Why recruiters need to learn UX
By: Aaron Cecchini-Butler
Tags: User Experience, Recruiting, Design, Jobs, UX

UX Design is a broad field, and there are many misunderstandings of what it entails. But one of the primary goals of UX is:

To reduce the risk of releasing a product through research and testing — ultimately resulting in stronger user experiences (more users equals more money for the business).

Recruiters ultimately have a similar goal. Their job is to vet candidates with the goal of reducing the risk of waste. It’s extremely expensive for a business when a new hire doesn’t work out. And it happens surprisingly often.

According to Leadership IQ, 46% of new hires don’t work out.

Now, I don’t pretend to be aware of the many tactics recruiters use to vet candidates, but I do know a few aspects of the job search that are broken. And I know them because I’ve experienced them while looking for jobs in the past.

Job Postings are Ridiculous

We’ve all seen job postings that are outrageous.

“UX Designer needed — must be able to code front end and back end, has thirty years of experience, has delivered products for Google and Apple, and can speak at least three languages. “

We’ve also seen job postings that look a little bit too similar to each other, as in obviously copy and pasted.

And we’ve also seen bizarre requests like a Jr. position requiring 3 years of experience and a Sr. position requiring none, just a cool portfolio…

All of these inconsistencies force the job seeker to start ignoring certain items. In fact, many career coaches encourage their clients to ignore the “years of experience” request because it’s often meaningless.

How UX could improve this

By performing a little bit of UX on job postings, and maybe even having the UX Writer at your company help with their construction, job postings could begin to be more honest and transparent. This would have benefits for both the job seeker and the employer as the job seeker isn’t wasting their time on a posting that is incorrectly written and an employer isn’t spending money on wasted time from their recruitment department — as they interview people who are wrong for the job.

As tech continues to branch off into hyper-specific categories, being honest about needing a UX Designer who specializes in something specific, like “mobile wireframing,” is a smart move.

There is Minimal Usability Testing

I am often frustrated by recruiters obsession with my “experience.” The issue with “experience” is that measuring it in years doesn’t tell the right story. I’ve met a lot of UX Designers, and I have yet to see a correlation between years of experience and performance. I’ve met people fresh out of bootcamp who are passionate, driven and extremely well-informed about current trends, and I’ve met people who have 15 years of experience who are sluggish, inflexible, and have strict lines about where their work stops.

Experience is an important metric, but years is the wrong way to measure it.

Design challenges

In UX, many positions come with a design challenge — I think this is much more aligned with UX values than traditional HR hiring methodologies.

A design challenge is a chance to test the prototype, with the prototype being the candidate.

I have thoughts on the different types of design challenges and I have some ethical hesitation around job-specific challenges (ie free work), but in principle, design challenges offer a terrific way for candidates to show their “experience.”

Note: I’m aware that design challenges are a hotly debated topic. I think it is possible to assign these ethically and can personally vouch for its huge impact in me getting one of my first jobs in the field.

Test Early, Test Often

Especially when discussing the risks surrounding hiring newcomers with no “experience,” I think it’s important to consider alternative approaches to the traditional hiring paths. Internships have always been a great way to hire someone more cost-effectively for a stated period of time (often 3–12 months seems to be a common range of time). This allows that employee to gain experience in house — and can often lead to a full-time position at the company. The benefits here are obvious:

More cost-effective, generally internship pay is less than full-time salaries. An ethical way out if the candidate doesn’t work out — the fixed length allows an easy out that has minimized negative effects on the company or the employee. The employee gains experience while also gaining industry-specific knowledge. It can often take many months for a new employee to be truly onboarded to all of the information within an organization — an internship gives them a chance to do all of that while gaining experience so if they are ultimately hired — they can hit the ground SPRINTING. The employee gets a chance to see if THEY want to work at the company. Many employees leave jobs within the first month because THEY don’t feel that the company is a good fit for them. The damage here is minimized through internships.

Empathy