Bonus tips for the Remote Product Design Whiteboarding Challenge

Chances are, you know what a whiteboarding challenge is if you’ve found yourself in this article. But in case you are wondering — a whiteboarding challenge (aka collaborative design exercise) is usually a hiring assessment for product designers whereby you are given a design prompt, and on the spot within 30mins to an hour, have to complete a design of a digital product feature in front of your interviewers, and then answer questions about it. The purpose is to gauge your communication and collaboration skills, as well as your product thinking skills and your ability to think on your feet. There is (usually) less demand placed on high-fidelity visual polish.

“I’m not a monkey” is the thought I conjure whenever I think of whiteboarding interviews as a candidate. In real life, I’d never had to design a whole app in 30 minutes, let alone verbally describe my process while doing so. It’s like trying to rub your head with one hand and your stomach with another. While I can see why companies like to include this as an assessment method, there are overwhelming reasons why I don’t believe they are indicative of a candidate’s real ability. But as long as whiteboarding is still in common hiring practice, unfortunately, we will still have to beat the challenge before critiquing it.

So, instead of debating whether or not design challenges are indicative of your ability, why not utilize your creativity to invent a technique and method that will help you get through it?