Darren Hood Manager, User Experience — Bosch Adjunct Instructor — Kent State University

UXLink Recruiter Bootcamp16 September 2016

Square Pegs in Round Holes? (or Navigating Through Candidates’ Qualifications)

The Burden of Recruiting

•What’s the position to be filled?

•Level of expertise?

•What are the qualifications?

✓ Skills?

✓ Education?

✓ Need to haves?

✓ Nice to haves?

✓ Intangibles?

•Time frame for filling the requisition?

•In other words…. What shape is the hole?

Plan bProfessionalPresentation

Those who truly have attained desired levels of experience will be able to demonstrate awareness and evidence of said knowledge. Based on the need, check for knowledge and examples associated with site maps, personas, wireframes, prototypes, journey maps, style guides, sketches, pattern libraries, etc.

NOTE: Even in agile and lean environments, there are still deliverables. Don’t believe the hype.

Seek deliverable knowledge

Per Steve Psomas’ 2007 article on “The Five Competencies of UX Design,” evaluate candidates acumen in the areas of

information architecture, interaction design, usability, visual design, and prototype engineering.

Source: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/11/the-five-competencies-of-user-experience-design.php

Evaluate competencies

Navigation TipsMaking your way through the forest of candidate qualifications

Identifying a certain degree of experience with a candidate isn’t enough. Judging based on recall isn’t efficient. Establish a grading scale and rate the candidates. Once all of the reviews or interviews are complete, all of the candidates will be ranked. This should make your work a little easier and more reliable.

Grade your findings

UX expert Baruch Sachs lists 5 soft skills critical to UX professionals: 1) adaptability; 2) communication; 3) conflict

resolution; 4) argumentation and negotiation and 5) gravitas mixed with social grace. You can also add mediation,

listening, aggregation, patience, and how well disappointment is managed. And soft skills are actually more important than

stereotypical UX skills. Ask for examples and gauge emotions during your evaluation. More on this later.

Search for soft skills

Evaluating UX candidates (and helping to spot and disqualify poseurs) requires identification of working skills beyond the norm. In the article “Five Indispensable Skills for UX Mastery,” noted expert Jared Spool mentions five key skills that you can evaluate to identify the best fits for your team: 1) sketching*; 2) storytelling; 3) critiquing; 4) presenting and 5) facilitating.

Source: https://articles.uie.com/indispensable_skills

*Please note that sketching is about communicating design efforts. This can be accomplished electronically or with paper and pencil. And some stakeholders will have a stark response to paper and pen sketching, so this is not an absolute requirement.

Seek additional key skills

Empathy is a key and mandatory skill for UX professionals. Seek signs of user-centered empathy in a candidates past

work examples, demeanor, and attitude.

Assess for empathy

General UX-related skills should be a given, but high levels of emotional intelligence will be a major asset to any organization. Make sure to assess how well a person manages his or her emotions, exercises sound logic, resilient (emotionally), is optimistic (but realistic), remains constructive during times of fear and/or worry, and has a strong sense of introspection. This will help project one’s ability to interact with the team AND manage clients and mediate for stakeholders.

Source: http://eqi.org/signs.htm

Evaluate EQ

If the hiring organization is new to UX, a UX professional with a love for education and evangelism will bring added value.

Make sure to evaluate such candidates thoroughly, or the potential return on investment will be lost.

Highlight the educators

The seat of valuable UX is paved with passion. Therefore, make sure to gauge the passion level candidates have for UX. Is it just a job or a way of life? Evaluate everyone’s passion and, again, rate each candidate on a scale of 1 to 10. The more passionate candidates are likely to be more successful. The passion must be balanced, however, with high grades for soft skills.

Probe for passion

Plan bProfessionalPresentation

Refresher / Closing Notes

•UX is approximately 20 years old.

•The world once dominated by creative agencies is now a wide open playing field.

•There has been an explosion of UX positions, resulting in a shortage of qualified applicants.

•The shortage hasn’t stopped companies from filling the positions with “bodies.”

•The corporate world is engaged position-wise, but they still don’t really understand what UX is and how it works.

•As recruiters, you must strive to fill these positions, while maintaining your reputation.

•This requires understanding “the hole” and presenting the right “peg.” Everyone wins!

Thank you!!@darrenhood !@uxpulse