Reply To: Job Interview – Advice

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I think janet and @downcasteyes have pretty much covered it. Reasonable alternatives would be looking for similar work in your portfolio, or pair programming with you during the interview. If they really want more than that, they ought to be taking you on for a week or so as a contractor or provisional hire.

The task is to create an enhanced version that engages the user. So I’d say they’re looking for me to re-develop the existing content into something more interactive and user friendly. In doing this, I need to demonstrate my technical ability, design skills and rationale for the tools used.

Honestly, this seems more like they want to see you solve a problem* more than simply demonstrate your technical skills. Obviously, it’s important that you have those skills, but the ability to grasp problems with UI/UX, and solve them, might be more important.

If so, then “should I use technology x?” would not be the right approach—that’s what you need to do when someone hands you a spec and says, “do exactly this.” This sounds more like they’re asking you to create the spec, too, not just the end product.

* that is, a real problem, one they have now and are supposedly hiring for, which makes it seem all the more unreasonable to expect you to do it for free as part of the interview process.