Reflections of UX Research Job Hunting in a Pandemic

It's 2020. The world is a strange place as we all learn how to deal with the uncertainty of living today in a pandemic as well as an interesting political climate.

Due to changes in my own work, I decided to start the job search in order to find my next role to support my career growth and goals as a senior user experience researcher in this uncertain time. The job search process took about two and a half months. The fastest interview process took 3 weeks, the longest took 9 weeks (and counting) when I withdrew, with an average of 5 weeks. Would you believe that fastest was for the US Government? Looking at you United States Digital Service - they had a great and enjoyable interview process.

Overall, processes with companies seemed longer than it has in the past when in person interviews were happening. I am not sure if this is because the market today is more competitive with a larger pool of applicants, if people are being more cautious with decisions, or a combination of the two, but it definitely has slowed down compared to my experiences in the past.

I had applied to job postings that were looking for a user experience researcher or a senior user experience researcher. Due to my crafted resume and portfolio, I was contacted by 44% of the companies I applied to requesting interviews. (Side note: I will be offering UX research resume and portfolio coaching in the near future.)

Graph showing interview invitation percentages; 44.1% invited to interview, 55.9% not invited to interview

Of those where I was invited to interview, 20% did not select me, 13.3% ghosted me and never circled back with information, 20% resulted in me withdrawing because they were not a good fit for what I was looking for (salary expectations, responsibilities, growth opportunities, or a combination), 33.3% resulted in me withdrawing due to timeline changes (e.g., offers on the table), and 13.3% resulted in offers.

Graph showing the results of interviews, all percentages mentioned in article above.

During the interview process 57.1% of companies had a virtual onsite, which consisted of around 3 hours of focused interview time. 42.9% had multiple interviews scheduled separated by days or weeks, resulting in a lengthened process.

Graph showing the percentages of interview processes that included a virtual onsite (2-3 hours together) vs. several shorter interviews over time. 57.1% had a virtual onsite and 42.9% had several interviews spread out.

What I think was most interesting about the processes, was the types of skills assessments that occurred across the companies. It was a pretty mixed bag, some only doing one type and others doing multiple types, with the majority requesting some sort of at home assignment to complete, with varying levels of involvement (article including my opinions on this coming soon).

Graph showing the percentages of time different skills assessments used. ~43% - at home assignment, ~11% - in person research exercise, ~21% - portfolio reviews, ~21% - cognitive / behavioral test, ~21% - behavioral scenarios, ~11% - none of the above.

Overall, interviewing at home was a different experience:

• Managing appearance: I would have a costume change in the middle of the workday to look more professional for an interview video call, then switch back to more casual clothes for work meetings.

• Maintaining my full time workload: I had to balance the number of interview requests with completing work for my full time role, sometimes starting my work day earlier or working later to accommodate the missing time while working from home.

• At home assignments: Completing at home assignments would result in later evenings or completing them over the weekend.

• Managing pets: I had to manage our dog, ensuring to take him out for walks before interviews and calls so that he wouldn't interrupt. Plenty of people got to meet one of my cats though.

• Internet troubles: Managing when I took video calls based on my partner's schedule too, so we could balance how much we were taxing the wifi for videos or I utilized my phone as a hotspot. It didn't always work out, there were some not so great quality ones.

• Trying to connect over video: Reading culture, energy, and fit was a lot harder over video than it has been in the past with in person interviewing. I tried to evaluate based on multiple interactions with people - how quickly they responded to emails or questions, how open and transparent they were about challenges, how excited or energized they got when talking about their company, etc.

I hope that my reflections above are helpful for other user experience researchers who are going through the interview process in this new world we are in.