💼 Got an interview coming up?...Don't prepare the usual way.
UX career goodies
By anfisign.design
Join more than 8000 designers to learn about the most working job application strategies, portfolio inspirations, and design events recommendations.
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Hi, UX friends! Happy Tuesday
If we haven't met yet, my name is Anfisa, senior product designer. I help designers to stand out in a crowded market inside the IntoUX Community.
Your palms sweat. You rehearsed this.
But once a hiring manager says, "Tell me about yourself," every prepared line magically vanishes...
I've been there.
I’ve also been on the other side of the table, watching candidates freeze up or over-rehearse their way through conversations. Here's what I've learned: interviews aren't meant to trick you.
They're meant to understand how you think. The candidates who stand out aren't the most pitch-perfect, but the ones who show up as humans first.
Here are 6 tips to nail your next interview:
1. Start by building a human connection
The first 5 minutes matter more than you think.
Break the ice with a quick comment about the weather outside their window, or something cool you noticed in their background. Just share a quick moment that reminds you both that this is two people just talking, it's not a performance.
Then read the room. This first casual interaction helps you to understand who you are talking to. Are they warm or formal? Curious or rushed? That tells you how much freedom you’ll have to drive the chat.
🌟 Insight: Sometimes, being proactive in the conversation is what turns you hired.
2. Your story does most of the work
You’ll almost always hear some version of: “Tell me about your background.” This is the highest-leverage moment of the interview: Don’t blow it by walking through your CV. Don’t list roles and dates.
Tell a story. Connect your experience through why, not what. Show how one chapter led to the next. They already know what you did. They’re listening to how you think.
🌟 Insight: What you choose to prioritize in your story will reveal how you collaborate with others and value their time.
3. Choose your stories carefully
Your opening pitch plants the seeds. They’ll choose which seed to dig into with a follow-up question.
If you mention a career transition → they’ll explore your motivation.
If you mention a job switch → they will ask you what wasn't working in the past and what you were trying to intentionally change.
If you mention a course or tool → expect follow-ups, and explain why you believe that's a good tool/topic for you.
🌟 Insight: Plant your seeds intentionally to drive the course of the interview, not react to it.
4. Lead with motivation, not polish
Design managers aren’t looking for pitch-perfect performances. They want to understand how you think and what drives you.
Talk about what excites you.
What felt missing in your past role?
What pulled you toward this role?
🌶️ Spicy take: Slides aren’t always your friend, too. If a deck is required, bring it. If it’s optional, be careful. Over-rehearsed presentations can flatten the conversation (there’s no room for 2-way conversation). 🌟 Insight: Managers often want to interact with you first: how you think, react, and explain. In practice, candidates often do better when they know their work and talk about it naturally.
5. Junior role tip: Reuse your past stories
If you don’t have many UX examples yet, that’s okay. Borrow from previous industries, education, freelance work, or client projects.
Focus on human problems: ambiguity, conflict, persuasion, constraints.
🌟 Insight: The problems are the same everywhere; the context changes.
That’s what shows you have the abstract thinking and maturity
(which is so necessary in the product world).
Tl;DR
Build a connection early.
Anchor everything in why.
Let your thinking and personality do part of the work.
You don't win interviews by answering perfectly.
You win them by telling real stories through connection.
Want to practice?
🎤 Live coaching session tomorrow
Watch a real designer get coached live on their personal pitch (no slides, no scripts). You’ll see how a messy “I’ve done a bit of everything” story turns into a clear, value-driven narrative that gets hiring managers fall in love with you.
👉 You’ll leave learning how to build your own 5-minute pitch.
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Joining the community also unlocks:
🫂 Safe place to learn with 8+ monthly practice workshops
🤩 Community with proactive designers to learn from
📦 Free Figma Pro (for a year, $240 worth)
🎥 + Behind-the-scenes of designers landing jobs in the dream companies.
🤯 What if Lovable reached out to interview you?
Now, it's possible.
You've been sending application after application and hearing nothing back. Maybe you even paid someone to help you apply faster. And still, silence.
Here's something nobody tells you: the best companies stopped looking at LinkedIn applications a long time ago. They're finding talent through private networks. The Decimals is one of those hidden networks, and I just joined it as an ambassador 💕.
You apply once, with your CV and portfolio.
If it makes the cut, companies like Lovable, Stripe, and Airbnb come to you. I'm not kidding. A couple of community members started the interview process with Lovable last month.
So if you're open to new opportunities, take 30s to join the network.
