Chapter 6. Recruiting and Hiring
A DESIGN ORGANIZATION NEEDS DESIGNERS, and it may surprise design leaders just how much effort they must expend recruiting and hiring. It’s not simply a matter of taking the time to hire top talent. Since the late 1990s, there has been a shortage of designers to meet demand. Even after the dot-com bust in 2001, there were always more positions open than designers to fill them. As we write this in 2016, the demand for designers is greater than ever, and that demand is only increasing. Given this competitive marketplace for talent, standard practices must be augmented with approaches tailored to the design profession.
Establishing Headcount
The process begins with opening positions to fill. Identifying those positions is part of annual planning, with mid-year adjustments as needed. The Head of Design works with their boss, their product, engineering, and marketing peers, as well as colleagues in Finance and Human Resources to establish headcount.
Calculating how many people the design organization will need is a bit of a black art, learned through experience and adjustments. Many companies use a “design to developer ratio.” The logic of the ratio is to maintain balance within product development. Too many developers and the designers are either spread too thin, or some initiatives don’t have design support. With too many designers, they get too far out in front of development, won’t see the results of their work implemented any time soon, and spin their wheels trying to keep busy.
There is no industry standard ratio, and it varies by organization, depending on the nature of the software and services offered. When making this calculation, exclude developers who are purely backend. With a focus on “product” developers, whose work has some user-facing manifestation, a good ratio is 1 designer to 5–10 developers.
While balance is important, relying solely on such ratios places design in a position subservient to engineering, as developer headcount in turn drives design headcount. Instead, use the ratio as a secondary factor, an indicator of the overall product development organization’s health.
The primary factor when figuring headcount should be annual program planning. The Head of Design and Design Program Managers work with each partner team to understand output, goals, and objectives for the year, estimate the resources needed to support that output, and get the requisitions opened.
This may mean that those partner teams need to lobby the finance organization on behalf of design. This proves particularly sensitive, and if the design organization treats this operational challenge without appropriate respect and attention, these convolutions will drive partner teams to cast doubt on the wisdom of the Centralized Partnership, lobbying to retain their own design resources. When handled well, the shared commitment between design and the partner teams grows even deeper, as the partner teams realize their fortune of having dedicated experts with far greater domain knowledge to handle their design challenges.
A problem arises when the source of funding (for example, a line of business) associates its funding with specific headcount (“For every $200,000 we give you, we expect our own dedicated designer”). This hampers the design organization’s ability to manage resources as it sees fit, which is a crucial loss of authority. It’s imperative that discussions with funding sources remain focused on output (“For this amount of money, we can deliver these programs with this impact”) and not headcount. Avoid letting people outside of the design organization determine its makeup.
Recruiting
The recruiting and hiring process warrants the same attention and intention as the design of any other experience. Do not mindlessly succumb to your company’s standard operating procedure.
Recruiting designers is different from recruiting other roles. Recruiters are often surprised to find that what works for other disciplines falls flat with designers. What follows are generalizations, so will not be true in all cases, but have been borne out over our careers in hiring. Generally, what we have learned is that designers want to do great work, work with interesting people, and get paid fairly for it, pretty much in that order. Keep in mind the following guidelines during the recruiting process:
- Make the approach humanistic
While no one wants to feel like a cog in a machine, designers are more sensitive than most to feeling subjected to bureaucracy. Many recruiting processes feel like filing taxes or hospital visits—filling out forms, submitting material into a faceless system, facing uncertainty as to when to expect a response, shuttling from handler to handler. Recruiters need to understand that designers are a different breed of employee, and require a softer touch, a less aggressive stance, and a sense of connection throughout the process. Make sure to provide a human touch at every step in the process. Beware of adopting approaches that make it easier for the recruiter, but less personable. Given the competitive talent market, it’s worth some internal friction and taking on extra work if it makes the experience more pleasant for the candidate.
- Money is table stakes, but not a strong motivator
This one is a little tricky, because it can be interpreted as “designers don’t care about money.” While that might be true for a few, most designers want good compensation for their work, particularly where the cost of living is high. That said, throwing money at designers does not guarantee they’ll accept an offer. In fact, many will find it suspicious, wondering what such largesse is masking. And while designers often struggle with financial matters—not sure how to negotiate compensation, unsure how to compare themselves to other roles—don’t exploit designers’ antipathy toward money. They will ask around, and if they feel like they’re being taken advantage of, the deal is off. Commit to making offers that are fair for the market, and focus time and effort on those factors that will drive their final decision.
- Emphasize the work to be done
For most designers, the primary motivation is the nature of what they will work on. Such inclinations vary widely—some designers love hairy content problems, others want to build complex enterprise software, and others crave sexy consumer experiences. Recruiting efforts should stress what makes the work compelling from a designer’s standpoint. When Peter was at Groupon, the stock was in a bad place and the company had relentlessly negative media coverage. However, he was able to direct attention to the interesting design problem, which was to figure out how to leverage Groupon’s success with daily deals and create other ways to connect shoppers and local businesses. Designers were attracted by the opportunity to deliver new features and functionality that created a marketplace, and the meaningful challenge of working with local businesses at scale.
- Explain the environment in which that work is done
While some designers are dedicated to solving problems in specific industries, such as healthcare or education, many designers can root out what is interesting in any sufficiently complex problem. So when they’re choosing between job options, they seek to better understand the environment in which they will work. Will they be expected to work on their own, or will they be part of a team? Are there opportunities to mentor or be mentored? What kind of authority and ownership will they have over their work? Is design respected within the organization? How does the company treat its employees? No one environment works for all designers. Be clear about its characteristics and let them decide.
- Be honest, even frank—don’t just tell them what they want to hear
Engaging with candidates reveals their preferences and desires. For design leaders hungry for talent, it can be tempting to tell candidates what they want to hear, to get them through the door and at a desk. However, if it contradicts what they then experience, the working relationship starts off on the wrong foot. That person is now less likely to suggest others to join, or may themselves be looking for exits, and the effort invested in bringing them proves for naught.
If a candidate makes clear they want to manage others, but there’s no opportunity for that in the foreseeable future, don’t tell them, “Oh sure, let’s discuss that in six months and see where we’re at.” Whatever the pain in losing a great prospect, say, “I don’t think we have a fit at this time,” and move on. If you bring that person on, even if they have been told there are not management opportunities, every discussion will be clouded by that management desire.
Be direct and honest about what it is like to work there. Don’t sugarcoat troubles. Don’t dwell on them either, but acknowledge them and make clear the steps being taken to address them. The design community can prove surprisingly small and tight-knit, and word gets around. Bullshit is found out.
Recruiting Is the Whole Team’s Responsibility
We all feel overworked. We all feel stretched too thin. We all want to focus on our primary responsibilities, and trust that others are handling theirs. Designers are already asked to do more than they have time for. So, design leaders are sensitive to taking their time away from their work.
But apart from the work itself, there is no more important activity for a team member than recruiting and hiring. Whom you work with plays a huge factor in your ability to succeed. Recruiting is time consuming, and the competitive talent market makes it only more so. Spread that effort across the team. The obvious benefit is that it lessens everyone’s burden. It also strengthens the team’s recruiting position. Designers like to talk to other designers, and so when team members are the ones reaching out and starting the conversation, it increases the chance of success.
Design leaders will have to help their team make the time to source, contact, and interview designers. It’s worth it. Design Program Managers and staff recruiters should help parcel out the work so no one gets overwhelmed.
If the team simply cannot make the effort to participate, then it falls on leadership to bear that burden, even if that means deferring other responsibilities. There is nothing more important for design leadership than to ensure an appropriately staffed team. Too often design leaders get caught in a vicious cycle (Figure 6-1).
Let some work slide in favor of recruiting. The temporary pain is worth the ultimate feeling of accomplishment when the team is on top of the work wave, and not drowning under it.
Sourcing Candidates
The first step in recruiting is sourcing. Great candidates can come from anywhere, and to build a design team in this competitive talent market, leave no stone unturned.
Schools and training programs
The last decade has seen an explosion of schools and training programs that teach software and service design. The advantage of recruiting from schools is that soon-to-be graduates do not have a professional affiliation and are eager to get one. However, hiring straight out of school is risky, as graduates typically have little to no professional experience, and only an academic understanding of design methods and skills. Before dedicating time to sourcing out of schools, the organization must be able and willing to do the hard work of professional development needed for graduates.
And while their numbers have increased, schools and training programs are not a sourcing panacea. School growth has not kept up with market demand, so competition for hiring top students is brutal.
Still, even with these caveats, school recruiting is worth the effort for many companies. When navigating this path, organizations must make a number of decisions to get the most out of the process.
Which schools?
Most programs dedicated to software and service design are found in one of three types of schools: art and design schools; engineering schools; and library and information science schools. The programs found in art and design schools draw upon classic studio design practice, and carry a variety of labels, including interaction design, media design, multimedia design, and digital design. Within engineering schools, the programs are usually found within a broader computer science program, and are typically called human–computer interaction (HCI), though some newer programs embrace the phrase “user experience.” At library and information schools, particularly those that have rebranded themselves “iSchools,” students receive degrees in “information management systems,” but their coursework resembles those who have studied HCI.
Generally, art and design schools ensure a classic design foundation, including color theory, composition, typography, and the like, and encourage a more generative approach to problem solving. HCI and information schools have a stronger technical bent, with students learning programming, managing data, and cognitive psychology, and follow a more analytical mode of problem solving. That said, as design for software and services professionalize, and as employers make clear what it is they are looking for, the difference between these programs grows subtler. Any decent program teaches basics such as user research and analysis, the use of schematic design tools such as workflows and wireframes, graphic design, and basic programming and prototyping.
Along with navigating the art and technology divide, organizations must also consider whether to hire out of undergraduate or graduate schools. Undergraduates are more predictable—the overwhelming majority attended right out of high school, are 21 or 22 years old, and have no meaningful professional experience except perhaps internships. With rare exceptions, undergraduates will be projects, committing to a real job for the first time, needing guidance not just in how to work in design, but simply be a professional in the world. Graduate students have far greater variance in their backgrounds, from those who came straight from undergraduate, to others who fell into design practice in the course of their professional lives and decided to formalize their knowledge and approach, to yet others who were non-design professionals and are using graduate school as a way to change their careers. Hiring out of grad school means improved chances of finding capable professionals, even mid- to senior-level talent.
Given the dozens of programs out there, the primary challenge is choosing where to expend time and effort. Within the United States, there are a handful of top schools, including[17] both Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design and its HCI program, IIT’s Institute of Design, Savannah College of Art and Design, the School of Visual Arts, the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, the University of Washington’s Human-Centered Design and Engineering, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Broadening to an international scope brings in the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, and the Royal College of Art in London.
It’s not a simple matter of targeting these top schools. The power law applies when it comes to recruiter attention paid to schools—the top 20% attract 80% of the interest. Companies like Google, Facebook, and IBM harvest their graduates. Focusing recruiting efforts on top schools means playing in a highly competitive space, trying to get noticed amid all the noise. It’s worth identifying one, maybe two such schools, and develop relationships with faculty and staff. Many schools encourage companies to sponsor their programs, and in return students work on real-world challenges those companies are facing.
Beyond that, those without the resources of a big aggressive company will realize greater returns when focusing on less renowned schools. How to navigate so many choices? One way is through the company’s alumni network. What schools did people attend? Do those schools have design and HCI programs? Alumni networks can be remarkably strong, and people often have fond memories and deep connections with their alma maters.
Another tactic is to engage with local schools. They might not be the country’s best, but they have the advantage of being right there. Less money spent on travel means more money to devote to other recruiting matters. Schools encourage relationships with local employers, and proximity enables deeper relationships. Schools appreciate any level of involvement, from guest lectures, to coaching and mentoring, to teaching classes. Developing a deep relationship with a school means engaging with students as they matriculate, providing a recruiting advantage for when they graduate.
Training programs
Accredited colleges aren’t the only source of design students. Training programs like General Assembly and Tradecraft cropped up in an effort to meet market demand across technical employment. Kind of like graduate school, these programs are typically for professionals looking to make a career change. Unlike graduate school, the programs are much briefer—12 weeks or so—and focused simply on job-related matters, as opposed to the more rounded education expected from a full degree program. Given the greater variety of the backgrounds of people who enter these programs, graduates are more variable than those from traditional schools. Also, while plenty of these graduates can deliver quality work, our experience is that these programs turn out more mediocre candidates than those from quality schools.
Career fairs
Most schools have career fairs for their students to meet prospective employers. Out of any aspect of school recruiting, these events give the greatest return for effort, as they provide the opportunity to meet a bunch of students in a limited time. Reach out to the school’s recruiting coordinator to get on the mailing list to find out about these events. Different schools schedule career fairs around the same time of year, usually late winter or early spring, which can be great for knocking out a bunch in a row.
Career fairs typically take place in some large room (a large classroom, a meeting hall, even a gymnasium) with a series of booths (or, rather, card tables), arrayed like a trade show floor. A common mistake is to staff booths only with full-time recruiters. While these people are preternaturally pleasant and have delightful smiles, students want to understand what it’s like to be on the team. A strong booth has one full-time recruiter (to handle logistics and set up and track candidates), one design manager, and one designer. If you can only afford to send two people, favor designers over recruiters.
The design manager is there to give a bigger picture view of what it’s like to work on the team, and to assess the prospective talent. The designer should be someone recently out of school themselves, ideally an alumnus, who can articulate the bridge between the college experience and the working world, and whom the students can closely identify with.
Make the booth attractive—we’re hiring designers here! A banner hung limply over a table and a pile of business cards will not draw students. Consider standing banners, iPads with the company’s work showcased, or even an HD display. Branded schwag is fun, but unnecessary—cheap-o sunglasses with a logo have swayed no one to work for a particular company.
Some career fairs provide opportunities for hiring companies to present to the whole student body. Prepare a deck that not only shows the work, but gives a feel for the company culture and environment. Have this deck built, and, even better, presented, by a member of your team who is a recent graduate, to strengthen that connection.
At the more competitive schools, some students receive offers on the spot. For those schools, seriously consider bringing a full recruiting team, as little is more frustrating than having met a great candidate at a Career Day, following up a couple days later, and finding out that they’ve already accepted an offer elsewhere.
If traveling, go for more than just the Career Day. Take time to get to know the students. Visit their studios, go out in the evening, and have fun. Avoid being the creepy old person hanging out with the youngsters,[18] but make an attempt to know them as people.
Internships
Hosting interns is a real company commitment, and shouldn’t be perceived as cheap labor that can replace full-time hires. These internships are paid, and in competitive markets, employers will have to pay well. Because interns typically lack professional experience, they may require more support than full-time employees.
For companies that can commit to such needs, the potential rewards are great. Internships are perhaps the single best and most stable source of new talent for a design team. Bring on as many interns as can be comfortably accommodated. This no-commitment trial is a great way for both student and employer to understand what it’s like to work together, and companies would be foolish to not take advantage of that. And these interns will go back to school, becoming ambassadors for the company. One single great intern experience can drive a broader interest in that employer.
Internships typically take one of two forms. One is for the intern to join an existing team and contribute in the flow of work just like any designer. The other is to set up a special project that takes place outside the normal flow of work, something too distracting for full-time staff to work on.
The benefit of the first is that nothing beats the actual, day-to-day experience of designing and delivering. The design team gets another pair of hands to chop wood and carry water. And the intern can point to a shipped product in their portfolio. The benefit of the second is that such special projects can be important and hard for the design team to otherwise find the time to do. For example, an intern may play with a new platform like Apple Watch or virtual reality. The uncertainty of the business value makes staffing full-time members unpalatable, but the potential of the new paradigm warrants exploration. This way, the design team gets to be involved in a strategic effort that could have significant ramifications. And the intern gets to drive a meatier project, practicing a wider array of skills than is typically asked from day-to-day work. The risk is that the work is either too secret to place in a portfolio, or never ends up getting produced after the intern leaves.
Crafting the Job Posting
Many design managers deplore writing job postings. It’s not clear they actually work. They all sound the same with their repetitive template of introduction, responsibilities, and qualifications. They’re riddled with bullet points. The probable hire is someone who doesn’t match the description. Why bother?
Given the competitive market, it’s important to employ every available tool. At heart, the job posting serves a simple purpose: it is a signal of looking for talent. People considering new work discover a company has something to offer. Take the time to craft the job posting right. Avoid mindlessly following the template, and figure out how to communicate about the specific opportunity in a compelling way.
The biggest challenge for a job posting is the balance of general and specific. Too general, and people don’t know what the job is. Potentially great candidates won’t see themselves in the posting and won’t apply. Many who do apply could reasonably figure they are suitable, even when they are inappropriate. If the posting is too specific, potentially qualified candidates who don’t fit every bullet point may not bother.
The role descriptions from Chapter 5, which were biased toward generalism, are a good place to start. Add color to make the posting specific to what is sought. Call out the specific team (“Buyer Team,” “Seller Team”) and project work (“dashboards, analytics, and other tools for sellers”) that this role will be expected to deliver. State reasons why this is an interesting problem to solve.
When identifying responsibilities, be clear as to the type of work you expect the person will do. Will this person span from strategy to surface, or be able to focus on particular areas of the experience? Keep the focus on activities (conducting user research, designing structures, leading teams, coordinating across functions, crafting a new visual language, prototyping design solutions), and try to avoid discussing process documentation (personas, wireframes, mood boards, comps, etc.).
When articulating qualifications, focus on accomplishments and meaningful skills. Avoid numeric requirements like “5–7 years leading design teams,” in favor of “Demonstrated track record of leading design teams that have shipped quality software across web and mobile.” Instead of the uninspired and obvious “good presentation and communications skills,” try “can frame strong rationales for design decisions that persuade peers and executives.” Only mention tools (“Mastery of Adobe Creative Suite”) in junior or execution-specific roles; if listed in more senior roles, candidates may assume the company doesn’t take design seriously.
While the primary placement for job postings is the company’s website, they take on lives of their own on job-related sites like Indeed, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor. Make sure the posting contains context about the company, its mission, and its values.
Apply an iterative mindset to the creation and publication of a job posting. Gauge the response to the ad, and tweak it to attract more desirable candidates. Approximate A/B testing by trying different messages, emphases, and ordering. Until the job is filled, revisit the posting regularly.
Online Services
Colleges and job postings will turn up some solid candidates, but will not be sufficient. To build a solid pipeline requires connecting with “passive candidates.” This is the industry term for poaching. Reach out to people working elsewhere, who have yet to make explicit their interest in leaving. Many within the design community find this kind of cold-calling distasteful, reeking of aggressive sales practices. The thing is, it works. It’s a slog, and most effort will lead nowhere, but when approached with savvy, it can turn up great candidates.
The primary means for passive sourcing are online services, and the 800-pound gorilla as of this writing is LinkedIn. To successfully source candidates on LinkedIn requires building a substantial first-degree network. Be honest and authentic. Don’t become a living embodiment of the universal New Yorker cartoon caption, “Hi, I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” (coined by designer Frank Chimero[19]). Your connections are your reputation on the system, and adding them willy-nilly weakens your network.
When looking to fill a role, comb your first two degrees on LinkedIn looking for possible candidates or people who might be able to help find candidates. With a robust first degree, the second degree will be too big to page through, so apply filters intelligently. Use the job title filter to find people with titles similar to the role. Location is important, too, but don’t assume that the best passive candidates are nearby. If the role is in a “geographically desirable” location (e.g., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York, Austin, London, Berlin), those overheated talent markets often mean top designers have settled into happy work contexts and are not compelled to leave. Consider looking for talent where things aren’t so hot—many people in those areas are intrigued by the opportunity to move to a more happening locale.
The smart use of filters will provide a manageable set of profiles. When reviewing, look at job history to chart someone’s professional evolution, both in terms of roles and companies. Accomplishments and achievements tell more than someone’s self-assessment of their skills. Many designers on LinkedIn have links to their portfolio, underneath the “Contact Info” tab on their profile (we don’t know why this crucial piece of information is buried). If they don’t have a portfolio, that might be a sign that they’re not looking. If the person’s background is strong, though, reach out to ask for one. We’ll discuss how best to reach out in the next section.
Whereas LinkedIn serves as a general recruiting tool, there are a number of online services specifically aimed at designers, such as Coroflot and Behance. Perhaps the most commonly used is Dribbble, a show-and-tell space for designers to upload their “shots,” and receive feedback from others. Though founded as a designers’ community, the global hunt for design talent has turned it into a resource for finding designers. However, when recruiting off of Dribbble (or any similar service), be mindful of how work is represented. Many online portfolio sites elevate style over substance, and encourage a superficial appreciation of design.[20]
Reaching out to prospective candidate
With a set of promising prospects identified, the next step is to reach out and tell them about the opportunity. As the old Head & Shoulders shampoo ad reminds us, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This initial communication sets the tone, and if handled poorly, can turn the prospect off before there has been any chance to engage.
If possible, do not have a recruiter conduct the initial reach out. Given the competition for talent, designers are besieged by recruiter calls and emails. Most recruiters don’t understand design, relying on obvious superlatives about “an amazing opportunity” at a “great place to work.” Designers tune out such inquiries just to manage their own sanity.
Instead, have the initial contact done by a member of the design team. It’s best for it to be someone at a similar level—junior designers reaching out to other junior designers, senior to senior, manager to manager. Designers usually enjoy talking to one another, and a connection from someone like that feels more genuine. If designers simply don’t have time for such communications, then design managers and directors can handle this.
When reaching out, be concise and clear about the opportunity. Find a sweet spot between being too vague and brief, and verbose and long-winded.
Hi! I saw your profile on LinkedIn. We’re looking for a Senior Product Designer, and I think you could be a fit for the role! Apply here: http://companyexample.com/careers/spd
Do:
Hi, I’m John Doe, a Senior Product Designer at CompanyExample. I saw your portfolio and really dug your work on that mobile ticketing app. I also noticed that we have Samantha Jones and Colin Yang in common.
We have a Senior Product Designer role open here, to lead work on our Android App. We’re looking to embrace Material Design, which you’re clearly very familiar with.
I really like working here, and would love to talk to you more about it, if you’re interested. If not you, maybe you know someone I could reach out to?
Remember, designers are getting hammered by such inquiries. Give the person a week to respond. If they don’t, follow up with one more outreach. Then let it go.
External Recruiters
When personal connections no longer turn up viable candidates, it is time to work with an external recruiter. These people typically work on a contingency basis—they are paid only when someone they found is hired (and there are usually stipulations that the person must stay at the company for a certain period of time). Using external recruiters is an expensive proposition—typical contingency fees are 20%–25% of the first year’s salary.
The best recruiters are constantly networking, developing relationships with designers, and helping them advance in their careers. They know when designers are looking before anyone else. They are helpful when the hiring company has some tarnish. When Peter worked at Groupon, bad press and a low stock price made direct contact with designers difficult, as they would be turned off by the brand name. Those same designers will speak with trusted recruiters, who could make clear how desirable the opportunity was.
External design recruiting firms fall into a few different categories:
- Big Recruiters with a “design practice”
Global recruiting firms like Robert Half and Robert Walters now feature design practices. Companies already working with such a firm for other roles will be tempted to use them for design as well. Never select a recruiter by default. Much of what works in recruiting for other disciplines does not apply to design. Make sure the recruiter understands this, and doesn’t apply a one-size-fits-all approach. If they’re approaching designers the same way they approach engineers, marketers, and salespeople, take a different path.
- Creative staffing agencies
We won’t name specific companies because, to be frank, these recruiters are the least pleasant to engage with, and have done the most to give design recruiting a bad name. Representatives from these firms hound hiring managers, relentless in their sales. They do very little filtering of candidates, primarily serving as a clearinghouse for people looking for work. The quality of the candidates is highly variable, and on average, subpar. Unless you have no other options in your area, steer clear of such companies.
- Small design-focused shops
In our experience, these have been the best firms to work with. With just one, two, or maybe three recruiters, these firms provide high levels of service, getting to know you, your business, and what you’re looking for. They also actively network with their local design community, and understand who is available and what they’re looking for. They pride themselves in only proposing candidates who will likely be brought in to interview—no onslaught of résumés and portfolios to wade through. Given their higher touch approach and their smaller size, no one such shop will be able to help staff a whole team quickly, the way the Big Recruiters might. But when you’re looking for just the right candidate, and if you’re willing to pay someone else to do much of the legwork, this is the best option.[21]
Networking
A challenge for more introverted designers and design leaders is that a key to recruiting success is ABN—Always Be Networking. Pretty much every city has a local meetup scene, whether affiliated with a professional organization like the AIGA, IxDA, CHI, or UXPA, or a less formal “designers with drinks.” Get on the mailing lists for these groups, and take the time to attend events and meet people. Making your presence felt is valuable.
Not only should leaders be going to meetups—they should also host. It is best to host at the company’s offices, if there is a gathering space suitable for a presentation and it can fit a decent number of people. Inviting people into a space is a great way to advertise interest in hiring, and the design team can present its best self. When hosting, offer food and drinks, and make sure people have time to meet one another—don’t make it all about a presentation. Be mindful not to sell too hard, but also don’t be too shy—when giving over space to a local professional organization for an event, it’s expected that the host engage in some self-promotion.
Reviewing Portfolios
The most important representation of a designer’s career is not their résumé, but their portfolio. Design managers end up reviewing dozens, if not hundreds, of portfolios for any role.
For those designers who do not have public portfolios, ask to see one. Any designer under consideration must have a portfolio. No portfolio means no job. For software design roles, be wary of static portfolios (e.g., PDFs). Product designers should be familiar with basic web technologies, whether it’s handcoded and self-hosted, or using a service like Squarespace, WordPress, or Coroflot. It’s more acceptable for communication designers to have static portfolios.
“Reading” a portfolio is a skill developed through experience. Hiring managers develop their own individual sense of what to look for, and this can vary depending on the role under consideration. The best portfolios should provide not only explanations of work, but should give insight into the personality of the designer as well. Be wary of portfolios that only show glossy images of the final product—design work takes work, and these cases should have a compelling narrative about the constraints and goals for the project, the role they played relative to others, and how they and their team arrived at the ultimate solution. However, a key failing of many interaction design portfolios is they overwhelm the reader with documentation, and while understanding the process is important, nothing is more important than the final result and the impact it had. Pay attention to the interface design of the portfolio itself. This work is solely under the designer’s control, and reveals their personal design principles. An interface that attempts to be cool and innovative but proves onerous and obscure is a telling signal.
With practice, it’s possible to screen a portfolio in 3–5 seconds. The bottom 60% are atrocious and not worth your time. They are easy to dismiss. A few, maybe 3%–5%, are brilliant, and while they might be fun to dig into, it’s technically not necessary—this is a person to talk to. The next 10%–15% are good, and warrant exploration, to confirm the designer is aligned with the role. Trickier are the next 15%–20% of portfolios that may be solid, but for whatever reason are harder to parse. Maybe the candidate is more junior, and there’s just not a lot to go on. Maybe they are coming from a different field, so they have a weak software design portfolio, but are strong in other disciplines. Whatever the factors, it’s worth following up on these prospects, looking for that diamond in the rough.
The Candidate Review Process
Once a candidate has responded with positive interest, the process shifts into a formal candidate review. While there might be occasional deviations from the norm, we have found it best to remain faithful to this approach. Shortcutting the process increases the chance of bringing on someone who proves unsuitable. But don’t belabor it. While it can feel like there’s no harm in being extra careful, there are points of rapidly diminishing returns in this process, and overdoing it can both waste the design team’s time and be a turn-off for the candidate.
With all the attention paid to the candidate’s experience throughout this process, it’s crucial to not neglect how it affects the members of the design team. Minimize their time investment for as long as possible, in case the candidate doesn’t measure up—there’s little as frustrating as spending a lot of time on a candidate who doesn’t pan out. Do not exclude them, but do not make their involvement a burden.
Initial Screens (by Phone or In-Person)
These are typically called “phone screens,” but if the person is local and willing to meet at a convenient time and place, it is often preferable to meet face to face. Conduct two initial screens. The first conversation is introductory. The candidate’s résumé and portfolio should have already provided a base sense of skills and capabilities, so probe other factors. Get a sense of the candidate, their background, and their career trajectory. Share more specifics about the opportunity. Instead of addressing specific design aptitude, look instead for the meta-qualities that will make someone successful—are they articulate, pleasant, and passionate? If it feels like there might be compatibility, and if time allows, have the candidate walk through one or two projects and describe their involvement on them.
The assessment made after the first phone screen can be more forgiving. From the standpoint of career, experience, and personality, does this candidate feel like a potential fit? If so, proceed to the second screen. This screen returns focus to their work, skills, and execution. The interviewer should dig deeply, and engage with a critical eye. Have one of the design team’s harsher critics conduct this conversation. The purpose is to ensure that only qualified candidates are brought in for the Day of Interviews, a time-consuming endeavor for the whole team. If after the portfolio presentation that kicks off the Day of Interviews, it is clear the candidate is a miss, the team is demoralized. They are committed to taking the time, as it’s inappropriate to ask the candidate to leave.
Day of Interviews
If the candidate makes it through the fine-meshed filter of the screening process, the next step is to bring them onsite. As is typical for other roles, conduct a Day of Interviews, where the candidate speaks with a variety of people. To get the most out of the conversations, there are certain practices to include, and one unfortunately common practice to exclude.
Portfolio presentation
Begin the candidate’s day with a 45- to 60-minute portfolio presentation. Everyone speaking later to the candidate should attend—this way the candidate doesn’t need to walk through their work over and over again. This also gives interviewers a chance to appreciate the candidate’s presentation skills, which are instrumental to a designer’s success. When preparing the candidate before the Day of Interviews, encourage them in their portfolio review to share some personal background, to dive deeper on fewer projects (as opposed to presenting a little about a vast array of work), and to leave some time for discussion.
If the location of the portfolio presentation has room for more attendees, open the invitation to the broader design team, with optional attendance. This has two benefits for team members: they can engage in the hiring process, even if they’re not conducting interviews; and it exposes them to new design work and how other people talk about it. A teaching opportunity emerges when design leadership’s assessment of a candidate’s work differs from their team members. This encourages explanations of what leadership is looking for, and helps team members develop and refine their review skills.
The interviews
Schedule a series of conversations with team members as well as key people outside of design. Limit the number of conversations to no more than six. A typical day for a product designer, content strategist, UX researcher, or design program manager would feature these interview participants:
Potential design team peers
The candidate’s probable manager
Product manager they would likely work with
Engineer they would likely work with
Design program manager
A communication designer would likely not speak to product management and engineering, but should definitely speak with people in marketing and copywriting.
For the peer interviews, feel free to have two on one. Such conversations can stoke camaraderie and gives the candidate a little more insight into whom they’d be working with. Keep the other conversations as one on one, either because of potential sensitivities (with a prospective manager) or because the people from different functions (engineering, product management) will have different avenues they want to explore.
Each conversation should have a natural set of topics, though the hiring manager will want to coordinate the interviews to ensure a complete picture develops. Make sure potential design peers probe across matters of process, skills, collaboration style, behavioral traits (how the candidate performs under certain situations), and personality and cultural fit. If the hiring manager conducted the first phone screen, then this onsite conversation is an opportunity for the candidate to take the lead and ask questions. If this is the hiring manager’s first contact, they should probe on personality and cultural fit, and be mindful of professional development and career interests. Product managers will seek to understand the designer’s “product sense,” and appreciation for matters other than design. Engineers dig in to technical understanding, and also what it would be like to collaborate. Design program managers assess communication style, organization skills, structure of approach, and general fit.
Coordinating feedback
This is an area where what works for the rest of the organization pretty much works for design. Interviewers need to submit feedback in a timely fashion (i.e., within 24 hours), making clear what they discussed, what their impressions were, and how strongly they feel about hiring or not hiring the candidate.
Even if the company does not otherwise conduct debriefs, where the interview panel meets in person to discuss their interviews, do so for design candidates. The newness of design as a corporate function comes into particular play in the hiring process. Many people, especially those outside of design, will not have interviewed designers before. Everyone benefits from understanding each other’s assessments. It helps the whole organization as it figures out how to hire for these roles.
The debrief should also be timely, ideally the following day, but no more than three days after the interview. The panel should read one another’s feedback before the debrief, or if they haven’t had time, at the beginning of the debrief. Most debriefs will be straightforward—across the board thumbs up or thumbs down. Be careful of tepid approvals, though—if there are no strong advocates for a person’s hire, that’s a sign of something being off, even if none of the feedback is negative.
A challenge arises when a candidate splits the panel, where some are strongly positive, and others are inclined not to hire. Navigating this is among the most heightened and sensitive tasks for a design leader, because there is nothing more damning than a mis-hire, especially where there’s evidence that not everyone was on board.
In most situations where there’s a split, the easiest decision is the same as the right decision—do not hire. Given how costly it is to make a hiring mistake, “better safe than sorry” is often an appropriate strategy. But it is not a universal, and how this is handled is one of those areas that distinguishes design leaders from design managers. If a design leader deeply believes in the potential of a candidate, and can identify flaws in the rationale of those who object, the design leader should make the case for why an offer ought to be extended to the candidate.
There are reasons for rejection that design leaders need to be wary of, and call out if they are the only impediment to hiring:
- Unfamiliar background or approach
Designers, particularly those with less experience, can be quite orthodox in how they evaluate other designers. They may be suspicious of any designer who doesn’t share their background or approach. An atypical background (maybe they didn’t study design in school), or unfamiliar approach (perhaps they don’t use typical design tools, or they’re unfamiliar with industry standard methods) can make panel members uneasy, because it’s not how they do it, and they don’t understand how other ways can be successful. The design leader’s role is to remind the panel of what is most important—results. If an unorthodox approach leads to great design work, the onus is on the team to figure out how they might be able to incorporate such different ways into their team. In fact, a willingness to consider people with atypical backgrounds provides two benefits: there will likely be less competition for that person (because other companies will also be hesitant with the unfamiliar); and the incorporation of new ways of working will increase the team’s diversity of perspective, enabling even better work.
- Awkward communicators
If the interview process has one crucial drawback, it would be its reliance on conversations as the primary medium of understanding. The portfolio review mitigates this somewhat, but one of the things any candidate is being tested on when talking to people over the course of a day is how well they communicate. Many talented designers are not good oral communicators. It might even be part of the reason they got into design—being more comfortable with pictures than words. People who are awkward communicators (and good designers) often process the world differently than others, and that difference can actually make for a stronger team by bringing in uncommon ways of working and thinking. Also, communication and presentation skills can be taught and improved.
- Candidate is a little weird
Maybe they talk fast or loud. Maybe they have some uncommon obsessions. Maybe they demonstrate unbridled enthusiasm or a lack of social graces. Whatever it is, you will interview candidates that are a little weird. Don’t let that weirdness be a turn-off. In fact, lean in to your team’s weirdness. If a design team can’t bring weirdness into a company, who can? If people on the interview panel grow wary when candidates let their freak flags fly, reorient their thinking to the quality of that candidate’s work, and whether they think the candidate will be truly disruptive (and not just a little strange).
Reference Checks
An underused tool in the hiring process is the reference check. When the interview panel is split on a candidate, what better source of information than people who have worked with that person before? Reference checks won’t reveal much about skills or capabilities (the portfolio does that), but should help in understanding what it’s like to work with that person—their communication style, how they are as a leader or collaborator, whether they get along well with others, if they are headstrong, whether they are generally positive or negative, and so on.
Many people dismiss these checks because the references come from the candidate, and of course the candidate will only connect you with people who will give a positive impression. In our experience, these conversations can still be revealing, as long as you are specific in the information you seek. Don’t ask general questions like “What’s it like to work with her?” Focus on what came up in the candidate debrief, and ask specific question such as the following:
“What were her strengths as a team lead? Her weaknesses?”
“How did she help you in your work?”
“How was she in working with engineers and product managers?”
“Were I to hire this person, what would I need to do as her manager to help her be successful?”
Thanks to LinkedIn, mutual connections can be found that weren’t listed as a formal reference. These “back-channel” references are more likely to be frank, and the feedback will prove more convincing to the interview panel.
Making the Hire Decision
It’s now time to make a decision—will the candidate receive an offer? Roughly 90% of the time, the answer will be a clear “yes” or “no.” That remaining 10% is where it gets tricky. The hiring decision might be where a manager has the greatest impact. So, about 80%–90% of the time within that 10%, it’s probably best not to hire, no matter how badly the team needs to grow. It can be seductively easy to rationalize that extending the offer is the right thing to do. Hiring managers should listen to their hearts, even their guts, rather than their heads.
Sometimes the gut encourages a positive hiring decision that seems contrary to better judgment. Listen to that, too. The occasional risk is worth it, because the potential reward can be enormous.
It’s important that the hiring manager have authority for making this decision. They should seek counsel from all around, but these folks need to be able to build their teams as they see fit.
Contract-to-Hire
Sometimes, it is hard to let someone go, but an out-and-out offer is infeasible. Maybe the person is pretty junior, so they just don’t have enough of a track record to rely on, but have shown some promise. Maybe the person is senior, and not quite suited to the role applied for, but a different role might be a fit. This is the time to broach the option of a contract-to-hire, where someone comes on board in a contract capacity (typically for three months), after which a decision is made to keep the person on full-time or to cut ties.
Extending the Offer
When the decision to hire has been made, work with the internal recruiting team to put together an offer. Make sure the offer is fair. Many companies use some service to peg their salaries with a market standard. Designer-specific compensation is the subject of O’Reilly’s Design Salary Survey (http://www.oreilly.com/design/free/2016-design-salary-survey-report.csp) and Coroflot’s Design Salary Guide (http://www.coroflot.com/designsalaryguide). Candidates are likely talking to multiple companies, and will probably receive multiple offers. Being cheap demonstrates a lack of commitment and investment in design, and a sure way to have a candidate turn down the offer.
That said, don’t go overboard with generosity, either. Remember, while a fair salary is table stakes in a candidate’s decision of where to go, offering more money doesn’t necessarily increase the likelihood of their acceptance. Designers are motivated by other factors, such as the specific work they’ll be doing, and the people with whom they’ll be working. If you’re able to compete on those factors, the salary can be market average and that should be fine.
In technology companies, or others who are competing hard for the best talent, equity is often a component of compensation. In our experience, if there is a need to increase compensation (for example, the candidate has received multiple strong offers), recognize that most designers are affected more by money than equity (whether stock options or restricted stock units). They often dismiss compensation that isn’t hard cash, either because they don’t understand equity, or they’ve been burned by it before. We’ve seen very generous stock offers rejected out of hand, particularly when other companies were offering cash components like bonuses. When explaining to a candidate the compensation calculation when it comes to stock, be prepared to be met with blank stares.
If someone other than the hiring manager communicates the offer, the hiring manager should reach out to the candidate immediately after the offer has been extended. If communication happens only through an HR functionary, the candidate loses their connection to the design team. It’s important to maintain that connection, and to be available to answer any questions or address any concerns. Work with the recruiting partner to make sure the candidate is not overwhelmed with communication, and that all discussions with the candidate are consistent.
Ideally, the candidate accepts the offer, no questions asked. Practically, it’s rarely so smooth. For whatever reason (multiple offers, contentment at current job, uncertainty about relocation, etc.), there will likely be some negotiation about the offer. The two most common sticking points are money and role. With money, if the candidate has a higher competing offer, work with the recruiter to determine the maximum counter. If your offer is fair, consider one-time expenditures that demonstrate your commitment, such as signing or relocation bonuses. If the candidate still chooses elsewhere because of money, they probably would not have been right for the team.
Often, it’s not the salary but the role that becomes the subject of negotiation. The offer is for a Product Designer title, but another company is willing to call them “Senior Product Designer.” Or they want promises of management or leadership responsibility that weren’t part of the role definition. These are potentially sensitive cultural matters, and it’s important to hold firm. It’s better to be up-front and not see a hire through than to prevaricate and disappoint them later. Giving someone an inflated title in order to land them sends ripples through the design team—current staff members wonder why someone with less experience has a more senior title, there’s confusion around performance reviews about how to judge the candidate, and the candidate has an inflated sense of entitlement. If someone is not senior, tell them that, and be clear as to why. If a role definition proves make-or-break in negotiations, walk away from such discussions with head held high—it’s a sure sign of a lack of fit for the team.
It’s Not a Sprint, It’s a Marathon
Recruiting and hiring take a lot of time. There are no silver bullets that make it easy, speed it up, or guarantee a higher hit rate. It’s work. Disregarding the process and guidelines shared in this chapter will lead it to feeling not only like a marathon, but one through mud, wearing ankle weights.
A candidate accepting an offer provides a brief respite from this toil. Celebrate, then get ready for them joining the team (onboarding is discussed in Chapter 8). But recognize that even with the opening filled, the process of recruiting is never finished. Keep working on other open reqs. If there are none, design leaders must still be prepared for the contingency of a member leaving their team. While sourcing and interviewing might not be happening at all times, networking and talent identification are ongoing activities, even if they move to the background when there are not specific roles to fill.
[17] ...but not limited to, so please don’t send hate mail if your alma mater is not listed!
[18] Cue Steve Buscemi, “How do you do, fellow kids?” GIF.
[19] Frank wrote about his silly journey with the caption in “Hi, I’d Like to Add Myself to The New Yorker” (http://www.frankchimero.com/writing/new-yorker/).
[20] This unfortunate tendency is aptly critiqued in the essay “The Dribbblisation of Design” (https://blog.intercom.io/the-dribbblisation-of-design/) by Paul Adams of Intercom.
[21] The number of firms doing this worldwide would be too long to list. We’ve had great experiences with Talent Farm (http://www.talent-farm.com), which focuses primarily on the San Francisco Bay Area, and Amy Jackson (http://elegant.ly), who primarily works with startups. Ask around and find the people in your area!