How do i pitch my projects in interview - All Questions answered HOW WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY ?

This is a very important question which all the design students really get it. When the interviewer really asks this, can you tell about your projects? Lot of time people are stumbled. Even if they have a lot of preparation done for themselves, they don't know how to exactly answer this. Even if they are starting up with something, they really miss the context. And then they explain something else which, which is really not relevant to their project, which is not relevant to that particular interview and context. And people really mess up in this lot. Many times when I ask students, what did you really answer? People really are not satisfied with that. Okay. Very, very few people are very confident on how they can exactly structure their answer. Telling about this project, this podcast, is exactly going to address that. Take a lot of notes, because without notes, you won't be able to understand this. Take action for it. Okay? When it comes to interview, you should be first of all, very much prepared with whatever projects you have. Let's say you might have five projects or maybe three projects or even one. That's okay. That's not the point. The point is align your one project properly with a very good understanding of that. Try to tell what is the impact you created through that project. If you get only 10 seconds to 15 seconds, if you get one minute, you can explain about how people were there before this project and how people were after this project. What is the significant improvement and efficiency improvement happened because of your project, and what exactly the user groups are affected by. If you get two minutes of chance to explain about your project, you can answer in a detail what role you exactly played, what methods you exactly did, and what is the overall process you followed in achieving this goal. If you get three, four minutes or even five minutes to explain, then you can take your stance to explain each and everything. How you got this brief, on what basis you choose this problem statement, and how exactly you solve this problem, and what are the learnings you got in this project and what is the exact unique value proposal you got in this, and what are the output and what are the impact that you create? Right, Jagdish? How do I exactly know? Interviewers are asking me 1 minute project explanation or 2 minutes or 5 minutes. How should I really sense that? It's a very good question. What normally students ask, okay, so I'm going to be answering that. First of all, it is based on the interviewer's mood, it's based on the interviewer's tone, it's based on the interviewer's timing, how he is asking this question, whether he is asking When a technical discussion happens and then he is asking or whether he is asking in the first of the interview itself or is it the interviewer really asking for a sake of asking? There are three categories which I told you, you need to be very patiently understanding. Why is that recruiter asking this question? If, let's say a designer is asking this question, his expectation will be very different. If a HR is asking this question, his expectation is very different. You cannot talk about double diamond, triple diamond and all that, right? You should talk about what you exactly learned in this project and what you can exactly bring to that organization using these kids. If a HR is asking, you should talk about your honesty. You should talk about your exact etiquettes you followed. You should talk about your involvement in working in teams. You should talk about how you have solved that problem for the organization earlier. So HR expect this kind of things. Whenever a designer asks this question, you should be able to tailor make your project presentation in that way so that you can tell about the process. You can tell about the research methods you followed. You can tell about what is a creativity element which you brought in. You can tell about how you worked in a time constraint project and budget constraint project and still you're able to deliver the output. Whenever you are explaining a project, guys, please remember you need to tell a story which is having a hero, which is having a villain. And your hero needs to achieve his goal by defeating the villain. The villain could be not necessarily a person, the villain could be circumstances, situations, environment, problems, pain area, anything, right? Maybe in your case it could be no degree or maybe a lot of your interview. What you call your experience is bad because nobody recruits you because you don't have any kind of a design degree. You can use that as a pain point to talk about your project in a way so that you can impress the other person, right? So you can tell. Hey. Hi, I'm Jagdish. You know what? I did a project which is intentionally design process applied, which is very intentionally. I did lot of design elements into this project even though I don't have a design degree. What I did is I traveled to many design institutes. I met more than 25 designers. I talked to some of the big designers in the country through LinkedIn, through Facebook and then I communicated them. This is what is the project I'm going to be doing. And they all gave me a greater insights to do this project. That is why you can see more than a design institute student. My project will have a very unique process which nobody has ever followed, right? I Don't have the templated process of research, ideation, prototype testing. Rather I approached with a very different mindset and attitude. You can see that Mr. Recruiter. And if you find that interesting, you can call me for the interview. Or if you want, I can able to tell more details about it. See, I just used one minute, but that person will be definitely hooked on. To me, this is how you explain a project. You did not even explain your project detaily, but you gave the understanding what is your project really going to have? Definitely people will be curious to know apart from design process, what did you really do? Right? So you have to trigger that curiosity whenever you're talking about your project. See, if you have 10, 15 minutes to explain, that's a different case. You can explain each and every element of your project. But when a time constraint is given like one minute, two minute, that let's say I told you, right? If you're able to sense that recruiter, if he's in some urgency, if he is giving you only few minutes, if he wants to ask another question which is ready and he'll give you only one or two minutes, then you should be able to exactly tailor make your answer very clearly. Remember, whenever you're explaining, you should have a story, hero, villain, pain area. How you're able to do to cross that pain area and achieve your goal, right? Go and listen to a podcast storytelling for designers and hook your project so that I've gone very deep into it and you can able to get a clarity on. Okay, but now to cut short, this is what is the thing hero will learn and how the pain point is crossed. So when you are able to tell this story in one minute, in 30 seconds, in two minutes, in five minutes, no problem guys. You can able to crack any interviews and people will have an impact of your project, whatever you are having. Okay? And the other question what people ask me is when do I exactly pitch my project? If the recruiter asks or maybe if he doesn't ask. If he deliberately asks about your project, you can tell about. But if he's not asking anything, you should be voluntarily asking and telling. Hey, I'm Jagdish, so and so I introduce about myself, I'm very interested to showcase one of my big projects which is more relevant to your organization project which you're currently doing. Sir, can I have a minute to explain? You should be asking that question before you explain. You should not take a granted thing like you should keep on explaining your project from the beginning. Nobody asks you, right? So that's why you need to ask permission. And if they say Jagdish can can be little bit review later, is it fine? That means they are not interested. Fine, leave them. Like if they say okay Jagdish, can you explain your project shortly? That means they are half interested, they are rushing for something. They are not very interested in your profile but they just wanted to give it a try whether you are suitable or not. Then you can use a 2 minute or 1 minute pitch. If they say yes Jagdish, go ahead, you can explain. That means they are interested. If they say yes Jagdish, we are expecting that only can you explain one project detail. So then you can explain for five to ten minutes in a detailed way. I would suggest don't go more than three to five minutes because nobody can able to give attention beyond that time. Okay, so whenever you are explaining, I told you three different categories, guys. Okay? So understand how the person's answer is coming. Based on that you explain about your project and then you explain about the length of the project in a different way. Okay? Do not be in a very immature way to keep on explaining to all the interviews in same tone with same energy. And that's not the case. You should be able to clearly sensing the tempo of that person, the timing of that person. He is really exhausted or he is really hungry or is it rushing for something or is he not interested much? You should be able to tailor make your answer of your project exactly right. The same I used to tell for self introduction. Also you should be able to give a tailored made answer. There is nothing called scripted answer. And also whenever you are going for interview, always have a matchmaking. Make sure you have two, three projects which is matching to the recruiter's description of the job. Make sure you prepare that two, three projects with you very clearly. Okay? Have a very good one project out of these three which needs to be explained first. Because lot of time with one project itself you can have the interview cracked. 90% of the interviewers ask only one project, guys. They don't need to understand 30 projects and nobody honestly doesn't have that much of time. So you should be able to tell one project clear, clearly to the point, crisp and clear. Make sure they're understanding that tell that importance, tell that impact and then close the project. Close the detailed description of the project by asking are you interested to see more projects like this? Ask that question and keep silent. The recruiter will say no Jagdish, we understood what is your skills? So can you come for the final Interview. That means you're selected if they ask yes Jagdish, I wanted to see more. That means they wanted to still check your skills. You can show one more project and if they tell you. Okay Jagdish, fine. So I'll get back to you. That means possibilities. He has not understood. Or maybe something else is wrong. Or maybe you have not exactly delivered him a proper input which he is expecting. And you can ask the question, sir, what's your expectation regarding the skill sets? What I have? Do I really match with the requirements? I wanted to understand from you Honesty. Don't leave them. Don't leave them saying yes sir, you get back to me. Bye bye. That's not the case. You should be able to ask them clearly. Sir, can you just give me a clarity on what is happening? Can you just tell me what exactly I have to do in the next steps of the interview? Is it a final interview or is it design task or what's going to happen if you ask a question and then you close that people will be able to connect with you and continue with your discussion so that it is much more clearer. Lot of times people miss this and they get rejected even when they do a good interview. They don't know how to close the loop and ask a question to get a connect or get a contact or get a feedback from the recruiter. Because recruiters are recruiting hundreds of people like you, right? They don't keep you in the mind, why would they keep you? But you should have a excel sheet name of the person whom you're talking with, contacting with. Make sure you follow up with them. Then and only you will get to get the connect and contact further. Because 90% of the students, what I hear, they tell something in the interview. But the point is they are not able to take it forward for the next step by asking right question. Maybe if the interview is little not selected also you should be asking that question why I have not selected? Can you tell me exactly where I missed? That becomes the input for your next interview, right? People don't even ask this. That is a big problem. If you are able to complete this process without expecting any results, without expecting any kind of what you call surprising results, you will learn lot of things when you attend interviews after interviews and soon you will be cracking best interview guys. But when you expect a result on the first time itself, what will happen is it will disappoint you. You will not be in the learning mindset to correct yourself or improve the feedback or understand what is the HR or The recruiter is expecting so that you will be in a different zone and they will be in a different zone. The job market will be in the different zone, right? So that is why the open mindset towards learning in that process is very important. Whenever you have the mindset to learn in interview, no problem guys. Whether if you're selected or not, you will have the same mindset. And most probably if you tune into that attitude, definitely in the coming two, three interviews, you will be able to see a huge difference. Mostly you will get selected. People are finding it difficult to tune to this mindset. They expect some results immediately. Hey Jagdish. I have attended interview. I have attended four interview. Nobody selected. They people have told me get back to you, get back to you. I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you. Gone. That kind of a depression should not be there. You should always talk about your feedback. Get the input from the recruiter, ask where you went wrong and close that interview properly. Make sure you follow up with that recruiter. Maybe in the future opportunity. See your list is getting bigger, right? Okay, I attended 10 interviews. Nobody selected me. But I have 10 different HR contacts. So that you can contact after a month or so I can ask them whether vacancy is there or not. Okay. I can able to give one more interview chance. Because you got that contact, right? You don't have to connect to the new person now. So take it in a positive way and go forward. Okay. So if you really like this podcast, please implement all this information what I told you. Because hearing to this podcast will not change you anything. Or maybe liking this podcast will not change you anything. You should be able to write it down, the script, whatever I told in this podcast and take action and practice this project presentation in 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 30 seconds, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute and even 40 second elevator pitch. Nobody can able to touch you guys. Okay? Because practice and consistency will make you success. I'll tell you one small story. Sachin Tendulkar, whenever he's practicing cover drive. Okay. You know Sachin Tendulkar's cover drive, right? Put it in YouTube, you will see. What is that? It's a very difficult shot. What a cricketer faces difficulty to play with. But when Sachin is practicing this stroke, his coach used to say every single day Sachin, you need to practice this. Because if you wanted to really master this particular stroke, consistency and practice will only give you. You know what? From that day on, Sachin did not even leave one day without practicing this stroke. Even if he is staying in some hotel or traveling somewhere used to hang the ball in the socks and then he used to beat and then practice his cover train. That is why he is called God of Cricket. You know best Australian players. You know I like really Australia cricketers but because they are very very very professional and I'm very big fan of Ricky Poynting. Mark Walk, Steve Walk. These people itself have commented on Sachin that if you if Sachin plays a cover drive, people can able to go and draw a line. That is where people will able to respect you guys. If you're able to practicing your self introduction, your project, your pitch, your thing again and again and again every single day, nobody will be able to disengage in your conversation. People will be very interested to talk to you and you can really engage anybody else. Okay? So remember the Sachin story. Remember the consistency and practice because consistency and your efforts will be able to compound itself in a greater way. Okay, thank you so much guys. Thank you for staying tuning in this podcast. Take care. All the best. Bye bye Sam.