UX Research Job Interview Questions

Oct 9

I have been writing down the questions I get asked in job interviews for UX Researcher, Senior UX Researcher, and UXR Manager roles for the past several years. I keep adding more all the time. Please feel free to use this to prepare for your own interviews!

The questions have come from companies of all sizes, including MAANG (big tech companies like Amazon), startups, and medium/large companies (500-2000 ish employees). I make a habit to write down the question as it’s being asked, before I answer it. This is to 1) help me remember the question as I go so I don’t get sidetracked while answering, and 2) so I can use the list to prepare for future interviews.

You can see the list below, or if you’d rather view/interact in the Google Doc, here it is: UXR Job Interview Questions Google Doc

***Feel free to share this list, but please do not publish it under your name***

Have any questions, comments, or want to add to this doc? You can find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-stroud-uxr/ or send an email: juliastroud.ux@gmail.com

Enjoy!

Julia’s Big List of UXR Job Interview Questions :)

Questions about research process/approach:

What are the first steps you take with a new research problem or question?
How do you think about prioritization? How do you manage multiple projects at the same time?
How do you work with partners like product, engineering, and designers?
How would you work with a stakeholder to convince them the research roadmap needs to consider the needs of users with a variety of different disabilities or limitations?
How do you know you’re asking the right questions for a research project?
When shouldn’t you do research to support a decision?
How do you approach analyzing and drawing conclusions from large amounts of data?
How do you know when your research is done?
How do you know when research has had an impact?
How would you explain the value of UXR to each role: PM, Designer, Engineer?
What type of environment do you thrive in?
What would you do if both the design options given to you for usability testing failed?
Who are your key partners, and how do you build relationships with them?
What is your approach to sharing insights with stakeholders?
How do you handle it when stakeholders are skeptical of the value of research?
What do you do when you disagree with a stakeholder about how a feature should be designed?
How would you motivate a team to think creatively about a problem they were stuck on?
Which research methods are you most experienced in, and what are the strengths and limitations of those research methods?
What kind of challenge does it pose when the user base is global?
Is it important to account for bias of users who are more likely to participate?
How do you provide feedback to a team, and how do you receive feedback?
How do you know if findings are used?
What is your involvement, i.e. where does research start and end?
At what point do you see engineering becoming involved in research activities?
What role does research play across different phases of product development? (And what methods do you use in each phase?)

Values/Culture Fit Questions

Tell me about a time you had to advocate for a fellow customer or employee - what was your approach?
What are some personal collaboration principles for working with people?
Tell me about a time that you delivered something that wasn’t quite right on the first try and how you went about fixing and iterating, then whether it worked out later.
When faced with choosing between speed and quality, what do you choose? What factors go into your decision?
How are you liking the interview process so far?
How does (Company) compare to other companies/roles you’re interviewing for?
What are you looking for in your next role?
Why are you interested in joining (Company)? **I hear this one a lot and it can be very challenging if you haven’t prepared!!
Biggest weaknesses, strengths
Time when you failed and how you handled that.
What are some of the characteristics exhibited by the best boss you’ve had?
Time when you received tough feedback and how did you handle it?
If you could have any job in the world and not worry about money, what would it be?
What is a time you went above and beyond?
How did you get into UXR?

Follow-up questions after a presentation or case study:

Why did you choose to highlight this project?
Who was the decision-maker deciding to do this research?
What was the context of the role you were filling at the company (what were you hired to do)?
Which parts did you do vs delegate?
How did you decide on the particular approach you chose?
What other frameworks did you evaluate and consider?
How did you present the proposed solution (based on the findings from my study) to leadership and handle any pushback from them?
What methods and tools did you use for analysis?
What was the largest constraint that impacted the study?
Was there anything that was not included in the study that in retrospect you would have wanted to include?
What was the most surprising thing found in the research?
What if we told you you have half the time or resources to complete it - what would you do differently? How would you approach it?
How did you work with the team to create recommendations / how did you create recommendations out of the findings?

Situational questions:

Remember to answer in a STAR format - Situation, Task, Actions, Results (or something similar)

Tell me about a time when you took on an initiative because you saw it would benefit the whole company but wasn’t necessarily within any group’s realm of responsibility.
Tell me about a time when you realized you needed a deeper level of subject matter expertise to do a project well.
Tell me about a time when you worked against some tight deadlines and didn’t have time to consider all options before making a decision.
Tell me about a time when you had to make an important decision, decide between moving forward or pausing and gathering more information.
Tell me about a time when you took a calculated risk where speed was really critical.
Tell me about a time when you had a mission or goal that you didn’t think was achievable.
Tell me about a complex problem you solved with a single solution.
Tell me about a time when you needed to influence a peer with a differing opinion about a shared goal.
Tell me about a time when you were unsatisfied with the status quo of a process or mechanism you couldn’t accept.
Describe a situation where research plans or insights were challenged by stakeholders and how you dealt with that situation.
Think back to a time when you planned a study but had to completely change some aspect of the research approach based on initial findings (or the product changed direction).
What is an example of a difficult decision you’ve made as a researcher, and how did you make it?
Can you tell me about a time when you had to get buy-in for a project?
Tell me about a time when research was used to inform a decision.
Example of a time where UX research was not well-received or challenged existing assumptions
Research led to a new product development or used in an AB test or hypothesis experiment and failed.
What is the most complex UXR project I’ve completed? Deliverables, audience, results
Tell me about a time when you were given unclear directions or product scope.
Tell me about a time when you had to explore a problem space where there wasn’t a product experience to test.
When have you advocated for more rigor in research, and how did you make that case?

Live research activity prompts:

Prompt: Your team is in the early stages of developing an app that reminds people when to water their plants, but they haven’t conducted any research yet. Design a research plan that would help them move forward.
How do we design a study or research program to move forward and solve this problem: LinkedIn - premium version. Imagine we both work there and as PM, (the interviewer) comes to me because we are having some difficulty with conversion rate to get people to sign up for the premium version.
Imagine you were hired to work for an existing music streaming company which had just launched designs for a new website. Long-term users have had a really strong negative reaction to the new designs. Need to study this reaction - separate change aversion from core usability problems. Initially they give you one month to deliver results. What would you do?
Imagine working on a product that connects designers and hiring managers. The team has discovered only 30% of UX Designers who create a profile actually activate, while Graphic Designers activate at a rate of 50%. In total, we see a 60% retention rate, and of those, 5% become top users. Your goal is to uncover an explanation for the gap in activation between UX and Graphic Designers, and overall improve the activation rate of designers who are likely to become top users. You have 4 weeks to conduct and deliver this research.

Follow-up questions after a live research planning activity:

How would you structure the interviews?
How would you include the team stakeholders in my research process?
What do you foresee as the biggest challenges to this research study?

Questions I like to ask during my interviews (WIP - will be added soon)

Tell me about your collaboration with UXR today - What is working well and what could be improved?

Julia Stroud