Web Design Interview tips, questions & advice

Posted Friday 13th May 2011 by James Bavington



In this week’s web design video, Nick and I are share our tips and advice for web design job interviews. The majority of our advice is based on our own experience from participating in interviews here at Creare over the past 5 years.

We’ve split the advice into three categories, Interview Preparation, During the interview and finally, questions that you may be asked. Also, to keep our advice specific to the web design industry, we’ll try and skip over the obvious stuff like firm handshakes and big smiles!

What should I wear?

In the video, you will also hear Nick reference Source Recruitment’s Marc Shelkin who shared the following advice in a blog for web designer magazine: “First impressions are everything; check the dress code of the agency or company before you arrive. Cultural fit plays a big part in an interview, so it’s important they see you as one of them. Most creatively led design and digital agencies are very casual and laid-back, so keep this in mind.”

By James Bavington

Creare's Web R&D Manager is a creative graduate and self-taught front-end developer. When not sat at a computer, he's either at Comic-con, driving his car or reading military history. See all of posts.

James Bavington's latest tweets

  • http://www.mojowebdesign.com.au Richard

    Great advice and clear messages, research is definitely the right place to start. But, What I have struggled with in the past is not so much how to shake hands, what to wear and questions like where do you see yourself in 5 years. It’s questions about my experience. Firstly, when I had none, what do you say to that and do you lie or bend the truth? And secondly after a year in employment I could talk beyond a day of what went on, especially on staff nights out… how do you select what’s important and relevant to the interview?

  • Bikeman

    3 comments:

    1. Dresscode for interview – it’s all very well sayining checkout the company dresscode and dress accordingly but advice from recruitment consultants is still dress smart, wear a suit and tie. Arriving for interview in casual dress may ‘fit in’ but looks like you’ve not bothered. Your comment?

    2. What’s the fixation employers have with Photoshop? Adobe’s own Fireworks app used to the the app of choice for web designers. I’ve spent a lot of time and money on FW and in 5 years of freelance work I’ve never found it lacking. Photoshop is great for photo (it’s in the name) manipulation such as removing backgrounds etc but Fireworks is much better/easier for everything else. Is it really in an employers interest to discount my skill in Fireworks and force me to take twice as long to do the job in Photoshop?

    3.Why don’t emploers let designers, design? Why does every employer want their front end designers to hand code html and css ( I can) but also wants me to know javascript, jQuery etc – if i had an interest in Javascript I’d be half way to knowing PHP and getting a 50% higher salary.

  • http://twitter.com/jamesbavington James Bavington

    @Bikeman absolutely, that’s a good point with dress-code. I don’t think you can overdress for an interview, but you can definitely be under-dressed.

  • http://www.bluewhalewebdesign.co.uk Blue Whale Digital

    Awesome Information…Great Work Done.