Designing a Recruiting Strategy for Hiring Designers

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Case StudyDesigning a Recruiting Strategy for

Designers in IT

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OrHow I learned to stop worrying and

actually hire good designers

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So who am I

• Not a recruiter• I lead a 30 person product design team

(PRODAQ) at NASDAQ OMX• But recruited 32 people to my team (2 people

have left in 27 months)• No agencies or inhouse recruiters involved

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So who am I

• And I hear from recruiters. A lot. • About 10+ emails/calls/LinkedIn pings a week• Worked with a number of recruiters as a job

seeker, as someone involved in the international design community, and locally in NYC and DC.

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Quick disclaimer

• Designers aren’t special snowflakes• Almost every IT position is competitive• I’m not here to tell you you’re doing it wrong• But to help you empathize with designers

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Today’s talk

• State of design & design jobs today • How to ask hiring manager better questions• How to present a job description that qualified

candidates will respond to• How to comb for passive design candidates who aren’t

trolling the job boards• How to review a designer’s resume & portfolio before

sending to your hiring manager• What job attributes often resonate with designers to

close the deal

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HOW MANY IN THE AUDIENCE HAVE RECRUITED DESIGNERS?

Current State

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Good design is good businessThomas Watson Jr

1974

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We’ve passed the point where design is merely the look and feel of things.

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Designers are the ones best situated to figure out how a kit of parts can become something more. Why Good Design Is Finally A Bottom Line InvestmentFast Company Design, October 2012

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WHY NOW?

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Design is now the differentiator

Specialization of software,

data, services

Demand for designers

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Local flavor

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GovernmentConsumer Financial Protection Bureau

Join us, and you will be given an opportunity to help create a dream technology environment for a new organization.

In the process, you’ll improve the lives of millions of Americans.

Maybe you’re just out of college and you are looking to sharpen your skills.

Or maybe you want a break from building widgets and want to spend some time making things that really matter.

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Non Profits & Associations

• increased donations• better involvement

from members and supporters

• increased visibility and awareness for their cause

• improved promotion for organization events

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Defense

• Simplified e-learning systems so users have a more comprehensive understanding of material

• More applicable, realistic training simulators to prepare troops hostile situation.

• More intuitive displays, screens, & control panels to show what’s most important at the right time

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• Design doesn’t need to be flashy to be necessary or successful

• Users expect perfection– Both at home and work

• Companies can command a premium for good design

• Good design is difficult to duplicate

In summary

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CURRENT STATE

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Current State: Process

Hiring mgr meets HR, shares job description

Recruiting team begins search, posts & prays

Recruiters review resumes

Resumes go to Hiring Manager

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Niche sites, meetups, social channels

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3rd party/agencies blast to everyone who posted a resume on the internet

since 1997

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What’s our mission?

• Get more qualified, diverse candidates• In less time• Without costly 3rd party recruiters• And make offers to the best people

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So how is this working out?

• An unscientific survey• But very telling• 89 responses in 3 days

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How well do you feel recruiters placing design positions understand the job for which they are

contacting you?

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Select the best statement about the jobs recruiters send you:

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Select the most frequent reasons the jobs recruiters send you are

INAPPROPRIATE:

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On average, estimate how many times A MONTH you receive correspondence from a recruiter (please include email, LinkedIn, phone calls, or any other

communication).

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If you are employed, how did you discover your current employer?

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SO WHAT ARE THESE DESIGN JOBS?

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Baseline: Design jobsUX =

Design

http://www.onwardsearch.com/UX-Career-Guide/UX-Career-Guide-Infographic.pdf

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Goal: attract more qualified candidates





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Job descriptions

• Hiring manager scours job boards• Searches for similar job• Copies/pastes job description• Changes out a few things (hopefully)• Sends to recruiting manager

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Job description red flags

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Job Description Red FlagsRock stars, ninjas, unicorns, gurus. Just…no

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Job Description Red FlagsTool-based lists


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Job Description Red FlagsTool-based lists


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Sell the vision

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Sample visions

• Lab49’s user experience designers craft exceptional experiences that enable our clients to be smarter and more nimble.

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Sample visions

• Airbnb is looking for a talented UI designer to help us visualize the future of

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Sample visions

• At Etsy, our Product Design team is responsible for wearing many hats at once: from high-level product thinking, to interaction flows and just-enough mockups, all the way to front-end implementation (html and css).

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Effective job descriptions

• Say what you need• No longer lists of skills & acronyms• Proactive companies are now using the job

description to reflect company culture• Nuance, details reflect understanding• Sell the benefit (not benefits) of working• Will still get the clueless applicants

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Where to advertise your openingsFish where the fish are

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Goal: Increase the pipeline





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Where to look, where to share

• Major websites: Monster, Dice, LinkedIn• Niche and/or mass market job sites• Meetups/events/conferences• Social channels: amplifying word of mouth

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PRODAQ & Major Job Sites

• Monster – don’t use (neither does NDAQ)• Dice – don’t use• Craigslist – don’t use• LinkedIn

– posted jobs, no interviews– Identify passive candidates– Reach out directly to diverse candidates

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Niche Design Job Sites

• AuthenticJobs.com• Coroflot.com• Behance.net• Dribbble.com• CollegeCentral.com

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• Location issues– Too many international applicants looking for

offsite freelance work– Too many people from far away looking to

relocate• Over/under-qualified• Don’t follow instructions to apply

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• CollegeCentral– good for entry/mid-level openings– Resumes are likely out of date – validate with

LinkedIn– Most people are local– Better for *finding* candidates, not just posting

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PRODAQ via College Central

Jan 2012

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Jan 2012

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Jan 2012 Dec 2012 Fall 2013

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Meetups/Events

• Great to find passive, motivated candidates• Enables better diversification of candidates• Requires time outside of office• Good start to establishing yourself/company in

the design community• Sponsorships• 6 hires to Product Design team via events

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Social Channels

• Product design has strong personal social presence on Twitter & LinkedIn

• We know our audience– Fellow designers in community– Don’t take selves too seriously– Share activities without confidential info– Promotes team culture, personality

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Social Channels

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Social Channels

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Social Channels

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Finding Candidates

• Fish where the fish are– designers in tech are likely to be found at local,

free events (in addition to big conferences)– Twitter is the defacto communication channel of

the design community• Posting jobs to twitter are table stakes• Use Twitter to show off your design-friendly work

environment– Many designers aren’t visiting the big job boards;

those needs are met by niche sites

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Evaluating prospectsHow to spot strong and weak candidates in the phone screen

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Goal: more accurately evaluate candidates





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Prioritize

• Skills, education, experience are soft foundation

• Very few design gigs are exactly like the other• Work with hiring manager to understand

what’s really necessary• Don’t miss out on great candidates because

they aren’t perfect fits to job description: look at big picture

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Years of Experience

• 3-5 years of exp sounds nice, but is it required?

• Why do you need the experience?– Talking with executives?– Leading workshops with clients?– Or you don’t want to explain how to use tools?

• Half of PRODAQ: fewer than 5 years exp

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Education

• Do you really need an MFA or MS in IxD? • Many positions are tool-centric: Build this!• Tool-focused job skills can be self-taught• Look for humanities degrees too:

– English, Sociology, Architecture, Psychology• PRODAQ: 5 MFAs, 2 MBAs, 1 MSci

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• The designer from a defense contractor applying to a non-profit (fine)

• The information architect who wants to move exclusively to user experience (fine)

• The freelancer who wants full time (fine)• Someone with little mobile exp working on

mobile apps (risk)

You have to reconcile:

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• I never hired on the basis of – Financial experience– Enterprise experience– 3-5 years prototyping experience– Experience with Agile development methodology– Working with offshore development teams

PRODAQ

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Designer resume red flags

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• No portfolio or link to website• Tool & Skill focused• Little or no description of role• Little or no emphasis on results• Little or no expansion on process

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• No portfolio or link to website– Probe deeper if you see:

• Template based site (wix, squarespace)• Wordpress themes

– Are there other resources/examples?• Dribbble• Behance• Github

– Links to job/site don’t provide enough info

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• Little or no description of role on project– Team involvement or solo?– When did the person join the project? – When did the person leave the project?– Responsible for anything or in support role?– How did they work with development teams?

Stakeholders? Customers?

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• Little or no emphasis on results• Does the candidate mention any net outcomes

of their work? • Subscriptions• Revenue• Support tickets• Conversions• Traffic

• How do they measure success?

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• Little or no emphasis on process– Just show/describe the end result?– Early-process tasks or artifacts:

• Interviewing, Competitive analysis, Heuristic evaluation– Later tasks: Usability testing, Analytics & metrics

• Big red flag: calling UX a step in a process– “Next we did the UX, then the visual design”

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WTF?

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6 seconds? GO!

• Portfolio or URL first—Does it exist?• Involvement (lead, consultant, etc)• Results / effectiveness of work• Skills & Tools

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In the interviewHelp the hiring manager with these tips for identifying the best

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Goal: Make offers to best people





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Useful interview tactics

• Don’t just walk through page by page of portfolio or website; ask for the design process & candidate’s involvement

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• Suggest a design exercise: hiring manager provides persona, scenario, and simple constraints to sketch

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• Don’t ask for favorite websites, you’ll just hear apple.com

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Wrap Up

Goals• Get more qualified, diverse

candidates• In less time• Without costly 3rd party

recruiters• And make offers to the best

people

Outcomes• Attract better candidates via

more appropriate job descriptions

• Through more channels than just big job sites

• And how to evaluate the candidates to hire the best of the bunch

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THANK YOU!Chris AvoreNASDAQ [email protected]

Twitter: @erova

mailto:[email protected]

Date post:	23-Aug-2014
Category:	Recruiting & HR
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Designing a Recruiting Strategy for Hiring Designers

Recruiting & HR