Senior Designer
We analyzed 420 interview reviews for Senior Designer from various job sites, social network groups and forums.
Here are the most frequent job interview questions asked by HR managers during initial phone or onsite interviews. This list does not include technical or factual questions.
10 frequent non-technical questions for Senior Designer:
According to our research, hiring managers looking to fill Senior Designer role ask soft skills interview questions 5% less frequently than for other roles.
1. What is your greatest weakness? top question
How to answer
This question ranks as the most challenging for many people. Fortunately, Mr. Simon is here to help!
Interviewers are not out to trick or trap you! They ask this question to gauge your level of self-awareness, your honesty and openness, and your capability for self-improvement.
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About Yourself
No one is perfect and your interviewer doesn't expect you to be perfect either.
While it is good to be honest and open, it will not help you to put yourself down.
What's important is to find a weakness that you have overcome. How you turned what might be considered a negative into a positive.
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About The Company
Research the company (website, social media, etc) to learn about the company culture.
What personal and professional qualities do they value?
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About The Fit
This is the time to clearly state a true weakness that you have overcome.
Be as specific as possible and stay away from vague cliches like “I work too hard.” It would be difficult for anyone to try and explain how they overcame a weakness like that
Mr. Simon emphasizes the Present-Past-Present method of responding to behavioral questions. When you are asked about your greatest weakness, you should be able to successfully use this approach as well. Here is an example of how someone might answer this question.
Present - "I have always had a fear of public speaking, and believe this may have held me back in my career, especially when having to make presentations to management."
Past - "Last year I learned about Toastmasters International and decided to join this group to help me gain confidence in myself and improve my ability to present to others in just about any situation."
Present - "By overcoming this weakness I believe that it has made me a much stronger candidate for this position, someone you can count on to make presentations to management, conduct training and communicate at a high level."
It's important to show how well you've overcome a weakness by motivating yourself and learning a new skill to grow professionally.
Pro Tip
Use this question to sell yourself!
2. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
How to answer
This question belongs to a family of behavioral, or even more precisely, reflective questions.
The interviewer wants to learn two things about you by asking this question.
- They want to know what you think about the job you are applying for. Remember, they are interviewing you for the job that's open right now. Are you a good fit and will you do a good job for them?
- Just as important, they want to get an idea of your ambitions and goals for yourself and if your goals align with their needs, especially going into the future.
In this way the employer should see how you see yourself today, and whether you are ambitious and strive to grow as a professional, and whether you like to learn and develop your skills.
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About Yourself
What challenges do you like overcoming? Where are you starting from and where might you be going?
For example, let's say the position you are applying for is junior accountant. It includes a wide range of tasks such as basic bookkeeping, financial analysis, and reporting. If accounting is your chosen field, then you would most likely want to move in the direction of obtaining your CPA so that you might step up to more responsibility as an accounting manager or senior auditor within the next 5 years. Your responses should make sense in how you see yourself growing in your professional career.
However, at this point, if you are happy just where you are and want to further your current skills, that is also fine as long as there is a growth path for you that can be imagined and described.
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About The Company
Research the company to learn what career opportunities may be available in the department you are applying to, and what the trends are in the company in general.
- Is the business expanding, are they opening new locations, or starting new projects?
- Or are they heavily automating and cutting staff?
Let’s say you are applying for a UX designer position for a brand-new product.
In the future, if the product becomes a success - which is what the company hopes for - the company will hire more designers and you may become a lead designer, or you may become a product manager.
On a side note: If you train your mind to be open to opportunities you will be amazed at how much this world has to offer to you!
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About The Fit
And, of course, try to see where the perfect fit lies between your own potential and aspirations, and the company’s trends and hopes.
However, beware of the risk of showing too much excitement for future opportunities compared to your attitude towards the current position.
As we said earlier, you must show interest and enthusiasm for the position you are applying for. If the interviewer senses that you are more enthusiastic about future growth than about the current position, they may conclude that you are not the right person for the job at hand.
Pro Tip
This question gives you a good opportunity to showcase your Key Selling Points (e.g. “As I am very good at delegating tasks, I can easily see myself leading a team of software testers in the future…”), and end your statement by asking about current initiatives and goals at the company.
In thinking about the possibilities that may lie ahead, you also might want to consider taking a personality test (I recommend 16Personalities which is based on the Myers-Briggs test), research the internet on what career paths are possible with your skills and current job.
It is generally NOT a good idea to say something like:
“Oh, I cannot imagine what happens to me tomorrow, let alone in 5 years”.
This will show you as a person who is unimaginative and not forward-thinking enough to grow with and be a good fit for the company.
3. What are your salary requirements?
How to answer
This question seems factual, but it gauges how well you value yourself and how well you know your industry.
This is your opportunity to present yourself as a qualified professional and get a proper salary!
Read on to learn how you can answer this question with confidence, using an analytical approach. The answer may be given as a range or as a single target number.
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About Yourself
The first thing to research is the salary range for your role in the market. What is the industry standard?
Next, think of your qualifications for the role. Weigh in your traits, skills, education, and experience. Try this exercise, draw a line on a piece of paper where on the left side sits a complete beginner, and on the right side - the best professional in the world the company may try to invite for the role. Where do you position yourself?
Now, remember that once you start in your new role, your qualifications will be growing fast, due to all the new experience you will be gaining - consequently, your value will rise as well. Your salary, on the other hand, will not increase as quickly. So, try to imagine where your qualifications will bring you, on that scale, in about a year into the new job.
Map the scale against the industry range. Now you should be able to come up with an objective figure, as opposed to pure speculation.
This is not real math, however, so your number cannot be very precise, of course. Define a range, which starts with the minimum that will keep you satisfied a few months into the job, and the maximum which, a year into the job, will give you the lifestyle you would ideally like to have at that time.
Make sure the range stays within 40%-60% between extremes. Remember, the higher the position up the ladder, the wider the range can be. What is the number in the middle? Will you feel comfortable with this number?
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About The Company
Research the company and find out what they are paying. The best places to find this information are Glassdoor, LinkedIn, PayScale and other similar websites.
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About The Fit
Based on your research, does the company fit your desired salary range?
Now, whether you should be giving a range, or a single target number is a matter of debate. I personally think that a single number, given in a suggestive manner, is better than the range, because when given a range, they may logically gravitate towards the lower end, especially since you’ve said that the lower number is acceptable.
One example of how to structure your answer of a single target number is this:
I have done my research and based on the average for the industry, location, and my level of expertise, something like XXX seems reasonable to me. What do you think?
Besides giving the factual answer that the interviewer is asking for, such an answer will also show you to be someone who takes the initiative, who goes the extra mile, and someone with data-driven and analytical mindset.
Pro Tip
Firstly try asking the interviewer to give you their intended range as budgeted for this role, which is a regular practice in most companies. However, don’t be too evasive and if you see they are not inclined to give you their number, name yours.
4. Tell me about yourself
How to answer
Most job candidates expect this to be one of the first interview questions and probably think of it as an “icebreaker” to get the interview started. It is much more than that! It is your opportunity to show the interviewer your relevance for the job. You want the employer to know that you are qualified to do the job, you are interested in doing the job and capable of getting it done.
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About Yourself
What is your current occupation? Define yourself professionally in one statement.
Pick 3 key skills that make you great at your work (your Key Selling Points). How have you applied these skills?
Try to give some numbers to support your statement.
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About The Company
Your first step is to Research the company to find out as much as you can about what they do and their approach to their business and their employees.
Based on what you know about the company and the job description, why are you interested in the position you are applying for?
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About The Fit
Now is the right time to show the fit between your skills and the company's requirements. Your answer works best if you emphasize your relevance. How do you do this? You will have already researched the company, studied the job description to identify their needs and possible pain points and prepared the relevant Star Stories that show how you addressed similar issues in the past. Your next step is to develop your Present-Past-Present approach.
Start with the Present. Focus on the skills and experience from your most recent positions. What has enabled you to get the job done successfully and how this relates to what the employer is looking to accomplish.
Next go back to the Past. Here is where your Star story comes in. Explain how you were able to use your skills and experience to accomplish a task that relates to an area of concern for the employer.
Finally come back to the Present – summarizing the lessons you learned and how they shaped your response and approach today.
Remember, the whole conversation is about the present, not the past. Just one sentence can summarize why your approach works, and its applicability and relevance to this position.
Pro Tip
You can also end with a question like:
“Do you know what the current needs in the company/department are, where my skills and experience can help?”
That can help you learn more about the company and the job, turn the “interrogation” into a conversation and will allow you to relax some tension.
Read our blog post to learn more about how to answer this question.
5. Tell me about your work experience. What was the most interesting?
How to answer
This question lets an interviewer gauge what makes you tick and whether the job you are applying for corresponds with your areas of excitement and enthusiasm. Such a fit will earn you important points for being a viable candidate.
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About Yourself
Review the details that you shared in your resume. Select the three to five best points to highlight and relate to the position to which you're applying.
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About The Company
Carefully research the company and the job description.
Find out what duties you'll be taking on to determine which of your top skills to emphasize. Try to find out what current challenges they are trying to solve by opening this vacancy.
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About The Fit
Knowing the duties for which you will be responsible will help you identify which prior experiences to highlight.
How well you connect your previous experiences with the job requirements can tell the interviewer how prepared you are for this role and how enthusiastic you will be about your job.
Pro Tip
Do not start your answer with "as you can see from my resume," even if you have listed those skills and qualities.
Instead, tell a story showing that you can solve problems similar to their current challenges and that you are enthusiastic about this.
You can best do this through constant practice of your STARs.
6. What skills are you looking to develop on your next job? Why?
How to answer
When employers ask you about skills you would like to develop, they are looking for honesty in the way you answer.
A common target of the question is to discover how motivated you are to extend yourself. If you are willing to learn, then you are probably more motivated to do the job well.
They might also be trying to determine whether you’ll be a good long-term fit for the company. Are you looking for an opportunity to grow with an organization – or will your plans take you to another employer before long?
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About Yourself
Answering the question, reflect on yourself. Show that you are concerned and active about your own evolution.
You can indicate how development has worked for you in the past, give examples.
- What qualities do you wish to develop in yourself both professionally and personally?
- What kind of culture do you want to work in?
- What motivates you?
- What qualities do you feel make strong, healthy relationships?
- What skills do you admire most in your role models?
And probably the most important is: What will help you to achieve your future goals?
Choose something you’re already pretty good at, but still trying to improve even more. Maybe it is something that you learned a long time ago but haven’t used in recent jobs very often?
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About The Company
Do your research and learn as much as possible about the organization and the career path you might forge there. Read the company’s story on their website, review their LinkedIn page, explore their blog.
What personal and professional qualities do they value and what can you learn if they hire you?
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About The Fit
No matter what skills you say you want to improve, however, make sure that you follow it up with what you’re doing about it.
Focus on a work skill that may not be critical to your industry or job level and demonstrate how you would like to develop this skill further, implying you already have a level of competency. This way you won't be sounding negative about yourself.
You could say something like “Coworkers often come to me for advice on how to write or format a document they are working on. I know that I am good at this (that’s why they come to me in the first place), but I have no formal training on mentoring others. I would like to take a course or two on mentoring others that would help them while also improving my own skills in this area.”
Say you are willing to learn new things and take on new challenges. Show employers that you’re self-motivated and actively looking for ways to improve your skills and value in your career.
Pro Tip
If you choose one of the more common working skills such as networking, presentation, mediation, technical, coaching or mentoring, make sure that they are not anything that’s vital or crucial to the job you’re interviewing for.
For example, if you are applying for a manager position, you don’t want to say that you need to work on developing your supervisory skills.
7. Tell me about a successful project you were involved in. What was your role? What was the result?
How to answer
At first glance you might think that this question is only asked of project managers. That is clearly not the case. In the modern business environment, work is often organized in the form of projects across multiple disciplines involving many people at many different levels.
Projects allow companies to plan objectives and milestones in order to reach their goals, to monitor progress and performance, to clearly define deliverables and success.
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About Yourself
Think about a few projects you have been involved in, regardless of your level of participation. These might range from small projects like organizing a party to large-scale multinational projects with participants and teams across the globe, million-dollar budgets and high risk and reward stakes.
Develop one or two project-based STAR stories.
Remember, all project-based STAR stories should start with the following descriptive elements:
- Project name
- Its purpose and goal
- Your role in it
- The duration of the project or its phases (in case only some phases were successful)
- The approximate number of people or stakeholders involved in it.
Once you have establish the base facts, its time to describe the challenges and results:
- What were the top 3 challenges?
- What was the end result?
- How did the company (or other stakeholders) benefit from the results?
- How can you define your contribution in 3-5 key phrases?
If you received any praise for your efforts from your boss, peers or clients, what did they say exactly?
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About The Company
Based on the research you did on the company, what kinds of projects can you expect here?
- What do you know about the goals they are trying to achieve?
- What do you know about their current challenges?
- Can you imagine what success will look like for the projects in this company?
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About The Fit
Once you decide which project best fits this question, use the Present-Past-Present approach to answer it.
Start with the Present by explaining your thinking on what you believe makes a project successful. You might say that your approach to all new projects is to set up the right project framework and tools before you begin, to help ensure that you get off to a good start.
Next go back to a Past situation in which you and your team took on a project and used your method of clarification to ensure that everyone knew their assignment and through hard work and focus, brought it to a successful conclusion.
Finally, come back to the Present to show how you will use your approach to help the employer tackle projects going forward.
Practice telling your story, using the STAR method.
Pro Tip
End your answer by asking the interviewer how they define success for the role you are applying for.
This will provide you with an insight into the company's environment and expectations for this role, as well as helping to transform the “interrogation” into a conversation as the interview continues.
8. Do you have any hobbies/special interests?
How to answer
The question about hobbies or special interests may seem unimportant and unrelated only at first glance.
Why do interviewers ask this question? They want to learn more about the applicant as a person, not just as an employee. They need to get a sense of your ability to balance your work and personal life.
When considering a large number of applicants, how you answer the question about hobbies or special interests may even become a decisive factor in hiring.
The answer to this question may often tell the interviewer how personal qualities can affect employee productivity in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to think it over in advance.
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About Yourself
- What are your interests and what can they say about you?
- What brings you joy and gives you energy?
Surely you have at least one item from a list of common activities such as traveling, volunteering, community service, charity work, sports, hiking or playing chess. Maybe you are good at creative arts like writing, music, painting or crafts. Cooking or gardening can also be mentioned.
Think about the interests you enjoy the most and if they are relevant to the job you are applying for, all the better.
Don’t just list them, talk in more depth about each and the transferrable skills you have gained. Among them may be planning and organization skills, creative thinking and problem solving, adaptability or patience.
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About The Company
Do your research about the company. Read carefully the “About Us” page of their website and job description.
Compare their company culture and values to the ones you embrace in your extracurricular hobbies and interests. Take note especially if they participate in charities.
Even if yours and theirs don’t exactly match, it will still allow you to make clear connections between your interests and those of your interviewer.
If you know exactly who you will be interviewed by - find his/her profile on social networks – it will be a more successful interview if you have some common interests.
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About The Fit
Make your hobby or interest your advantage.
For example, if applying for a position as a translator, mention that in your free time you like to translate new songs and send them to popular websites or, tell about your passion for reading novels or writing your own stories in those languages.
If you are applying for a job in gaming, you might mention your passion for certain video games.
Applying to be an IT project manager? Talk about how you started a book club and regularly feature books related to IT innovation and transformation.
Be ready to discuss the activities that prepare you for training, tasks and other workplace successes.
Pro Tip
Whatever hobby or interest you choose to highlight during your job interview, remember to focus on the positive qualities you possess in order to be successful at it.
Avoid speaking about hobbies that are related to politics or other taboo topics. Stick to mentioning interests that are relatively uncontroversial and keep it professional.
9. How would you describe your work style?
How to answer
Use this question as a chance to show how your work style fits the company culture (hopefully it does).
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About Yourself
The easiest way to approach this question is to write down the list of things (5-7 bullet points) that you value and that make you happy at work, for example:
- teamwork
- fun
- respect
- transparency
- creativity
- dynamic environment
- work-life balance
- focus on goals
- any other points that are important to you.
You may also want to compile a list of DON’Ts – things you find unacceptable, e.g. boring repetitive tasks, harassment, extreme volatility, etc.
This is a useful exercise for your self-awareness and internal boundaries so that you can easily spot any red flags, but don’t include these items in your answer, as you don’t want to sound negative.
Highlight 2-3 most critical items on the first list.
Think of some positive examples from your past experience where these values made you happy at work but also made your boss happy because of the outcomes you achieved.
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About The Company
Do your homework and learn as much as you can about the company, department and specific job you are applying for.
You can get useful tips about the company from its Values or About Us sections on the website, and tips about the vacancy from the job description.
Some companies position themselves as customer-oriented, others aim at productivity and efficiency, yet others are known for their creativity or adaptability.
Other organizations take a customized approach towards client needs, or they stress care for their employees, like the possibility of working remotely, etc.
In addition, startups are very different from large corporations in terms of culture and work style, and small businesses are different from both of these.
Which best describes the company you are applying to?
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About The Fit
Based on what you learned through your research of the company you are applying to, ask yourself, in all honesty, do you feel this company has the potential to make you happy and fulfilled at work? If so, why?
Which of the critical items you value most best corresponds with your knowledge of the company culture?
In preparation for your interview, make a list of your most critical values along with an explanation of how they helped you achieve positive results for your previous employer and/or helped you work more effectively with team members or customers.
Keep them in mind during your interview; these are the values that you would like to enjoy at your new job.
Pro Tip
Optionally, you can end with a question like
“And how would you describe the culture in the company/department?"
That can help you learn more about the company and the job, turn the "interrogation" into a conversation and will allow you to relax some tension.
10. Describe your best boss and your worst boss
How to answer
When you are asked this question, the interviewers are trying to determine your character.
They don’t care as much about how good or bad your previous managers were, but more about your reactions to them.
Employers look for staff who are coachable, responsive to management directives and who take responsibility for their own productivity.
They also want to determine how compatible you might be with the management style of their company.
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About Yourself
Keep your answer positive and respectful.
If you liked all your previous managers, then you are very lucky! On the other hand, if there was someone that you really did not like, try to think of at least one positive thing you may have learned from him or her so that your comments are not all negative.
Think about how you handle authority.
- What do you value the most in bosses or managers?
- And what turns you off them?
- Are you the type to speak ill of others?
Even if you had an awful boss, don't come right out and say so. Interviewers don't want to hear negativity, and they will wonder what you will ultimately say about them and their organization if you are hired and it doesn't work out.
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About The Company
Research the company. If possible, find out more about your interviewer.
- How do they value employees and how do their leaders treat people?
- What types of leaders does the company have?
- What qualities of these leaders match the qualities of the leader you admire the most?
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About The Fit
Emphasize that you’ve learned something from every boss you had.
Great bosses recognize the strengths in their employees, help them to go further in their professional lives, and show them how to apply their abilities to their fullest extent.
Conversely, challenging bosses showed you what not to do in your personal and work life, provide very little feedback about your performance and may truly underestimate your merits.
In the case of a “worst” boss, focus your answers on how you were able to work productively despite management challenges.
Pro Tip
A good relationship with a boss is one of the basic conditions of being happy at work.
For this reason, when you’re looking for a new job, it’s important to know if you will be able to get along with your new boss.
So, if you like what you see in the person interviewing you and believe that you would like working with him and his company - try very hard to convince him that you are the one who should be hired.
You don't have to be alone in your job search!
Mr. Simon invites you to join the Friends of Mr. Simon Meetup Group that supports both individuals seeking their next job role and working professionals. Members of our network come together to learn and practice new skills and network with others through our regular interactive events where they establish meaningful connections and have a chance to promote their personal brand and stand out in the marketplace.
Group membership is free of charge, courtesy of Mr. Simon.
Join our Friends of Mr. Simon Meetup Group to become part of our growing and supportive community!
This page has been updated on February 23, 2024.
