6 things to keep in mind during your next hiring process

By: Ria Chakravarti

The anxiety that comes with job seeking is an unfortunate, but shared human experience, and one that I had accepted as inevitable. During the process of applying to jobs, as we scan through countless job postings trying to find the best fit, and as we work tirelessly to perfect each application, we consistently go through waves of feeling down, inept, and underqualified. These feelings arise at every single stage of this seemingly all-consuming application process, taking a hit at one of the most crucial factors of one’s well-being, their self-worth. These feelings are not restricted to the moments we find out that we have been rejected, but instead, at no stage of the process are we truly ever made to feel competent or even excited for a potential new beginning. Why are our experiences so negative?

It was while working on a project for a company seeking to improve their job description and hiring criteria for the role of a User Experience Analyst that I truly got the chance to not only reflect on, but to also research the jarring flaws within the hiring process. What might be most frustrating is the irony of it within the field of User Experience. As UX practitioners, we embrace and even boast of our empathy. We always put the user first. Our job is not only to improve, but to create better, more exciting experiences, keeping in mind the needs of our target audience. We also pride ourselves on our research skills that help us deliver evidence-based solutions to problems. And even so, how is it that we so frequently fail to consider the job seeker when we formulate our job descriptions and demand elaborate portfolios from our candidates? We are doing exactly what we, as cultivators of human experience, are told not to do. We are ignoring what is most beneficial for our primary stakeholder, the job seeker, not only preventing an effective streamlining process, but also deterring qualified candidates that would be fit for the role being hired for.

We often forget that a hiring choice is a crucial decision to be made by not only the company, but also the job seeker. Because of poorly crafted job descriptions that fail to resonate with potential candidates and their needs, so many qualified, fit candidates do not even enter the applicant pool. The issue here is that job descriptions are not written for the candidate. It is critical for our descriptions to be constructed intelligently to demonstrate not only the needs of the organization, but also to address the needs of the job seeker. It was by embracing my skills as a UX practitioner, using empathy and research including insights from job postings, hiring data, literature reviews, expert opinions, heuristics and comparative analyses, that I approached the problem of identifying a more effective method of crafting job descriptions. The following are a few things to keep in mind during your next hiring process-

1.      Provide background Information, the mission, and long term arc

Include a few sentences in the introduction to give context on what the company does and its objectives to provide a sense of purpose for the role. Explain to the job seeker how their role contributes to the company and demonstrate how their contribution would be meaningful. Provide basic metrics of what the candidate would be expected to achieve in the long term, over the next six months or year in the position, giving them a long term goal to picture themselves working towards.

2.      Being concise is key

Create a more concise list of the responsibilities and qualifications. Lengthy lists may not properly convey to candidates the key qualities that are critical for success in the role and may result in most applicants feeling underqualified. According to LinkedIn data, although men and women browse jobs similarly, they apply to them differently. Women tend to feel like they must meet 100% of the criteria for them to apply, while men apply after meeting about 60% of them. Therefore, lengthy lists may unintentionally skew the applicant pool demographic to being predominantly male, increasing bias in the hiring process. Highlight the most important tasks and responsibilities. Include details about expected work hours and consider including the seniority level in the job title.

3.      Provide insight on company culture

Such insight is crucial for applicants to decide whether or not they want to work at a company. It encourages applicants that consider themselves better fit and more likely to succeed within a specific work environment to apply. Working towards creating a better fit may increase employee satisfaction and strengthen team dynamics. This can most effectively be done by including a section on “A typical day” at the company; Envisioning oneself within a specific situation, role, or position is believed to enhance motivation, and may be encouraging to applicants, creating excitement about the role rather than anxiety. It also reduces the sense of authority the company may hold, treating the employee as an equal by aiming to promote satisfaction and fit.   

4.      Voice and Tone

Use a conversational voice but avoid being too colloquial and casual. Avoid the use of jargon, unfamiliar language, and acronyms. Ensure that the text is simple and easy to understand.

5.      Organization and structure

Keep it simple. Textio recommends keeping a job description between 300 and 660 words, making it “long enough to be substantive but short enough to keep a candidate's attention”. Use bullet points and take advantage of the brevity it offers, making it neatly presented and readable. However, it is important not to overdo them.

6.      Portfolios should NOT be mandatory

Portfolios have long been the gold standard within the UX field, stemming from its use within the print design industry to assess the skills of designers. Portfolios within UX, however, do not effectively portray the true skills required to succeed within the field, and neither do they focus on the process. According to expert Gabrielle S. Hon, most of what a UX practitioner does is not visible. Only a very small percentage of the process is something visually deliverable, and yet, these seem to be the main components of a portfolio. Furthermore, in practice, deliverables are usually not created in ways that would commonly be understood by hiring managers; a UX designer is not going to spend hours perfecting the visuals of something that will not prove to be useful. Portfolios cannot capture the context behind each decision, it instead tends to display a final product without telling a large chunk of the story.

Even if a UX practitioner were to provide as much context as possible, a portfolio often demands too much out of a potential candidate. Oftentimes, when working on real world projects, practitioners are required to sign NDAs and therefore, candidates actively seeking jobs may not be able to include their best work. In such situations, candidates are advised to recreate their projects. Recreating projects with real world implications and considerations erase context that is crucial to the decision making process. Most candidates also do not have the time and energy to recreate a past project, preventing them from applying.

Since the industry has consistently demanded portfolios from candidates for so long, many still continue to work hard to demonstrate their skills through this method. Neither should portfolios be required nor should they be entirely disregarded. Consider leaving it up to the candidate to decide whether they can provide an updated portfolio. Instead, to properly assess the skills and knowledge of a candidate, consider letting them come to an interview prepared to present the process, context, and rationale behind their project, rather than only asking for a series of context-less deliverables. We need to ask candidates what they have learned and how they think. We need to prioritize the needs and experiences of our candidates.