PRODUCT DESIGN

Initial Interview
Guide

Welcome to your prep guide for your product designer initial interviews at
What You’ll Find the Facebook company. Our product designers put together this guide so
in This Guide
you know what to expect and how to prepare.
Interview overview As you begin to prepare, it’s helpful to have a better understanding of what
Past work interview prep the product designer role looks like at Facebook. As a product designer,
Mobile app critique you’ll be involved in every aspect of the product development process, from
interview prep brainstorming the next great product innovation to tweaking pixels right
What success looks like before launch. We’ll expect you to utilize your full range of product design,
Appendix / resources interaction design, and visual design skills, and you’ll own the experience
for a wide area of the Facebook Product.
During your initial interviews, we’ll assess your skills across these essential areas:
• Product thinking (ability to find and solve problems and how
to build successful products)
• Interaction design (creating products that are easy to use)
• Visual design (creating products with a high level of visual polish,
understanding typography and layout)
• Proactivity and drive (working autonomously, ownership, and responsibility)
• Intentionality (achieving the intended outcome, process, communication,
and working with others)
• Self-awareness (understanding strengths and weaknesses)

1
How to Connect
Interview overview
to the Video Call
What to expect in your initial interview
Make sure you
have the BlueJeans Your initial interviews will be a total of 90 minutes over video with our product
app installed and designers, split into two 45-minute sessions:
have tested your • Past Work
microphone / camera
• Mobile App Critique
ahead of your call.

Past work interview prep

This is how our product designers suggest you prepare
This interview gives you the opportunity to present past professional work to help your
interviewer understand your design process, product decisions, intentionality, and overall
self-awareness.

We ask you to be prepared to talk through at least two product design case studies / recent
work samples. To prepare, consider asking your sourcer / recruiter to do a walk-through of your
presentation prior to your initial interviews. Consider spending time putting together a narrative-
style deck of your product design case studies as opposed to scrolling through your portfolio.
If relevant, it’s advisable to also share working prototypes of mobile products.

This interview will be 45 minutes, divided into the following categories:

• Introductions: 5 minutes
• Past work presentation of at least two projects: 30 minutes
• Questions: 10 minutes

How to choose past work projects

Successful presentations often include past projects that:
• H
 ave included your deep involvement and ownership (end-to-end) through
all stages of the product design process (i.e. ideation, testing, iteration, etc.).
• Are shipped mobile products.
• Are complex in nature.
• H
 ighlight experience with working across cross-platform
(web / mobile / desktop) products.
• Y
 ou’re most proud of in regard to product thinking, interaction design,
visual design, etc.
• R
 eflect your ability to work closely with cross-functional (XFN) partners
(i.e. Engineering, Product Management, Content Research, etc.).

2
 Setting up your presentation
What to Avoid
Even though we encourage you to think of this interview as an interactive conversation,
rather than a formal presentation, we recommend a structured approach to setting up your
• S
 pending too
presentation. This will help you be best prepared and showcase your best work and product
much time on
thinking. Assume that your interviewer hasn’t reviewed your portfolio yet, so be thorough and
process: We
deep when developing and rehearsing.
want to know
that you have a You’ll want to go deep into product context, prototypes, your approach during the process,
solid approach, your ideas and contributions, collaboration with others, testing, and your ownership of the
but you should product cycle. Illustrate the goal, user profiles, your role, and the end result / outcome.
avoid spending too Specifically, include:
much time talking
• The user or business problem you were trying to solve, including:
through or showing
images of process • Your goals
(e.g. UX research, • Your success metrics
brainstorming
• Why it was a problem to begin with
sessions, stakeholder
management, • Your role within the project or team
whiteboarding, • Your target user
Post-its, sketches,
• Constraints you or your team faced
low-fidelity
prototypes etc.). • Your design solutions, including the design decisions you and your team made:

• S
 howing low- • Describe the testing process and how the product took final shape.
quality visual • D
 escribe cross-functional cooperation and how you worked with
design: If you need the team and engineers.
to show it because
• E xplain the problem-solving and user-centric approach during the product
you were learning
design cycle.
or someone else did
the work, please alert • Mockups and prototypes (high fidelity—no small screenshots please)
your interviewers so
• Datapoints that back up your design decisions, including:
they can understand
your views on it. • How you were involved in the research phase.
• How you made decisions based on data throughout.
• T
 oo many
wireframes: Show • Tradeoffs you and your team had to make, or explorations you decided against.
more prototypes • Your reflections on the experience, including:
instead.
• Did your product meet its goals?
• D
 oing a product • How successful was / wasn’t it?
walkthrough:
Instead we want to • What would you change looking back?
know how you make • What have you learned from the experience?
decisions.

3
Mobile app critique interview prep
This is how our product designers suggest you prepare
For this interview component of your initial screen, you and the interviewer will decide on an
app (iOS or Android depending on the operating system you use) to critique together at the
time of the video call. The goal of the critique is to lead the discussion to help the interviewer
understand your product thinking and visual / interaction design skills. Facebook Product
Design teams utilize design critique frequently to validate design decisions, so we’ll want to
see that you can operate in this environment.

We ask that you don’t prepare a critique for a specific app, but rather, you prepare a structure
for the conversation you could apply to any app. Our product designers have put together
these tips for the day of your screen.

Critique tips
You’ll lead the interviewer through a critique of strengths and weaknesses of the app’s visuals,
interaction design, product thinking and choices, business implications or value props, and any
other components. In addition:
• Be objective and think about the app from all use cases.
• Discuss and outline the value.
• Suggest new ideas and improvements.
• Highlight good and bad UI.
• Differentiate between iOS / Android patterns (where applicable).
• Discuss the opportunities or areas where the app will grow over time.
• Highlight poorly executed parts of the app.
• Question the purpose of the product.
• Compare the product to competitors.
• P ay attention to visual design (typography, iconography, component
inconsistencies, etc.) and call out good or bad visual design components.
• Analyze interaction design (flows, navigation, etc.).

What to avoid
• Covering only shallow analysis of features and visual design.
• Waiting for prompts from the interviewer.
• Light diving into interaction design.
• Ignoring areas of improvement or any new ideas for the app.
• Looking at the app only from a subjective perspective.
• Not offering solutions to identified problems.
• Running the critique without a structure.

4
To Keep in Mind
What success looks like
• B
 e honest about Considerations that lead to a positive outcome
presenting what
your strengths Product design at Facebook requires thinking about three specific questions. Think about
are when you’re these questions as you deliver your presentation and give your app critique.
prepping with
• What people problem are we trying to solve?
your recruiter and
when you’re in • How do we know this is a real problem?
your interviews. • How will we know if we’ve solved the problem?
Presenting yourself
authentically
throughout will
enhance the whole Appendix / resources
process.
Links to exercises, information, and guides to help you prepare
• Intentionality is
important. Be Our product designers collected some helpful resources with content and activities for your
sure to highlight initial screen. Take a look through the list as you prepare.
“the how” of your
decisions and Facebook Design
development / Insight into our design and interviewing process:
design.
• Facebook Design
• Content Strategy, Product Design and Research: How We Make It Work
• Using Thoughtful Design to Fight Bullying on Instagram
• Questions (and Answers) from Design Interviews at Facebook
• Working through Design Challenges in Product Design Job Interviews

Product design interview prep

Some articles that will give you insight about your initial screen:
• Past work: 5 Ways to Improve Your Design Portfolio Today
• Critique and more: A Guide to Interviewing for Product Design Internships
• An Unforgettable Valentine's Day

Thanks for taking the time to review this guide and

good luck in the interview - you’ll do great!