19 Tips To Hire Your Next Best Designer

Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash

Life sucks if you are a recruiter. It does. You have to deal with so much rejection and pain that you start thinking maybe being should not exist because it’s terrible and you’re gonna make everyone suffer as much as you can before you say goodbye to this world, but then you come back from depressive stuff.

It’s time to hire some people from art. Yeah — designers! I love them, I have a great network and awesome connections, so hiring is not a problem for me now, but if you’re out there suffering because you can’t find your dream designer here are the tips I revealed during my career.

1. Don’t rely on portfolios — I used to make this mistake, and it sucks. Portfolios look cool, but they don’t answer how creative the designer is, or how fast he/she can work.
2. Don’t fall into Dribbble/Behance Paradox — Dribbble and Behance rule the trends. Here’s the cycle. Something gets a lot of views in Dribbble → Recruiters/Decision Makers fall into that trap → Designers start copying what generates a lot of views → Skill assessment process becomes impossible because all of them start looking and feeling the same.
3. Is Dribbble assessment bad? Nope! It just means the designer knows how to use graphic design software, he/she understands the trends and is good in some design areas. That’s all because there’s a huge difference between shiny Dribbble works and actual great design work.
4. Tasks. Always give them tasks, easy ones, nothing complicated. You have to see them in actual work, feel their speed, understanding, and execution. You’ll be a lot surprised cause there are a lot of hidden gems out there that don’t shine in Dribble but are buried deep under the sea.
5. Save time. Don’t call them to your office every other day, just video interview them. It gives you a visual feel. A lot of detail goes missing if you are doing phone interviews, trust me.
6. Use narrowing techniques. Make sure they dig deep into your brand and understand the target audience you’re trying to connect with. If it’s a gambling business, for example, we need sexy colors, atmosphere, beautiful girls and some half-naked women. That’s the industry; you can’t fight it. If the client needs boobs to be happy, you give them 2(well, at least 2).
7. Check the relevant experience. It will save you a lot of time if the designer comes from a related field. From iGaming to iGaming, Nike to Adidas, etc.
8. Choose the right interview questions. I always ask what inspires them (brands, artists) and why, or how would they change something in their favorite product.
9. Trust your gut. Sometimes you just know that he or she is the one. You have to listen to your intuition. Mine never lies.
10. Always be recruiting. I will pardon you if you’re a CEO, but if you are a recruiter you have to, I repeat with my caps lock on, YOU HAVE TO build relationships, visit design meetups.
11. Cut out shitty job postings. Stop looking for a unicorn. They won’t do everything. They won’t code, do impressive graphics and UI/UX design. Forget it.
12. Ah, and stop making them code for fuck’s sake. “It’s 2018!”
13. I don’t know a good designer who’s not designing. You sit with them, drink coffee, talk about life, misery, or whether penguins have knees and suddenly they turn around and say “I guess a little lighter blue would have worked better in this color scheme, and these lights are terrible.” That’s a sign she’s the one. Her brain designs 24/7, you can’t stop it.
14. Remember, they don’t care about money as much as software developers usually do. They are OK to not be paid $100 per hour. Because they are way above that shit!
15. Understand their pain. What makes them bleed? Write your possible script based on his/her company. For example, if she’s from a big company, she might be feeling like a little part of a mechanism or a squirrel, so you have to offer something more extensive and exciting.
16. Gut feeling, episode 2. If you have a design team, and they don’t want someone but you like him/her, and you have that feeling, hire him/her. Maybe your team is afraid he’ll/she’ll fuck them all.
17. Use the rule of 4. If the team is bigger than 4 people, the designer should design (no coding).
18. “What kind of designer?” Always ask yourself this questions before starting your search. Narrow the pool as much as possible. What’s important for your current position? UI/UX? Graphic? Which tools/software are a must and which ones can be skipped.
19. Remember, episode 2: Any design candidate you interview will be better at one thing than the other.

It would have been better if it was an even number, not 19. Who the fuck gives 19 tips to hire your next best designer?

Well, I do. See you, hunters.