Dear interviewer...

I have spent most of my career as the interviewer not the interviewee. My recent mentoring work with young designers, and going through the interview process myself, has given me the chance to reflect on what it’s like being on the other side of the table. It is striking how many companies are so bad at interviewing. Whether it is lack of preparation, poor interview skills, the failure to provide clear feedback, or the worst; ghosting candidates! I am continually surprised these companies ever manage to hire anyone. Not to mention issues caused by the lack of alignment between what are often poorly written and vague job descriptions and the interview itself.?

A few years ago I read about a practice of self care where you write a letter, never meaning to send it, to someone who hurt you or left you in an unresolved circumstance. The idea is to externalize your feelings, explore them, and given the letter format edit and re-edit your message focusing the key issues, clearly and objectively expressing the issues, without frustration or anger.

I have started encouraging my mentees to writing a similar never-meant-to-be-sent letters after an interview. Addressing them to their interviewers, I ask my mentees to use the letter as a means of self-examination and reflection on their experience in the interview. And to help them become more aware of both what they say and how they say it when are in an interview.

It starts with their preparation for the interview. Since it will be their only? measure of what it is like to work with these people, coming prepared to ask relevant questions about the business priorities, the design processes, success metrics, growth and development opportunities, potential career path, etc. are critical to making sure they will be successful at this company. Often new candidates don’t realize they need to interview their potential hiring managers in the same way they are being interviewed.

As soon as possible after the interview, I ask candidates to take a moment and capture their experience focusing on things like:

• Where people on time? (Was I on time?)
• Was the interview held in place conducive to a private conversation, or was it noisy and distracting?
• How did you greet each other? Formal—stand up, shake hands; or laid back—keep sitting, head nod, etc.
• Was everyone prepared? Were they familiar with your resume? Where you familiar with the job description?
• Were their questions based on the job description? Or just general questions? Were you able to provide specific answers?
• Did they ask you follow-up questions? Really exploring your capabilities? Did you offer any follow-ups?
• How well did you answer their questions? Were your answers on point? Did you ramble? Did you over share?
• What were their non-verbal cues such as posture, eye contact, body language, tone and pacing, etc.? Were they nervous? distracted? bored?
• Did you check your own non-verbal cues? posture—did you lean in or lean back? Did you make eye contact? Did you smile? Were you tense or relaxed? Were you nervous? distracted? bored?
• Were there any follow-up interactions while you were leaving?

I coach my mentees on how to closely observe the interviewers’ behavior during 1:1 interviews as well as their own, and to reflect on the overall interview process—from the recruiters, to the coordinators, to the receptionist, and the hiring managers. Then after the interview I ask them take a moment to reflect on how they feel coming out of the interview. What is the first word that comes to mind walking out of the building?

Then I ask them to summarize their notes into a formal assessment of their experience including their performance in the meeting, how they performed, the clarity and relevance of their answers, etc. Then I work with them to transform their assessment into a never-meant-to-be-sent letter to their would be manager. This translation includes discussing what they should and shouldn’t include in the letter, as well as how to phrase their perception of the interview and their performance ensuring it has a calm, objective, and polished tone.

Then we compare the interview’s outcome (did they get the job? were they declined?) with their own assessment of the interview. What did they miss? What did they get right? And then using their letter(s) we focus on where they can improve. Over time most are able to more accurately anticipate the eventual decision in advance of hearing back from the company. It’s an unfortunate reality that most companies these days simply ghost candidates or if they do provide feedback it is shallow and not actionable. The longterm goal is to make candidates more self aware in the moment and to learn how to assess the situation as it unfolds, to trust their gut and to most importantly to own their part of the conversation.?This process of letter writing combined with mock interviews, are great tools to allow candidates to reflect and to develop the skills needed to land even the most challenging interviews.