etsy

I just rediscovered this post that I had tucked away in my Drafts folder that never saw the light of day. Since my original writing (last March), Etsy seems to have changed the very approach I was praising them for so perhaps it ultimately wasn’t succesful for them (you can see the new one here).

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to be referring to the old listing (screenshot above). In addition to the usual list of experience requirements, etc. Etsy added an interesting wrinkle to the UI Designer application process – they presented an interface puzzle as part of the process and challenged their potential candidates to show their ability to synthesize and design.

Personally, I found it to be just involved enough to weed out the scattershot resume folks, but not so involved that people would feel like they were doing spec work. It also has an additional side benefit of giving the interviewer and interviewee fertile ground for discussion, as well as providing a window into the way a person presents their work.

The fact that the puzzle has been removed from their listings leads me to believe it wasn’t too successful. I wonder if it proved to be too much for people and they were’t getting enough applicants. Either way, I applaud Etsy for trying to find new ways to uncover those qualities you look for in a UI/UX Designer that might not immediately reveal themselves during a standard interview process.

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