How I became a Freelance Designer at Toptal
By: Surja Sen Das Raj
Tags: Toptal Designer, UX, Toptal, Freelancers, Success Story

It was an interesting story. 5 months ago one of my friends Dimitry told me to try on Toptal as a freelancer. You know it’s not easy to be hired as a freelancer at Toptal. I did a lot of mistakes, and I’ll share them with you guys to skip these.

Toptal: Our name “Toptal” comes from Top Talent — meaning we constantly strive to find and work with the best from around the world. Our rigorous screening process identifies experts in their domains who have passion and drive. Of the thousands of applications Toptal sees each month, typically fewer than 3% are accepted.

Language and Personality:

5 months back I opened a Toptal account and applied as a freelancer. I had no idea about the process and how strict they are. Anyway, I scheduled my first interview from their calendar. Unfortunately, I missed joining that meeting and immediately found a message that my account is closed for 60 days 🙁. I was shocked and opened another account and booked again through their calendar. This time they blocked me for suspicious activity. To be very honest I really didn’t understand what to do. Then I pined my friend Dimitry and told him about that. He contacted support and they unblock me. However, I booked the calendar again for the interview, and this time I was on time 😊. It was a short interview. The interviewer asked me for some basic information about myself and want to close the interview. I thought if I stop the video call then definitely he will send me a rejection letter 😐. I started sharing with him about my design experiences and community. He was so curious to know about this. I got the approval from him for the next interview which was an In-Depth Skill Review.

In-Depth Skill Review:

This is a very important step. I also made a mistake in this stage. Toptal asked me to share my portfolio and 6 design case studies. Here is the mistake I have done, most of the case studies are so long and I thought it’s tough to make one PDF file to add 6 case studies. So I sent 6 different PDFs for case studies and my dribbble portfolio link. This time they hold me for 60 days because of my mistake. I had nothing to do. Actually, the good process of sending all case studies in one PDF is you write some story of each case study and some of the mocks and add a full preview link to Behance or any other platform. In that process, you can easily add 6 case studies in one PDF and share the final preview as a link. So after 60 days, I sent them again my case studies and portfolio link and they approved me for the next step Live Screening process.

Live Screening:

It was 1-hour interview with one of the lead designers from Toptal. I had to show some of the works where I solved user problems and also business-centric design. She asked lots of questions about my design process and how I execute the design. For me that step was easy and she approved me for the next step. I suggest showing some real clients works where you really solve the problem. They already have your case study so you don’t need to discuss them in detail again. Maybe you can just share as a summary, and if they show any interest, you can show them. Otherwise, It’s better to show your other works. Focus on what you did and how you did and how it impacts business.

Test Projects:

They shared a task which was,

D esign a native app for a smart device or system of devices. The app should allow the user to easily adjust the temperature, lights, music in their environment and can include any other additional features you think would be relevant. Take advantage of emerging technologies you see fit, such as voice command or motion control, to take this concept to the next level. Your selected user demographics should define the use cases, feature set and user flow.

Though the task looks simple they want to show how I think about the user and the business as well.

One thing always you keep in mind If you are in this step, no need to make your final output super standout. Always make following with native guidelines for android or iOS. In the interview, they will only see how you think about the problem and how you solve then using your design process.

This is how I worked for the test. They prefer to spend 8 hours max with this test and also to work like this is for your client. I spent 16 hours completing my design task. My Design process was ➡️ Problems I identified ➡️ Competitors' research ➡️ Information architecture ➡️ Wireframing ➡️ Visual design ➡️ Improvements need in this design / what more features can be added to this app.

You don’t need to make any high-fidelity wireframe just do all the things in pen and paper. Spend more time on problem-solving, business thinking than visual design. See I just made a very basic visual design using iOS gui.