Why you should research the interviewer before a job interview

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: At the end of the day, your UX qualifications a % matter. Right? But people hire people. And creating a moment of connection, even if just for a few minutes of human conversation, that can be the thing that can tip the scale in your favor. Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the career strategy podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients.

Sarah Doody [00:00:41]: You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Would you ever design a product without doing user research first? Probably not. So why are so many UX professionals walking into UX job interviews without researching their users AKA the people in the interviews. So today, I wanna show you how applying this principle of user research to your job search can completely change the tone and outcome of your interview. So let me tell you a quick story. A few weeks ago, I was on LinkedIn, and I saw a post from someone who used to work at Meta. So during an interview, a candidate said to this person, I looked at your LinkedIn and saw you live in Vail.

Sarah Doody [00:01:47]: Are you a skier or snowboarder? That one question that that person asked during the interview led to five minutes of casual conversation about skiing. It broke the ice. It built rapport, and it made the candidate honestly more relatable and probably more memorable because the candidate created a personal connection with that person in the interview. Now the hiring manager went on to say, while qualifications matter, don’t underestimate the power of human connection. I love this example because it gives credibility to something I’ve been saying for years. Do your research on the people before you go into interviews. Now I thought it would be useful to just show you this LinkedIn post and read it to you so you can hear in the words of this person who was hiring for the position at Meta how this played out. So let’s look at it.

Sarah Doody [00:02:54]: Brianna used to work at Meta, and this is her LinkedIn post. She said, during my time at Meta, a candidate of mine completely changed the course of his interviews by doing this one simple thing. He took the time to look at my LinkedIn profile before we met. Before starting the interview, he said, I viewed your LinkedIn profile and noticed you live in Vail, Colorado. Are you a skier or snowboarder by chance? This simple question turned into five minutes of us just talking human to human, not interviewer to interviewee about skiing and what our favorite resorts were. It instantly broke the ice. It instantly built rapport. It instantly made him more likable.

Sarah Doody [00:03:38]: While qualifications and skills are important, don’t underestimate the power of human connection. AI may be, quote, taking over, but at the end of the day, humans still make the final hiring decision. Do you take the time to research your interviewers before you meet? So that was the LinkedIn post I just referenced. You can read it on your own. We’ll link to it in the show notes. But why does this work? Why does this activity of doing a little bit of UX research before your interviews help you connect on a more human level with the people interviewing you? Right? It’s because user experience is all about understanding people. Right? Your users, their needs, the context, the goals, the needs of your stakeholders, the business, etcetera. Right? And in a UX job interview, the interviewer is your user.

Sarah Doody [00:04:38]: They have a job to do. Right? They want to hire someone who is competent and, of course, someone they wanna work with. So doing your research before the interview allows you to demonstrate some skills that might be valuable to the job they’re applying for, like empathy, right, like research, like creating connection and signaling that you’re thoughtful and intentional. You’re not just selling yourself as a candidate, right? You’re building trust through connection. And that’s really what sales is all about. Right? Sales is about relationships. It’s about connection. It’s not just shoving your responsibilities and skills and experience, you know, in front of someone in an interview.

Sarah Doody [00:05:27]: So let’s talk about tactics and what it really means for you to be doing research UX research on the people that might be interviewing you. Well, first of all, you have to figure out who these people are. So in advance of an interview, if you don’t know the people that might be in the interview, this would be a great time to ask. Ask the person you’re in contact with. Right? Ask the recruiter. Worse comes to worse, they say no. But if you’re lucky, you might get the names of the people who will be in the interviews. Now, where do you research them? Right? LinkedIn.

Sarah Doody [00:06:08]: Obviously. You wanna look at their LinkedIn profile and actually read it and look for potentially shared locations, like maybe cities you’ve both lived in, colleges you both went to. Maybe they mention interests. Maybe they mentioned specific industries they’re interested in or that they’ve worked in, career paths. Did they pivot into user experience? Who knows what. Right? So look at their LinkedIn and look for similarities between them and you. Also, look at what they have posted on LinkedIn. You could also go see if they have written anything on Medium or on other social media.

Sarah Doody [00:06:51]: Give them a quick Google search. Right? Maybe you realize they have a website. That could give you clues as to what you could bring up in the interview to create more human connection. Right? Are they writing articles about design systems or accessibility or leadership? If so, you could read one of those articles and use that as a connection point in the interview. Another thing to think about, have they been posting about what they’re working on in their company or on their team right now? Right? Some companies and teams have a public social media or articles, etcetera, where they’re talking about what they are working on. Right? So if you notice this about the company you’re applying to, give that content to read also. And one thing I wanna point out, I know some of you might be thinking, well, this this sounds a little creepy. Right? It’s not creepy.

Sarah Doody [00:07:47]: It’s strategic. It’s only creepy if you take it too far, and maybe you talk about, like, things that you saw on their personal Instagram and talk about their kids or something. Like, that would be totally inappropriate in my opinion. So use your common sense and keep it professional and aim to be creating connection on a personal level with that person. Right? Okay. The key though here is to really use what you find as a way to start a conversation. Right? It’s not a script. It’s not a transcript you’re going to read.

Sarah Doody [00:08:28]: It is a conversation starter. It’s an icebreaker. It’s an opportunity to show them, hey. I took the time to get to know you before this call or interview so I could have something to talk to you about. Could be as simple as something like this. I noticed you recently shared a post about cross functional collaboration on design teams. I’m curious to hear more about how your team works together. Or you could say, I noticed you recently wrote an article about accessibility.

Sarah Doody [00:09:01]: One thing that really struck out to me was and then insert whatever stood out to you. Very simple. Right? Another example. I saw you’ve been at insert the company name for a while. What’s kept you here for so long? Right? And then they might say, oh, I love the culture or who knows what. So it’s noticing and it’s creating conversation around the things you noticed. These questions, they really show interest, and they help the interview feel more like two people chatting and not a stressful q and a session. So at the end of the day, your UX qualifications, a % matter.

Sarah Doody [00:09:43]: Right? But people hire people. And creating a moment of connection just like this person did with the reference to skiing, even if just for a few minutes of human conversation, that can be the thing that can tip the scale in your favor. In UX, we are taught to understand the user before we design. Right? Maybe you yourself have worked at a company that skipped research, and we all know how that works out. So why wouldn’t we do the same in our job search and before job interviews? Why would we skip research? This is your moment to apply the very UX things that you apply to the products you work on, to your job search, and to the product of you. So here is your homework. Before your next UX job interview, I want you to research your users AKA the people who will be interviewing you. Find one thing that makes them feel more human to you and use it to spark conversation in the first couple of minutes of the job interview.

Sarah Doody [00:10:51]: And tell me, have you done this before? Feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn and let me know, did it lead to a better interview? Right? Did it take the pressure off and help you connect with someone on a human level? So that is all we have time for today. I would love to hear your stories. Like I said, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Just search for Sarah Doody on LinkedIn or check the show notes for a link to my profile. That’s all for today. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the career strategy podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

Sarah Doody [00:11:31]: If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.