Full-Stack Designer - Currently building Grauberg, a design & strategy studio for Seed to Series A Startups
Hiring good designers is hard 🤨 Here are 5 things I look for when hiring designers: Will you ever find a designer you can trust? So many things can go wrong... 🔴 How do I read design portfolios? 🔴 How much do I pay them? 🔴 How can I make sure they are good? After reviewing over 400 design applications in the last 2 years, here's what I'm looking for: ✅ Great presentation skills, mainly as a portfolio ✅ The applicant asks questions about the product/service ✅ Great writing skills, especially in the application email or message ✅ Transparent pricing/salary expectations (they know their worth) ✅ Culture fit, familiarity with remote & async work (essential at Grauberg) What else should founders look out for when hiring designers? #hiring #uxdesign
Think it depends on your project and needs but I'd imagine their design process and principles would get your attention. Attention to detail in areas that you know a project needs
All points here are great Nik - I would just add 1 thing here on top of all these five. 1. CHARACTER Character > over Skill, always.
I'd like to add - Involve your design team in the hiring process.
Usually when I prepare for an interview, I do a deep dive into the product suite and note down details that stand out to me. Two main reasons behind that: 1) To connect some of those details to my past work and mention them as tidbits during portfolio review rounds. 2) To ask questions around things that don't make sense. This also helps me take some pressure off the whole nerve wracking experience and makes it more interesting!
You raised some good points Nik Zechner. Here's what I would do if I had to choose one. 1. Review one of my successful products and give his/her opinion to make it the best. 2. Be Confident with their decisions and let me know if something is WRONG. P.S. I believe in their imaginations.
Cultural fit is extremely important. We have a meet team meeting at the end of the hiring to evaluate the culture fit. So far, it has been working great.
I would like to say, finding the perfect designer is like finding a #needleinahaystack but what I believe designers should do is try to be original and authentic as possible. Also as Hiring Managers, remember that as you search for the next best designer, remember they all started from somewhere, I believe just looking at portfolios or resume might not cut it as it use to, going a step further by having constructive and genuine conversations will tell you more than portfolios or resume would. Hope this makes some sense Nik Zechner 👍
Nik, pay attention to designers who ask insightful questions about your product/service. Their curiosity shows genuine interest and a desire to understand your needs deeply.
All the points u mentioned are equally important. However, I believe that collaboration skills are particularly significant.
Product & Design Leadership | Design Systems | Director, User Experience (UX)
5moIts important to ask designers good questions when interviewing them. A few questions that come to mind: -Ask to see how their entire process (research, low fi wire frames, final design) -Ask them where they made changes to their design within that process and what impacted those changes Good open ended interview questions can give you insights into the designers communication style, process, ability to be transparent, and culture fit.