4 killer tips to impress at interview

Landing that dream job is never easy. Even with a killer portfolio, you still need to make a good and lasting impression at interview. A relatively fresh face at The Partners, Kath Tudball has already been involved in hiring new team members. Here, as part of a YouTube series for Computer Arts, she shares her advice on the best way to make your mark.

01. Remember: ideas are everything

"The most important thing for all of us is that interviewees demonstrate really good ideas,” reveals Tudball. “We need a certain level of craft and design skills, but our number-one priority is good ideas.”

02. Make your portfolio work hard

Before inviting candidates to interview, Tudball and her fellow hiring design directors will always review a website or PDF portfolio in order to identify the strength of their ideas. “Obviously some ideas are more complex than others and benefit from further explanation, but we’re in communication – it has to communicate,” she continues. “If it doesn’t do it on that basic level, we will not go further. There’s a lot of pressure on that PDF to get your attention in a few seconds.”

03. Show your personality

Once the potential in those ideas has been identified, Tudball adds, how your personality comes across at interview is the next step. “How they compose themselves, how they explain their work – that’s really important too,” she says. “It’s really important for junior designers to get used to presenting their work, talking about their ideas, so they have the confidence to disagree with the creative director and do more of that client-facing selling of ideas.”

04. Move for the right reasons

Following her recent move to The Partners after 14 years at johnson banks, Tudball’s final advice is to think every potential career progression through carefully. “Make sure you’re doing the kind of work you want to be doing; I wouldn’t recommend just thinking about progression and your career ladder,” she insists.

This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 257; buy it here.