Shadowing Practice: Ace every UX/UI design interview like THIS - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.

218 sentences

If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.

Come on in.

Hi sir, really excited to be here.

So nice to meet you.

Uh-huh.

We're just looking over your CV.

Angst, huh?

What kind of surname is that?

Yeah, I know.

Awful.

Yeah.

So, Angst, what qualifies you to be our product designer?

Yeah, sure.

I've been doing UX UI design for the last five years at a range of different companies, startups, scale-ups, even bigger corporations.

Sure, sure.

Why don't you go ahead and design something for me?

Uh, sorry, what?

Yeah, design something for me right now.

Draw a watering can for us.

Uh, sir, all due respect, product design doesn't really work like that.

No?

Okay, why don't you go ahead and tell me how it works then?

Well, as your product designer, my responsibility is to make sure your product takes your users needs into consideration.

So I'll conduct extensive usability testing, user research, A-B testing, observe users in their natural environment.

One watering can coming up.

Product design interviews.

They can be scary, and each one can feel completely different compared to the last one that you did.

But design interviews don't actually have to be that intimidating.

If you're new to the channel, welcome.

My name's Leander, and I've been a product designer based in London for the last five years.

Over the course of my career, I've done hundreds of interviews.

And I can tell you from personal experience that after a while, all product design interviews start to feel very similar.

The key to nailing product design interviews is building a foundational understanding in all of the different potential interview stages

that you might run into in any given product design interview.

And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today.

All of the different potential interview stages you might run into as a product designer and how to nail each one.

Let's jump in.

So typically the first stage is the recruiter screen.

This is a relatively informal conversation between you and the recruiter, sometimes the hiring manager, that lasts about 30 minutes

and gives them an opportunity to tell you more about the role and for you to ask questions about it.

Typically this is not a conversation that focuses on your in-depth experience, but it is a chance for the recruiter to ask some baseline questions to make sure

that you actually are a good fit for the role.

Some of the questions you might run into during this stage are tell me a bit about yourself.

What have you been up to?

What are your salary expectations?

Do you need visa sponsorship?

And maybe, why are you looking for a new role?

So when answering the question about your experience and what you've been up to, make this interesting.

Actually try to tell a story.

Don't just list off your experiences one by one because that's really boring and the recruiter's probably going to fall asleep.

And I really like to touch on why I became a product designer in the first place.

Switched from project management to design, which allowed me to be more creative, made me feel more connected to the company and the people.

And then I also like to talk about why I chose to work at the places

that I've worked at previously as a product designer.

I really like to work at companies where I feel like the people generally want to be there.

Small startups, really fast-paced, high-performance environments.

That makes me feel really energetic.

It motivates me to go to work.

And this is a good opportunity for me to explain this to the recruiter

and for the recruiter to understand what drives me

and also for the recruiter to feel like I actually care about my job and I want to be there.

Now, when talking about why you're looking for a new role, no matter what your circumstances are, I don't care if you got fired.

I don't care if you just really want a new job or if you're bored of your current job, always answer this by talking about why you want to work for this specific company that you're talking to.

Talk about why this company is exactly the thing that you're looking for, why this team is the right fit, and that is going to make a much better impression on the recruiter.

These chats always zip by and it's a really good opportunity for you to ask questions about the company, too, and to genuinely find out if this is a place that you would like to work at.

Now once you pass the recruiter screen, stage two of the interview process is usually going to be a portfolio review.

This is the technical round of the interview and it's likely going to be with the hiring manager, maybe an engineer, a product manager.

A few people from the team will definitely be sitting in on this one.

In my experience this round usually consists of two segments.

One is always the portfolio review itself

and then the other is usually more of a a formal style interview where you're asked questions about your process, how you collaborate, and we can talk about some of those questions now that you might run into.

Things like, how do you collaborate with engineers?

What's been the most disappointing outcome of one of your designs?

Name a time you've disagreed with somebody over a design decision and how you overcame that.

How do you deal with negative feedback?

It helps a lot to prepare answers to questions like this in advance, and there are plenty of lists on the internet about the questions that you might get asked.

I'll definitely include one below in the description, so be sure to have a look at that.

Let's just go over a few examples of some good answers to some of these questions

and some bad answers to some of these questions.

For the question, how do you collaborate with engineers?

A bad answer here is any that doesn't indicate that you involve your engineers throughout the entire design process, which is something you definitely should do.

And conversely, a good answer is something like, I like to involve my engineers as early in the design process as possible.

That gives me an opportunity to talk about any technical challenges we might run into, share my design vision, any ideas, collaborate with the engineers because they might have some good solutions in mind as well.

And it just makes it a lot easier then for us to move forward

and ensure that we are heading in the same direction and

that we don't encounter any difficulties or technical constraints down the line once I've already done all my design work.

Let's look at one more.

The question, what's been the most disappointing outcome of one of your designs?

Now a bad answer here is any that indicates that you didn't actually learn anything from your failure.

That's what this question is really asking.

It's do you learn something from failure or do you kind of just take it on the chin and move forward?

So a good answer here is talking about an experience that was disappointing and talking about what you learned from that experience.

And bonus is if you can share a future situation

that you found yourself in and you used those learnings to prevent another bad outcome.

Now, the other part of this interview stage is the actual portfolio review.

Now, I've done an entire video on how I would approach this.

You can watch that right here if you haven't seen it already.

But the TLDR here is that I would make a presentation.

So I'd actually make a slide deck of one

or two of my case studies that I can present during this stage of the interview.

100

A couple of tips for this stage.

101

Be prepared for pushback.

102

That's really the point of these interviews.

103

Somebody is going to want to poke holes in your process, and they're going to want to find out why you did the things that you did.

104

They weren't there, remember?

105

And so they don't have all the context.

106

And some of your decisions might not seem as obvious to them as they were to you.

107

Just be ready to answer some tough questions and just justify why you did what you did.

108

It's okay to push back on pushback.

109

That's exactly what these people are looking for.

110

They want to know that you were justified in making the decisions that you made.

111

Now, the third potential stage that you might run into is my least favorite one.

112

And you can ask any designer and they'll probably agree with me here.

113

But that is the design challenge.

114

Now, you're not always going to run into this stage.

115

Some companies just don't do these.

116

And I think they probably don't do them because they know most designers hate doing them.

117

But the design challenge can be one of two things.

118

So it's either going to be a take-home challenge or it's going to be a whiteboarding exercise.

119

We'll talk about the take-home challenge first.

120

This is pretty straightforward.

121

The company is going to give you some kind of prompt, some kind of assignment.

122

It's usually kind of related to what they do, and you're going to have somewhere around a week to complete it.

123

I'm just going to give you a hint.

124

You're going to spend way more time on this than you should.

125

And that's why take-home challenges are probably the most annoying.

126

Even though companies will tell you, oh, we don't want you to spend more than four hours, you're just going to spend more because you want to do your best

127

and you know you're stacked up against other designers and everyone's going to do the same thing.

128

The good news about take-home challenges is

129

that you really can take your time with them and you can use all the resources at your disposal.

130

That includes the internet, your friends, maybe a mentor, and you can refine this as many times as you want to.

131

So you can do a first draft, you can get it reviewed by somebody, you can iterate on that.

132

And so it's really an opportunity for you to do the best possible piece of work that you can.

133

Companies usually give take-home assignments when they want a fully fledged high fidelity solution.

134

So they want to see the UX, but they also want to see the UI.

135

Use resources like Mobbin.

136

I did a whole video on how to copy good UI design.

137

You can watch that here if you haven't seen it already.

138

And just make sure that your solution is justified, that you explain your process, and that it looks really, really good.

139

Now the other kind of design challenge is the whiteboarding exercise

140

and this one is a little bit more subtle

141

and it's really going to depend on the company

142

that you're interviewing at how this is done sometimes it's done

143

in fig jam online sometimes it's done in the office on an actual whiteboard

144

and the point of doing a whiteboarding exercise is twofold the

145

company a wants to see how you collaborate with others

146

because other people will be in the room

147

and you'll have a chance to ask them questions

148

and involve them during the process which you should do

149

and the other reason they do this is they want to see how you solve problems on the fly

150

so they want to see your process for how you approach solving a problem and finding a solution.

151

You can Google UX whiteboarding challenge and you're going to find a ton of resources on how to approach these.

152

Just a couple of tips when it comes to whiteboarding exercises.

153

The first one is don't immediately jump into solutionizing.

154

The team is going to give you some kind of problem to solve.

155

If you jump straight into solutionizing, that's a big red flag for a product designer.

156

The team want you to write down the problem statement and then they want you to gather context.

157

They want you to understand the problem as deeply as you possibly can, ask a ton of questions, gather all of that context, and then they want you to start forming some kind of solution,

158

knowing all of those things that you now know.

159

This is where the other part comes in. Be collaborative.

160

Involve the other people in the room.

161

I said it before, it's a really good opportunity for you to already be collaborative with potential future team.

162

And that leads me to the third tip, which is think out loud.

163

If you're just standing up at a whiteboard and you're silent, no one is going to know what's going on.

164

They're not going to understand your process at all.

165

Talk about everything that you're doing, everything that's going through your head, why you're making certain decisions.

166

The more you talk, the better.

167

And then Tip number four, don't be afraid if they poke holes in your approach.

168

Kind of like the case studies where they ask you a lot of questions and they want you to justify your decisions.

169

There's usually more than one right answer to solving design problems.

170

So don't freak out if they disagree with one of your approaches

171

or they ask you a bunch of prodding questions about why you're doing the things you're doing.

172

Just stay calm, justify your choices, and also take on some feedback from other people in the room if they're giving it to you.

173

That's gold.

174

Now, if you made it to the fourth round, congratulations.

175

You've done very well.

176

You are in typically the final stages of the product design interview process.

177

Now, this is usually an in-person round, and it's typically some kind of panel format where you'll maybe one by one

178

or all together meet a bunch of different people from different teams and to spread across the company.

179

Let me just jump ahead real quick and explain how companies make decisions about hiring people just generally.

180

After the company has interviewed all the candidates in the pool, they'll usually have meetings where they'll stack up all the candidates and rate all of their pros and cons.

181

And that's how they'll make a final decision about who they hire for the job.

182

If there are a few candidates that have gone through the final round, this process is almost never black and white.

183

And there are very small things that might put one or the other candidate just over the line.

184

And that is why it is

185

so important during this final round to let your personality shine through as much as you possibly can.

186

Do your research about who you're going to be talking to.

187

You're almost certainly going to know who that is before the day of the interview.

188

So go on their LinkedIn profiles, see if they've done any talks, see if they've made any videos.

189

Anything that you can use is fuel that you can then bring to the table during these interviews.

190

And you can ask them questions about it.

191

They're going to love that you did some research on them.

192

And it's just going to make for much, much richer dialogue between you and the interviewer.

193

Like I said before, this round is usually more of a culture fit round.

194

So you're not going to be asked any crazy technical questions anymore.

195

That round was already done, but you'll likely face a bunch of different star questions and star questions are any questions that are formatted.

196

Like tell me about a time where you dot, dot, dot.

197

So you can look up star question prompts on the internet.

198

I'll post a couple in the description below just so you have those, but just prepare for as many of them as you possibly can.

199

You can't really go wrong.

200

And even if you're not asked them, they'll still give you some ammo for bringing up different things during the interview process.

201

The last tip I'll give here is to ask as many questions as you possibly can.

202

And don't be afraid to ask tough questions, especially if you're interviewing for a smaller company like a tech startup.

203

Ask questions like, what are some challenges the company is facing right now?

204

What's the toughest obstacle for the company to overcome in the next six months?

205

Talk to me about something the team isn't doing right now that you wish they were doing.

206

This is also a chance for you to interview them a little bit.

207

And you want to make sure that they've thought about these things

208

and that they actually like and care about the place that they're working at.

209

And that's really it.

210

If you've made it this far, congratulations.

211

I hope you get the job.

212

Let me know how it goes.

213

And also let me know if you want me to do a deep dive on any of the topics that we covered, any of the interview stages that we went over during this video, or if it would be helpful for me to give some answers

214

that maybe I would give to some of the questions

215

that we covered and other questions that we didn't cover in this video.

216

Happy to do a video on those, but let me know if it would be helpful in the comments below.

217

As always, guys, best of luck with this and see you very soon.

218

Thank you.

Download App

Everything you need to speak fluently

AI PronunciationScore every sentence

IPA PracticeMaster every sound

VocabularyBuild your word bank

Vocab GameLearn while playing

Scan QR

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

FOR YOU

Recommend Video

102 sentences

The UX/Product Design Interview Process Explained (2023) - how I landed multiple FAANG offers

Interview EnglishWorking Adults

85 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Ace every UX/UI design interview like THIS”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: design, interview, product, stage, process. This video has 218 sentences and 2962 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:30. The speaker talks fast, about 237 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
recruit verb	/ɹɪˈkɹut/	To enroll or enlist new members or potential employees on behalf of an employer, organization, sports team, the military, etc.
whiteboarding noun		A collaborative discussion over the Internet in which participants can write and draw on a shared space resembling a whiteboard.
collaborate verb	/kəˈlæb.ə.ɹeɪt/	To work together with others to achieve a common goal.
justify verb	/ˈd͡ʒʌstɪfaɪ/	To provide an acceptable explanation for.
disappoint verb	/ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnt/	To sadden or displease (someone) by underperforming, or by not delivering something promised or hoped for.
startup noun	/ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/	The act or process of starting a process or machine.
portfolio noun	/pɔːtˈfəʊ.liˌəʊ/	A case for carrying papers, drawings, photographs, maps and other flat documents.
pushback noun		The act of repelling an enemy, etc.
solutionize verb		To heat (a metal alloy) to form a homogeneous solid solution.
whiteboard noun	/ˈwaɪtbɔɹd/	A writing board finished with a hard white material, which can be written upon using special non-permanent markers and subsequently wiped clean.
poke verb	/poʊk/	To prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.
collaborative adjective	/kəˈlæb.ə.ɹə.tɪv/	Of, relating to, or done by collaboration.
prompt verb	/pɹɑmpt/	To lead (someone) toward what they should say or do.
bore verb	/boɹ/	To inspire boredom in somebody.
stack noun	/stæk/	A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go ahead verb	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	To proceed with; to begin.
go over verb		To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
move forward verb		To cause to make progress.
bring up verb		To mention.
come on in verb		Synonym of come in (“to enter”).
come up verb		To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Why don't you go ahead and design something for me?
What have you been up to?
What are your salary expectations?
Do you need visa sponsorship?
Things like, how do you collaborate with engineers?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've been · I've done · have you been
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were justified · is justified · be asked
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	process, which is · tip, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 83 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: foundational /faʊnˈdeɪ.ʃə.nəl/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, shine /ʃaɪn/
Long words — get the stress right: collaborate /kəˈlæb.ə.ɹeɪt/, portfolio /pɔːtˈfəʊ.liˌəʊ/, collaborative /kəˈlæb.ə.ɹə.tɪv/, foundational /faʊnˈdeɪ.ʃə.nəl/, intimidate /ɪnˈtɪmɪdeɪt/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like recruit, whiteboarding, collaborate.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Ace every UX/UI design interview like THIS - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

Download App

The UX/Product Design Interview Process Explained (2023) - how I landed multiple FAANG offers

English Job Interviews

The Essential UX Interview Questions (And How To Answer Them!)

The unfair way I got good at Leetcode

Google Interview Tips That Actually Get You Hired

Walk Me Through Your Resume: How to Answer

Netflix product manager mock interview and tips (with ex-Netflix Lead PM)

How to Ace an Entry Level Interview | Mock Job Interviews | Indeed Career Tips

Interview Question: “What Are Your Weaknesses?” And You Say, “...”

How AI Is Ruining Job Interviews

My UX Design Case Study Presentation that Got Me Hired | Case Study Walkthrough

QA Automation Interview Questions and Answers