Crafting Your Elevator Pitch as a Product Designer

How to concisely explain your background and qualifications by hitting a few key points.

Hey there! I’m Nicole, and I’m a product designer. I write this newsletter to share my experiences and lessons learned through my work as a product designer.

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“Tell me a little about yourself.”

You’ll hear this phrase a lot throughout the product design interview process – from the design recruiter to the hiring manager and all the other folks you’ll be speaking with.

Usually, this statement starts off a longer conversation around your experience, background, skills, interests, and career. To segue into that, you want to first provide an introduction that accomplishes the following: 

• Paints a descriptive picture of your professional background

• Provides the interviewer with an overview of your experience

• Indicates any important points that the rest of the conversation can be focused on

However, you might be wondering what exactly to say – what details to include, what to leave out, and how to introduce yourself in a way that hits the points that your interviewer is looking for. 

In this post, I’ll be going over the structure of an effective elevator pitch as a product designer. I’ve used this format throughout all of my interviews, and it’s always been helpful in setting up the rest of the interview and conversation for success. Even if you’re not actively interviewing, this structure can be used in other mediums like your LinkedIn summary, the About page on your portfolio, and more. Let’s get into it! 👇

Points to hit within your elevator pitch

To respond to the “Tell me a little about yourself,” prompt, you should cover the following:

Your name, career, and location

It’s helpful for your interviewer if you start your introduction with some basic information about yourself. Something as simple as “I’m Nicole, and I’m a product designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area,” establishes a few important points:

• Your preferred name (and how to pronounce it, if helpful).

• How you describe your career. While it might seem straightforward, there are a lot of different nuances within the profession – so it’s helpful to clarify exactly how you identify your work. Especially if your current job title differs from the role you’re applying for, this helps your interviewer understand the discrepancy (for example, my last role was “Lead Designer,” though I was seeking product design roles).

• Where you’re located. As more companies move toward a fully remote workplace, establishing where you’re based out of helps your interviewer understand what time zone you’re in and how your compensation might reflect your geographic location, among other things. (It can also be a nice conversation starter, in case your interviewer has anything in common!)

Examples

“I’m Nicole, and I’m a product designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

“I’m Eric, and I’m a product designer focused on design systems, based in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Your current role and background 

After the first sentence, you can start getting into your professional experience. This section should include:

• Your current role (which should match the most recent job on your resume)

• The company you work for and how long you’ve been there 

• (Optional) Any promotions or role changes you’ve had during your time

• (Optional) Any previous roles you’ve had that are relevant to the current job

If you’re not working full-time at the moment, or your current experience doesn’t quite match these points above, you can focus on the most recent, relevant professional experience you’ve had. Usually, this should match the most recent job listed on your resume, so the recruiter can follow along (as they’ll likely have your resume pulled up on their end).

Example

“Currently, I work as a [title] at a company called [Company], where I’ve been for [number] years.”

High-level description of your company as it relates to your experience

Unless you’ve worked at larger and more publicly-known companies, you can infer that your interviewer might need some help understanding the company you work for, and therefore what kind of product and design experience you’ve had. This is an opportunity to explain your background in specific terms that will be relevant to your interviewer.

I recommend briefly summarizing any important, high-level details about the company (especially from a product perspective) and then tying those back to your own experience and contributions. Here are some points you can include:

• The overall mission of the company (summarized succinctly). No need to read off something super formal or canned, but including any basic definition of what the company does is helpful for your interviewer to understand.

  • With this point, it can also be helpful to mention who are the users you’re designing for. Are you focused on users with certain characteristics, or a certain kind of business? Including mention of that, in as simple terms as possible (and leaving out any jargon), showcases your awareness of the product.

• If the company/product is B2C, B2B, or both. Product design varies, depending on whether you’re designing for consumer or enterprise experiences; as such, giving an indication of this as representative of your experience helps your interviewer see how your experience can match (or differ) with the role.

• If you’ve worked on multiple products within the company’s ecosystem. Companies big and small tend to have multiple products within their sphere, and mentioning any experience you have with that will be a plus – it highlights your ability to think about multiple kinds of users, problems, and products.

Introducing the company and products in this way helps your interviewer understand what kind of products you’ve worked on. It also demonstrates an awareness on your part of the larger business and the business impact you’ve had. And lastly, it makes it easier for the interviewer to match your skills to the role in a one-to-one fashion.

Example

“To give you some context on my background, [Company] is a two-sided marketplace connecting [users] with [services]. So I’ve had the opportunity to work on a variety of B2C and B2B products within [Company]’s ecosystem.”

Characteristics of your experience related to the role

At this point, you can start diving into specific aspects of your experience that are relevant to the role. This depends on the job description of the role you’ve applied for, so I recommend doing your research and tailoring your elevator pitch for this part accordingly. 

Some points you can consider including, if applicable to your experience:

• Your experience working end-to-end throughout the full product design process – if you’ve had a hand in each step, including research, wireframing, high-fidelity visuals, testing, engineering collaboration, and go-to-market

• Your experience working as a sole designer

• Your experience working in a startup environment (or if your work environment has been fast-paced); if you’ve had to work independently, through ambiguity

• If you’ve worked on any projects especially relevant to the role, like third party integrations, ecommerce, etc.

Again, this section will depend on the role you’re interviewing for. But those bullets should give you some ideas about possible starting points!

Example

“Because it’s a startup environment, I’ve had experience working independently, through ambiguity, and iterating quickly. Most of the time, I’ve worked end-to-end, as the sole designer, managing the full product design process. We also integrate with a ton of third party partners, like [Partner Company], so I also work on projects to integrate them into our ecosystem.”

What you’re looking for next

To bring your elevator pitch in for landing, you can close with a high-level description of what you’re looking for after your current role, or why you’re looking to move on. 

Ending with this serves as a bridge between your experience and the role you’re interviewing for. It’s also helpful for the recruiter to know how your interests might align with the role at hand – or, if they differ, that they can discuss this with you further.

You should aim to focus this section around your professional growth as much as possible, rather than focusing on negative aspects of your current job. Here are some points to consider addressing:

• Industry: if anything about your current industry or the industry of the role you’re interviewing for interests you

• Team environment: if you have any preferences about what kind of team you’d like to be on

• Product experience: if you’re looking for specific experience working on a certain product or type of product 

• Skills: if you want to develop or grow any specific skills

If you’re in doubt, just keep it simple. Your interviewer will ask follow-up questions later on if they’d like to focus on it more.

Examples

“For where I’m at now, I’m looking for a new environment and opportunity that will challenge me.”

“I’ve had some projects in my current role of designing for hardware, and I’m looking to expand my experience in that going forward, which is what interested me about this role.”

“I’ve worked as a sole designer for the past two years, which has taught me a lot. Going forward, I’m looking to work in more of a team environment, where I can collaborate with other designers to refine my skills.”

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Putting it all together

In summary, your elevator pitch might look something like this:

“I’m Nicole, and I’m a product designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently, I work as a [title] at a company called [Company], where I’ve been for [number] years. 

To give you some context on my background, [Company] is a two-sided marketplace connecting [users] with [services]. So I’ve had the opportunity to work on a variety of B2C and B2B products within [Company]’s ecosystem. 

Because it’s a startup environment, I’ve had experience working independently, through ambiguity, and iterating quickly. Most of the time, I’ve worked end-to-end, as the sole designer, managing the full product design process. We also integrate with a ton of third party partners, like [Partner Company], so I also work on projects to integrate them into our ecosystem.

For where I’m at now, I’m looking for a new environment and opportunity that will challenge me.”

This provides a concise overview of your background, and it opens up the conversation to your specific experiences. You can follow the bullet points outlined above to tailor your elevator pitch to your own unique experiences and strengths.

And as always, practice makes perfect – try out your elevator pitch however works best for you, prior to your interviews. The goal is to sound casual, not rehearsed, so don’t forget to include pauses and speak conversationally. After you’ve done it a few times, you’ll feel more comfortable.

If you have an interview coming up – good luck, and you got this! 💪

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