How to get Hred as a Senior or Lead UX Researcher

A few months ago, my friend Amy Santee and I were out for a walk and having one of our frequent talks about work. She is a coach, helping UXers with their careers, and I work in a company where I am hiring a new UX Research team. We had the idea to do a talk or a panel, and in true Amy fashion she ran with the ball and got set up to do a panel conversation in September. (shout out to Matthew Oliphant and PDXHCD  for the sponsorship)

Amy was the moderator and I, Janaina Pantoja and Prakriti Parijat were panelists.  

We were thrilled to have approximately 70 people signed up to attend this event. Clearly there is a need to help more Senior and Lead UX researchers land that next position.

It was a fairly long panel conversation so I won't get to get into every topic here. Being on the panel I didn't take copious notes and can't attribute any idea to one particular person but please know that many of these ideas were shared across panelists.

The Big Theme

One overarching theme that arose a number of times was to make sure you tell a clear story. Whether it's your LinkedIn profile, your resume or even during the interview session, tell a story that is clear and concise and helps the interviewer or potential interviewer see the path of how you got to where you are today.

The Interview Process

We talked about the details of the interview process and there were more similarities than differences across organizations. There's always a screening call frequently a portfolio review, sometimes a design research exercise, sometimes something called a CV deep dive from the WHO Method or an interview that uses the STAR Method and usually, finally an onsite or remote on site interview with a larger panel.

Another question focused on how to assess leadership in these more senior roles. People talked about wanting to see evidence around driving alignment, working autonomously, helping the team with priorities and having a point of view. I'll add my two cents here and say that having a point of view is something that I found should not be underrated. It's something that differentiates senior practitioners from junior. Seniors have a point of view, they have a way of doing the work and once the research is done they have a specific message to share.

Portfolio Reviews

Although online there have been heated debates on whether or not researchers need a portfolio, this panel was all in favor of them. Portfolios show us if you can communicate both visually and verbally. they tell us how you think, problem solve, sythesize and tell a story. Yes, we've all signed NDAs. But you need to either find an older project, tell the highlights of a project without sharing any intellectual propert or ask for special permission to share a project confidentially. 

Ideally, you'll even have a portfolio site where we can see a case study or two. 

Want to learn more about visual storytelling? Duarte, Tufte and IDEOU are good places to start. 

Questions from Candidates

Next we discussed what types of questions candidates should ask a hiring manager. Particularly in a research role, if you don't have any questions to ask I'm going to have some questions about how you got so far in research! One manager said she had a candidate who asked, " How can I help you as a manager?" That was a winner! Other questions that stand out include asking the manager how they manage or asking questions about the larger organization and structure. From my point of view, I don't want to be one of the 100 people you sent a resume to, I want to be one of the 10 people you focused on and decided this particular company is for you. If you ask about the company itself, I know you did your homework.

How can you tell if you are doing well in an interview?

I also loved the question from Amy, "How might a candidate know if they're doing well in an interview?" One of the more positive signs I've seen is when the interview really becomes more of a conversation and less of an interrogation. If it's not - question/answer/question/answer, but a conversation with give and take, that's generally a positive sign. Another panelist mentioned that a candidate should simply ask at the end, "So, how do you think that went?" 

As for me, this panel was great fun to both share my insights and learn from other hiring managers and see what questions are top of mind for candidates. If you attended, how did YOU think it went?