Design hiring managers: Should you consider doing design challenges as part of your interview process it’s important to know how to properly execute them. Here are some tips to conducting effective design challenges:

1) Design challenges should not be be take-home work (paid or not!). A design challenge should occur during the on-site interview with the candidates in person (remote design challenges are not effective).

2) Design challenges should NEVER involve your company’s product, a problem the design team is currently dealing with, or anything even remotely in the realm the company does business. A design challenge should ALWAYS be on a generic/universal design problem.

3) Design challenges should always have a detailed rubric based on criteria for the role. You need to be able to objectively measure the results in a non-biased way that will be consistent criteria for all candidates.

4) Design challenges should be aimed to get signal on the candidate’s ability to do the job. They should never be given to candidates for roles that are not going to be executing design directly. Don’t waste the candidate’s time getting signal for something they won’t be doing.

5) Results from design challenges are not the only signal you should be collecting from a candidate in an on-site interview. The on-site should also include other separate sessions like 1:1 interviews, etc. that also collect signal.

6) Design challenges are not speed tests for performance, you won’t be able to effectively get signal on that until you hire the candidate. Expect candidates to not always end up with a fully complete and rigorously executed design. Don’t dock points based on design completion.

7) Design challenges are more about how someone works (granted, under stress) and how someone thinks when they are working. Design challenges are not about how perfectly square their boxes are on the whiteboard. You likely won’t be able to get to high fidelity designs.

8) Design challenges should not be impossible tasks. There should be several possible ways the candidates could tackle the problem. Just because the candidate didn’t approach the design challenge the way you think they should have doesn’t mean it’s wrong! Be open-minded.

9) Be considerate of candidates that may have special needs or health conditions that may prohibit them from participating. Don’t discount their ability to do the job based on their ability to do a design challenge. Find other ways to get signal on their ability to do the work.

10) Design challenges should be an activity not an interrogation. Interviewers should be able to answer questions and not penalize candidates for asking several questions when needed. Remember it’s also about signal on how they think when they design.

There are likely more tips I could add but didn’t include here. I choose to focus on the most common issues and misunderstandings that I’m seeing for design challenges. I hope you found them helpful.