of course, you are all like that, but there is much else in you.
How to?
In the summary behind the enumeration of facts and achievements, we want to see a live, real, cool person. The “About Me” block allows you to write in a human way, kindly, like you want to be introduced.
For beginners, this is a great place for you to write why you decided to do design. If you have been working as a sales assistant for 8 years and decided to do design without experience, it is in the “About Me” block that you can tell that you are interested in, that you have already read, tried, what test works you have, What test tasks performed. Try to write about it humanely and briefly.
Guys with an impressive resume, give yourself free rein, fantasize. Someone goes in for sports, someone conquers Everest, someone seals cats, someone bakes pancakes on weekends. Write about it. When you talk about yourself as a person, you immediately want to go and meet.
Many work sites offer a cover letter template. I, perhaps, later regret what I say, but it is better to no cover letter than the sample. They are absolutely the same, they occupy two lines and look like this: I ask you to consider my candidacy for the vacancy "". In quotes, a job is automatically inserted. It's pretty shabby, it's boring. It seems that it was too lazy to write a normal letter in one or two paragraphs.
The cover letter is a cool place to show what kind of person you are. If you want to find a dream job and it seems to you that it is in this project, in this team you will be able to realize yourself coolly, just write in normal human language. “I heard that you have cool projects,” “I saw your speeches at any conference,” “I congratulate you on some kind of reward,” “my friend has been working for you for two years, I can’t look at him, because I envy. " Write about this, most likely you will want to meet.
Sergei. The difference between the “About Me” block and the cover letter is that the “About Me” block is always in the summary, it is universal. A cover letter, ideally, should be written for each specific job. When I receive a good cover letter in which a person explains why he wants to work in our company, I always read him carefully, this is important to me.
In general, our report is not about what design to do, but about what a designer should think as a designer, not only when he draws mock-ups, but also in some related activities.
The requirements for a designer’s resume are slightly higher than the requirements for an ordinary person. There should be no mistakes in the summary. If I see errors in the designer’s resume, I understand that there will be errors in his layouts. If there are no mistakes in the resume, this does not mean that there will not be any in the layouts, but if they exist, then they definitely will.
Typography. You are designers, make the text be neat, so it was nice to look at. Quotes, dashes right and so on.
A designer should not only draw pictures, but also write good texts. Text is a very important part of the interface and design. Show on your resume that you can write good, capacious texts. Re-read Illyakhov and check the text in Glavred. This, too, will not go unnoticed.
Portfolio
Rushan. Portfolio needs that the person who watched it, immediately wanted to send or test, or call for an interview.
Once again I will say that a third of the resume comes without a portfolio. So do not.
Sergei. Portfolio should show your taste. At least in what of your work you have chosen. It should also show the breadth of your interests and capabilities as a designer.
What should be in the portfolio? A very small portfolio is weird. A very large portfolio is redundant. It seems to me that 7-12 works are enough so that you can be looked at as a designer and appreciate your possibilities.
It is usually advised to sort the works in the order of coolness so that the most interesting works are on top. It will be harmless to write the time of its creation next to the work so that a particularly inquisitive person who checks the portfolio can see the dynamics of your development. If he sees that the work is weaker, and it was done two years ago, he finds a clear explanation for this.
Rushan. Again about newbies. Sometimes people come to me and say: “I have not worked anywhere, I have no projects, I cannot put anything in my portfolio”. In this case, invent yourself. Perhaps you studied somewhere, and you had projects on which you got your hand. Choose the ones for which you are the least embarrassing.
If you go to interviews and they say “we need someone more experienced,” ask for a test and do it. As a rule, recruiters know test 5-7 large companies. When we see them in the portfolio, we understand how the person approached the solution of the problem, what he thought about, how he reasoned, what tools he used. Once again for newbies: feel free to invent and feel free to use test cases in your portfolio.
Sergei. How can I make a portfolio? The main advice: to create a resume and design portfolio, approach as a design task. How does the designer solve the problem? He tries to imagine who and how will work with this design, in what conditions, what people will pay attention to.
Unfortunately, getting a portfolio of designers, it does not always seem that the designer tried to look through the eyes of the company at his portfolio. For example, what is the difference in how an experienced speaker calls his presentation at a conference compared to an inexperienced? An inexperienced speaker calls his re-presentation, for example, “DUMP, final 17”. Because for him it is really the seventeenth version of the presentation. An experienced speaker calls the presentation his surname or the title of the report, because the person responsible for the section will collect the presentations in one place and he needs to be guided by them. And if they are all called final 17, it will be impossible to understand who, where,.
Same with portfolio. Look at him with the eyes of the person who will check him. Often archives come to me, there are daddies in archives. The more experienced a designer, the more levels of daddies he has and the more daddies at each level. At the root are "Web Design", "Interfaces", "Illustrations", "Identity", "Children's drawings." You go inside, and there everything is laid out for years. Inspect until the end is simply impossible. It is not comfortable.
How to do? Instead of an archive with daddies, post your work on Bihans or make your own website. If you do not want to upload your portfolio somewhere on the Internet, make a neat pdf-ku. Even the way you designed your work in this pdf-ke will present you as a designer.
In the portfolio, I always want to see mockups at one hundred percent scale. I love looking at the details, the devil is in the details. Any design, if it is reduced several times, as a rule, several times becomes prettier. Probably, if you have a portfolio on Behans and you collect employers' orders, then small neat pictures, also called cases, help you find an order. But when another designer evaluates your work, he wants to see full-scale layouts to examine them carefully.
A few words about the cases that make on Bihans. The person draws the design, and then inserts it into the iPhone screen. IPhone at such an angle from another. Then there is a macbook on a wooden table, and then an aimak against the background of bricks. Behind this all design, as a rule, is not visible. And the customer may think: “What a beautiful picture”, but another designer understands that these are some kind of free mock-ups, you just opened a layer in Photoshop and copied the picture.
There are some good cases on Biehans, for example, JetStyle lay out their cases, and, in my opinion, this is a good example.
If you have made a design, and someone's illustration is used in it, or you have taken a free set of icons. This is normal, it happens in the work, it does not need to be shy. Worse is the situation when you did it all, took it somewhere on the Internet, made your own design with the help of this, and then signed it only with your name. This is not entirely fair.
At the interviews, I ask: “Do you draw these icons?” At this point, the person has a fork: lie or tell the truth. It’s better, of course, to always tell the truth. At this moment, the impression of a person spoils a little. The man signed his work with his name, and then it turns out that he downloaded the icons somewhere, copied the illustrations, and so on.
It is better to always indicate honestly: he took three icons, completed, added a few of his own. There is nothing terrible in it, on the contrary, it will show a professional in you - you are not ashamed to indicate any sources of artifacts in your design.
Test
Rushan. Test must be taken and done. If you are not the coolest designer that every recruiter and every art director knows, then most likely you won't be hired without a test.
Sergei. The test should show how you approach the problem. During the test, you will not have time to do something super cool, but you have to show how you think, what you pay attention to.
Rushan. When you agree to take a test, the timing is always discussed. Someone immediately says you have a week, someone asks for how much you will do. This is a very tricky question. Closer to the date you called, I start to contact the candidate and ask, as a test, are there any questions? The statistics are very bad. Of the 10 people I give the test to, 5 people go missing around the third day, another 2 people go missing on day X. Of the three remaining, at best, he will send one on time, the rest will say that the cat is sick and they don’t have time to due date.
If you have taken a test and it seems to you that it is some kind of dumb, or you have taken another offer, it is better to just honestly tell the recruiter about this.
By the way you approach test execution, many employers judge how you will relate to your future deadlines.
Sergei. I'll be a little devil's advocate. Why does the designer merge the test?
When a designer is asked when he makes a test, the designer understands that here it is, the verification has begun. “You can't call a big term because they think that I am a brake. It is necessary to immediately show that I am a cool designer, I do it quickly and coolly. ” The designer calls a very optimistic term. When the time comes, the designer looks at the test and understands that it is not perfect. And this is true because it is not perfect. He begins to complex, and at best suffers a deadline (my cat is ill), and at worst he is afraid to endure the deadline, thinks he has started, and it is better not to come at all, not to admit it because he is ashamed. The designer thinks: "If I disappear unnoticed somewhere, then no one will even pay attention."
In fact, it is not. My advice on how to behave in order to avoid such a situation. First, do not call too short a term. If you are working, then the task that can be done within one working day is not a shame to take a week, because you will solve it in the evenings. This is normal.
Secondly, when you look at the results of your test and see that it is not perfect, this is also normal, because the test should not be perfect.The test should not show any ready-made design, it should show how you think, how you approach the solution of the problem. The test should hint at how you will do the task if you have a real normal deadline.
Thirdly, if you do not have time, tell me honestly that you need a few more days. In the work it happens, the timing has to be postponed. If you postpone the term, but then do it well, then no one even remembers about it.
Sergei. I want to say a few words about the explanations for the test. Sometimes, together with a picture, an explanatory note is sent. This note can go up to several A4 sheets.
If the designer has made a good design, he does not need an explanatory note. If the design is bad, an explanatory note will not save it. The design should be clear without explanation, users will perceive it that way.
Here you can compare the explanations to the test with contextual help manual. Previously, the programs had a user guide that was opened separately. If you had a problem, you had to re-find the screen with which you had a problem in this hierarchy, and sort out something there. This does not work. Users do not want to read this entire Talmud. Users want to solve their problem.
If you know that in this place the user may have a problem with some field, you can put a question there, when you click on it, a short comment will open that will explain what needs to be done in this case. The same can be done with the test. Do not write a long explanatory note, put a few comments in the margins that will show any additional work that you have done, solving a problem that is not visible on the layout.
If such comments are located next to the layout, then the look itself reaches for them to read them. A long explanation of several pages is rarely read.
Rushan.If it seems to you that your work was not appreciated, did not understand, ask a question. If you take a test and understand that at some point is not clear, you need more data, more input, do not hesitate to ask right away. Or later you can write to the recruiter or art director who gave the test. Perhaps these questions are expected of you. I know at least two teams that say: “Mmm, he did a test, on the whole, well, but he didn’t ask a single question, it makes me think.”
If something is not clear, be sure to ask.
If you are told: “Do as you like, so do it”, then when you surrender, indicate in short comments your thoughts that led to this decision.
If you are told that the test is not done very well, go and ask why. Few employers and recruiters like to answer these questions, but if you write a good, humane letter, like “I understand that my test is not perfect, but I want to understand where I was mistaken. Please tell me, most likely they will answer you.
Sergei. We in Contour decided to give feedback on each test done.
Interview
Rushan. The main task at the interview is to compare the expectation and reality. An interview is always a two-way process. Not only the team is looking for a new person for the project, but also you are looking for with whom you will further develop. The result is 50% dependent on you, 50% from the employer.
Sergei. I believe that the most important thing in an interview is to be as natural as possible, the way you will be in work. Well, it is worth expecting that the employer will be as sincere. Then, if you like each other, you will not be disappointed in a few months, when it turns out that everything is really wrong, because at the interview you were unnatural.
Rushan.If you are not going to an agent recruiter, but to the company you want to get, read about it. Unfortunately, this is often the case: - “What do you know about the company?” - “Nothing”. The company probably has a website, that will be enough.
Questions from the slide are almost all interviews. If you are not very often interviewed or feel anxious, rehearse the answers at home. At the interview will be much easier and calmer answer.
Learn how to tell what tasks you worked on, what part of the work you did, what kind of tasks you came from, from whom, you were written detailed terms of reference, or it was a short setting “make the icons cool”. Learn to answer these questions.
There will also be questions about your independence. You yourself evaluated your work or did you have a team that accepted - did not accept?
This is again about the attitude to future deadlines. An employer may think this: if you are late, then maybe you will be late for the deadline.
Sergei.I really like it when the designer at the interview asks questions. It tells me that the person does not care where he wants to come to work. If the designer asks a lot of questions and these questions are not about the beginning of the working day, not about the white salary, but something related to my professional activity, I answer them with pleasure. And it gives me confidence that if the candidate then chooses our company, then he probably will not be disappointed in us, because he really chose the company that suits him.
Rushana has already said that the interview is a mutual process. Not only do you choose, but you choose. And the more experienced designers you will become, the more the balance will shift in your direction.
Rushan.I often ask designers at the interview: “What would you like to do?” And I talk about two great ways for a designer. Surely you know the pros and cons of each.
If you want more different projects, different audiences, different tools, and plus or minus a large community of designers around you, then this is an agency story.
If you don’t like it when audiences, projects, products change, you want to dive into the same product as deeply as possible, you want to study your target audience as deeply and thoroughly as possible and try to reach it in different ways, then you will be in a grocery company.
Sit, think, answer this question for yourself, and then it will become clearer to you which company to go for an interview with, and with whom it is worthwhile to wait.
Absolutely normal story when "I worked in the studio for 5 years, got tired and now I want to deal with the product," and vice versa.
There are no bad and good candidates, there are no bad and good employers, there are more suitable and less suitable. And this is an axiom. And if someone said “No” to you, then it’s just not your company.
Sergei. Regardless of which company you choose, an agency or a grocery company, choose a company in which you want to work a year, and preferably three years. And remember that an employer only pays you money, and you spend a part of your life on it. It is very important.
I would like to finish with the phrase that I say at the interview towards the end: “Ask us something now.”
I have a question about the portfolio. What do you think should be a portfolio of a product designer, who in the company does not do some kind of wow thing that Bihans doesn’t post, he just makes a tool. Gray, boring, tables, everything. What should he put in the portfolio? How to evaluate such a person? What is expected of him?
It seems to me that the product designer should focus not on beautiful pictures, but on cases. Description of the problem, how he solved it and, most importantly, what result was achieved by this design. Designers in agencies, as a rule, made the design and forgotten. The grocery designer knows how he worked, what the conversion was and so on. This is a strong place for product designers, you need to use it.
For example, there is some candidate designer in the team. Sometimes it is hard to give a test, because the person is experienced, there is a lot of work, you have heard about him. In this case, is it still useful to give a test or not?
If I look at the portfolio and understand that this is it, that one, I can put pressure on the employer and ask me not to give a test with the words: “He’s great. If you give me a test now, you will lose it. ”
What valuable information will the recruiter get from who the designer did this job with? What is the difference: with the analyst, marketer, director, other designer? What conclusions from this will be?
Conclusions on how to formulate tasks. For example, the tasks from the analyst will be formulated, most likely, in the form of a rather detailed text. If from the art director, they probably sat together, thought, poshurmilis, and invented. I think so.
I wonder how the HR filter works. Suppose they sent 50 resumes. They have good portfolios and good descriptions.
This is the perfect world! 50 resumes with a good portfolio and good descriptions do not exist in Yekaterinburg.
Abstract situation :) Will all resumes go to the manager or will there be some kind of filter?
If it seems to me that the work was done very untidily, “on the back”, did not think about the person who will look, then most likely I will write that we have a slightly different view of the vacancy.
If I doubt the portfolio, then I'll just come up and torment the art director.
There are not many good specialists on the market, so “I will not show this” - there is no such thing. I am rather a person in whom I doubt more, I will go and show. “Maybe he still has the opportunity to fix the jambs in the next two months in your team, and then figure it out at your desired level?”
What do you think about the resume adjusting for each company? What is your attitude to such a resume?
I think that, at a minimum, a person is not lazy, he is confused, he is motivated and wants to. There is such tedious advice from recruiters: make a separate resume for each company in which you want to work. Of course, no one does this, because we do not have so much time in days, but, in general, the advice is not bad.
If you have not yet decided, you want to go to the studio or to the product, you don’t know which studio to choose from three, it’s normal if you write a cover letter and correct your resume in a “do not lie” condition for each of the vacancies. This, on the contrary, will show what you really want.
It is clear that the designer shows beautiful pictures, but what does the interface designer have to show you to say that he is great?
I think the question is very close to the question of what to show product designers. They do not wrap, they do what is under the wrapper. If you did not make bright pictures, but prototypes of interfaces, and you come to a company that needs a designer, they will see in your soft pictures whether they are good or bad. There is no need to complex and paint something bright especially for the portfolio, although you didn’t do it.
If your forte is convenient interfaces, well-thought-out logic, make it visible in the portfolio.
This year's DUMP conference will be held on April 19 in Yekaterinburg. Traditionally there will be a section about design. This year's program includes Grigory Savenok (MegaFon), Alena Kirdina (Evil Martians), Sergey Krivoy and Maxim Sovenkov (SEMrush), Alexandra Rudenko (Service Design Bureau), Daria Prokuda (BeaversBrothers), Vyacheslav Kornilov (Geex Arts). The full program is on the conference website .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/444238/
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