It isn’t about your superpower. It’s about your origin story.

Interviewing for creative tech jobs is a wild world of interesting questions. After all, we love to interview humans, so what makes a human that we’ll be working with any different? Earlier in my career, I got this question a lot: “What’s your superpower?”

Years later and over a decade into my practice, I hear it a lot in my work - there’s a list of professional skills of which we have to have general and broad awareness and experience practicing, and then there’s the center of our “T” that represents a deep dive. There’s also a certain moment we can’t quite put a finger on, something on the tip of the tongue, and it makes us who we are. It defines our professional identity and lets us shine in a crowd of peers in the same role. It’s our superpower.

When I work with and mentor early-career associates, and we talk about their development, they always want to find their superpower. They see what others are best at. They want to dig deeply to replicate not necessarily the skill, but that magical piece of experience that makes the person valuable.

Defining a superpower, sure, is rewarding. It’s an opportunity for identity and some self-serving praise. It’s also a bit focused on the end state. It isn’t a bad aspect of oneself to understand, but it’s a bit superficial to me. I want to ask less of “What are you,” and more of “How did you get here?” Your work will show where you shine; your execution will hone your powers. Feel free to insert the superhero metaphor of your choice: The best superheroes are where they are because of their underlying origin stories.

Origin stories introduce the differentiator. They are a chance to be an outlier in the best ways - a thread to pull all the way through to the achievement ahead. To me, it’s process is what matters here. Finding the best fit and developing the best happens when I’m able to zero in on someone’s talents, reveal their hidden potential through understanding their backgrounds, and find the right stretch assignments to truly challenge a superpower to reveal itself.

I’m where I am because of my origin story. My story bends and turns and my narrative includes formal training and professional practice in art, psychology, research methods, statistics, behavioral addiction theories, education, curriculum, marketing, design, and business strategy. My origins help to define me. They give me a focus when I’m introducing myself, they allow me to develop more meaningful connections, and they also set the basis for what I do in my work today.

Human-centered design and user experience design demands that to see the truth of a product or experience, we must first understand the process. Applying the same methodology internally can have a similar impact. The process is the journey - the dependencies, pain points, and opportunities of a person’s own unique narrative. That origin story might help differentiate one’s talents and define where they’re going.