The Stage Two Kit

You've got the portfolio. You're still losing at stage two.

Most interview advice is written by people who haven't sat in a UK hiring loop recently. This is the structure, the traps, and 24 answers you fill in with your own work — because interviewers aren't assessing whether your design was good. They can't. They weren't there. They're assessing whether you can be trusted with ambiguity in front of other people, and that's a structure problem, not a talent problem.

What's inside — 26 pages, 9 parts

• The six-slide portfolio walkthrough, timed to 14 minutes — because you'll be interrupted twice and lose five minutes to Teams
• The whiteboard challenge, decoded — what's actually scored, and the four traps that are set deliberately
• 24 STAR answers across 8 competencies, each tagged with what's being scored and the trap that sinks it
• The accessibility and design system questions where candidates answer one level below their experience
• A three-source method for a real, current salary range — plus scripts for the five moments money comes up
• How senior case studies read differently from mid-level ones, and what to do when the work is confidential
• How senior roles actually get filled — referrals, recruiters, events — for people who hate networking
• A diagnostic: match where you keep losing to the one thing to fix
• 
  

Plus a 34-page fill-in workbook. 

Same structure, blanks left for you. Print it or type into it — reading changes nothing, filling it does.

Who it's for: 

UK UX designers with 3+ years, applying mid to senior. If you're building your first portfolio, this isn't it — get something else first.

Written by a Senior UX Designer working across five concurrent NHS programmes. Not a career coach — a working designer's notes, cleaned up.

No salary figures printed inside. Any number would be wrong by the time you read it, and a wrong number anchors you against yourself — you get the method instead.

Not useful? Reply to your receipt. Refunded, no form, no reason needed.

Was £29 Now £19 · Instant download