How I landed a job at Miro

Insights and lessons from my jobsearch.

Heya,

As you're reading this, I'm starting my first day as a Product Designer at Miro. You might remember that I wrote a post at the beginning of the year about visualising your dream job.¹ Well, I put that strategy to the test and landed a job at a company I'm a big fan of!

Even though it all ended well, the job search definitely wasn't a walk in the park. Moving to a new city means understanding a new market with little to no network to rely on. Adding mass lay-offs and a wonky economy on top, you find yourself in a very challenging job search.

In this newsletter, I'll give you the full story of how I went about my job search, the mistakes I made, and what I've learned. I hope you find it helpful.

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Step 1: Get a good strategy in place.

I began casually checking job openings by the end of 2022 and started actively searching from the beginning of 2023. When I started my job search, I already defined the kind of roles and responsibilities I was looking for and had a list of companies in mind that I'd like to work for.

I actually saw the role I now have at Miro before I really started looking and applied early as one of the first ones in my job search. More on that later, though.

To give you an idea, this was the profile of "the ideal role" I was looking for:

• A midlevel to senior role.

• Salary should be at least what I'm making now.²

• No e-commerce anymore, unless it's a company with an outstanding customer experience where I can learn a lot.

• A company that creates products and services that fit my values and interests.

• European work culture (I'm not about that 24/7 hustler life).

• Ideally remote, preferably hybrid work setup.

Main takeaway: Get a clear idea of what you're looking for before you start searching, so that you can focus your time and energy.

Step 2: Confronted with the ugly reality.

Soon after my job search started, I realized how competitive the market was and how difficult it was to find job openings - never mind job openings that fit my ideal. Looking for jobs on LinkedIn was demotivating as I could see that almost all job openings already had at least 50+ applicants, some even up to the hundreds.

Promising job openings all had 100+ applicants, which was not a very motivating sight

I decided to expand my search and also apply to roles that didn't meet all my requirements, to better understand the market and my position.

With this strategy I landed a few interviews, though they weren't very promising. One interview started with "Actually, you're not what we're looking for" (then why invite me and waste both our time?), another one offered a ridiculously low salary and a third one withdrew because there was no budget for a new position after all. Recruiters were quick to offer their help but even quicker to ghost me if their open positions were filled in the meantime.

All the while, no sign from Miro, and I thought they'd probably already found someone among the many applicants that LinkedIn showed me.

Main takeaway: Get a feel for the market by expanding your search criteria. Occasionally interview for a job even when you're not genuinely interested to learn more about what they're looking for and gain insight into salary ranges. However, be mindful not to do this too much to respect the time of hiring managers.

Step 3: Panic, even though you know you shouldn't panic.

I usually tell UX beginners to be intentional with their job search and focus on quality instead of quantity. I was humbled and found out how hard it actually is to follow this mantra.

After seeing that more and more companies on my shortlist weren't hiring anymore or were hiring for only very specific roles, I started to panic and, for a little while, fell into the trap of applying to anything that sounded remotely okay.

Unsurprisingly, this led to many rejected applications or applications that I later cancelled because they weren't a good fit.

Main takeaway: Don't let panic get to your head. Take a break when you need to and avoid a shotgun approach as it will only consume time and energy without likely leading to good opportunities.

Step 4: Regaining my cool.

There were a few very promising leads that led to further interviews. However, the biggest surprise was that Miro eventually reached out to me - a good month after applying and at a point where I was already moving on.

I was happy to jump on a call and even happier when I made it to the next round.

Main takeaway: Be patient - sometimes it takes longer for companies to get back to you. If you haven't heard anything after 1-2 weeks, reach out again.

Step 5: Put it all on black.

All of a sudden, the situation changed. I was now interviewing for multiple jobs. This was not sustainable because interviewing for jobs is a full-time job in itself. Sadly, the whole "5 rounds of interviews" is still a thing. That ultimately made me decide to cancel most other job opportunities as I progressed in the interview stages with Miro.

Cancelling other opportunities was definitely a gamble, and I was aware that in the worst case, I would end up with no offers at all. When I expressed my concerns during my interviews with Miro, they were very understanding. They helped me schedule interviews in a shorter timeframe so I would be able to get an answer as soon as possible.

Main takeaway: Trust your intuition. When a job opportunity is very promising, consider ways to free up time and really focus on that opportunity. However, be very cautious with taking a gamble and cancelling other opportunities too early. Personally, I communicate these things openly during the interview stages.

Step 6: Full-time interviewing.

The interview process itself was intense. In fact, I never had such a long interview process! It took around 6-7 rounds before I received an offer. I'm not sure if I would have gone through all these rounds if I wasn't this determined to secure the role. I definitely would not consider this anymore for future roles.

What can you expect from a job interview process? It usually goes a bit like this:

• Intro call

• Meet your leads/team

• Portfolio review

• Whiteboard challenge

• Meet other teams

• Offer stage

Main takeaway: Searching for a job is a full-time job in itself. Make sure to take breaks in between. If you don't know yet, make sure to ask how the interview process will look like during your first call with a company. Oftentimes, companies have blogs and videos explaining their interview process.

Step 7: A sigh of relief.

I signed a contract with Miro in March, three months after I started searching and one month after my initial call with Miro. I was relieved and happy when I signed the contract.

So, what's next? This is how I prepared for today - my first day at Miro:

• Reflected on what went well in my previous job and what I can improve on.

• Thought about what kind of relationship I want with work.

• Defined professional goals.

Whew, that was a long read. Thanks so much if you made it all the way to the end. I hope you found this useful. If you did and you want more stories like this, please leave a like (SMASH the like button 🔨). If you have any questions, leave a comment or reply to this email.

1. Visualise your dream job 🔮

2. I usually aim for a 10% increase, however as I didn’t know the market in the Netherlands I put initial salary goal to meet at least my salary in Germany.