Show Some Passion
When I go to job interviews I sit on my hands. Otherwise I have a tendency to get a bit too animated with hands flying all over the place. I just cannot help myself because I am really passionate about what I do and it tends to show.
But this is not always a bad thing. When I started my current job I was told one of the reasons why they hired me was because my passion was clear to see, even while I sat on my hands.
My colleague has recently been interviewing UX Designers for our Belfast office. Although first interviews often take place over Skype you can still feel the passion someone has for the role, or not in some cases.
It surprises me. UX really is not something you can do without passion for helping the user and making the best experience possible. If you are not passionate about this then why are you working in this field?
Passion is what gets me up in the morning.
Passion is what helps me to fight the corner for our customers when the business wants to do something stupid.
Passion is what gets me up really early or staying late so I can speak to our actual real customers.
If you have this sort of passion you need to make sure it shines through in all your work, your CV, your portfolio and when you interview. And if they do not hire you because you are going to make a fuss for the user then you probably do not want to work there.