I applied for UX Writing Manager role in Amsterdam (side note - no, they don’t fly you to Amsterdam for interviews anymore). A friend referred me. The whole process for me (application + call with recruiter + 2 interviews) took about 2 months, but some of that time recruiter was on vacation, so I guess normally it is somewhat faster. The call with the recruiter was brief and nice, with questions about my current role, how many people I manage, why I’m looking for a new job, and whether I’m willing to relocate. In the end of the call the recruiter told me that I passed, and emailed me with a description of the interview process. The recruiter had a very friendly and welcoming attitude, they made me feel like I’m in good hands. There are 3 interviews after the initial call: craft presentation, problem-solving interview, and people management + fit. I made it to the first 2 interviews, so I will mostly talk about those. Read along for important tips on problem-solving interview! For Craft presentation, I prepared a case study showcasing a project I worked on in the past. It seems to be important to highlight your work on content AB testing, user interviews, content standards and guidelines. Most importantly, you need to show your thought process and your understanding of user needs and business scenarios. Two senior writers from different teams attended the interview and asked some questions (see below). They too made a nice impression on me, and the whole interview felt like a content critique with some friendly strangers. Ones again, the recruiter impressed me greatly when she came back with not only an invitation to the next interview, but the detailed feedback from my interviewers. It felt very personal and special, I’ve never seen a recruiter going that far for a candidate before. For problem-solving interview, I talked to two UX Writing Managers, one of which was acting in the role I was interviewing for. The very first question they asked me was “tell us about a problem you had to solve at work”. And this is where I made my crucial mistake; I showed a deck presenting how I solved problems that had to do with content scalability and team growth. They didn’t seem to mind or in any way mention to me that it’s not what they’re looking for, so we proceeded to discuss that, though I felt like this time my interviewers were a little less engaged than before. We said our goodbyes, and after 2 weeks I got an email from the recruiter saying that my profile wasn't quite the right fit for this position and they’ve decided to move forward with other candidates. There was no detailed feedback this time, and when I asked for one, the recruiter never replied. So I decided to do some digging on my own and tried to get connected with my interviewers on LinkedIn. One of them actually got back to me; they said that I seem to be currently working on content scalability problems, and they need someone who can demonstrate working with technical constraints, understanding business logics and solving USER problems. I can do those things too, but my deck limited the scope of my story and eventually led to a failed interview. So my advice for you (and my future self) would be: don’t make a deck for problem-solving interview, highlight user problems you solved and don’t repeat my mistake of rattling about your talents in the areas they don’t care about. On my side, I shouldn’t have taken this much initiative with the interview format; on their side, they should have stopped me and asked to talk about more relevant things. So it kinda went wrong both ways. Overall, it was a positive experience; as far as the interview process normally goes, this one was quite all right. I learned my lessons and will apply again when ready.