Opower Ux Designer Interview Questions
& Process

i was referred to Opower by a current employee for a Senior UX Designer position. When i made my initial inquiry they wasted no time getting back to me and scheduling a phone conversation with their east coast based recruiter. i am primarily a visual designer, so i made it very clear from the get go & at every stage in the process, that i am really not looking to do interaction design. my response to that was consistently "we're looking for people with individual strengths in all areas of UX". after a 30 minute interview with the recruiter, we set up a second call with one of the senior designers, which went extremely well (our call lasted well over the allotted 45 minutes), where again, i made my skill set & interests clear (visual, not interaction), and was again assured that they are indeed seeking visual designers. a couple weeks later i was brought in for 1-on-1's with two UX designers (who happen to be interaction designers). i did my homework ahead of time and camera in completely prepared. the interviews were both fairly casual, and focused on my VISUAL DESIGN portfolio. i've had a mix of interviews on my decade-long career. some of which were not so good, and others which i felt confident about (and in most cases ended up receiving an offer). i left the office feeling confident that the interviews i just had were very successful and that an offer would be forthcoming. i followed up two days later, and quickly received an email response from one of their east coast HR people, informing me that they were "going to pass". dumbfounded, i emailed him back asking for more insight into why they decided not to move forward. his response was, "they loved your visual design portfolio, but felt you were lacking in IA/IxD skills". i am. because i'm a visual designer. as i had made clear no less than 4 times in the ~30 days this process lasted. i'm left feeling a bit angry and disgusted that i wasted so much of my time only to be told that the very skills i made it clear i was not interested in applying or pursuing in re; this role were the reason i was given for not being given an offer.

HR reached out and set up a skype meeting with two UX designers. I got a design exercise and was told it should take no more than 4 hours. The designers were nice and talked about the UX internship duties. I showed one of them my exercise, and they said I'd hear back in a few weeks.

Applied online, and after two weeks, received a request for a homework assignment. Submitted it and waited over a week for a phone interview with the hiring manager. Sent one email to the recruiter during that wait. After the phone interview, there was absolutely no follow-up from the recruiter, even after sending two emails through the system. My application status remained 'in process.' Eventually found the hiring manager's email and contacted her directly. She informed me the search had moved to San Francisco and they would only hire there. The hiring manager was great, but I felt the recruiter should have at least sent a short follow-up with the details. I found the recruiter's behavior unprofessional.