You will survive!
An example of how we apply Our Founding Mindset to everything we do: designing, hiring — even writing blog post titles.
Internally, we had some back-and-forth on the naming of our design blog article, “How to Survive a Job Interview at Zalando.” A Talent Acquisition colleague suggested to me that Gloria (the author) should not use the word “survive” — it might actually scare people off.
I really appreciated the feedback and understood the relevance right away because at Zalando, we work according to principles* — for everything from designing hiring processes to deciding which coffee to offer in the canteen.
A series of principles came to mind as I considered the case…
Start with “Yes”
This guidance comes from Our Founding Mindset which states:
‘Start with “yes.” Optimism creates opportunities. We focus more on what can be gained than what can be lost. And while we start with yes, we don’t necessarily end on yes. We separate real priorities from noise.’
Since we emphasise optimism and positivity, it might indeed make more sense to say “How to Ace a Job Interview.” Nice and sharp! Encouraging! Hmm… I wondered, will people understand “to ace”? And that brings us to our next principle.
Inclusivity
We’re an international company based in Berlin recruiting worldwide. Very few employees and applicants are native English speakers. Our inclusive communication principles ask us to speak simply and clearly. “Ace” as a verb is clever, catchy, concise and even eloquent but it’s likely not clear and accessible to our entire audience.
Default to Transparency
At Zalando, our Founding Mindset principles ask us to be open whenever possible:
‘Default to transparency. We provide context and share information by default to enable informed decision-making and to flag problems early. We don’t share when it does more harm than good.’
Our interview process for Product Design is indeed gruelling. We put you through five to six hours of intense conversations and exercises. “Survive” is certainly honest!
High Challenge, High Support
“Survive” starts making even more sense when we realise how high the bar is at Zalando Design. Our hiring process is challenging. Many good researchers, designers, and UX copywriters don’t make it through because we’re looking for outstanding professionals with the best fit to the roles. We hire less than one percent of applicants. The challenging series of interviews is consistent with the challenges you will be given on the job.
But Our Founding Mindset dictates that, though the bar is high, we give you all the support you need to succeed. As an employee we give you mentorship. We give you a platform — and a ghostwriter — to help you grow into a thought leader. We have a well-knit community of practice for both professional sparring and emotional support. Likewise, in the interview process we want you to succeed. We try to be as friendly and helpful as possible. We don’t try to trap you with trick questions, we allow for a variety of “right” answers and we keep you caffeinated (if that’s your thing). Even if we say “No” in the end, we genuinely enjoy 98% of the conversations we have with candidates.
Coming full circle, I think “survive” is a fine — if provocative — word to characterise success in a job interview. We hope you come out of the experience stronger. We hope for you that you can at least take away some self-reflected learnings, shared insights or LinkedIn connections. So, starting with “Yes”:
Yes, you will survive!
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*Our corporate principles are articulated in forms such as Our Founding Mindset and our Diversity & Inclusion Communication Guidelines. Our product principles are articulated in e.g. our Customer Promises and Data Privacy Guidelines. Our design principles are articulated in Brand Guidelines, Interaction Principles, and specific heuristics around e.g. Designing with Customer Data for Personalised and Customised Experiences.
