Tactics for Recruiting Good Designers

Recruiting GoodDesigners for Startups @putorti

645 pitches 2,570 designers 2,300+ connections

1 Understand what makes you unique 2 Understand your needs Pitching 3 Have a large pipeline 4 What can you do for the designer? 5 Learn the basics yourself and believe 6 Go behind the portfolioIdentifying 7 No ego, lots of empathy 8 Find personal motivators Closing 9 Socialize with your entire team 10 Hire early

1 PitchingUnderstand whatmakes you unique

Kayak for Apparel

JetSetter for Beaches

Turbotax for Relationships

Klout for Video Games

“We’re the next Facebook.”

“Like Quicken but better”

Mint for Personal Finance

This works for not a designer.

2 PitchingUnderstand your needs ﬁrst

“Seed-stage startup looking for rockstardesigner to sketch wireframes and designbeautiful mockups. You’ll be responsible for crafting our logo and brand andwriting UI copy. Must know how to run usability studies, prototype and write production-ready HTML and CSS.” Braden Kowitz http://www.designstaff.org/articles/hiring-a-designer-2011-11-01.html

“Seed-stage startup looking for rockstar engineer to write Javascript and all Python / Ruby on the backend. You’ll be responsible for cassandra, puppet, and SQL, and training our junior coders. Must handle test coverage / QA, andwrite production-ready HTML and CSS.”

• Interaction design for functionality, ﬂows, usability.• Visual design for feel, emotional impact, trust, entertainment.• Front-end development should be implementation for speed, responsiveness, to work as expected.

Does your entire team agree on needs?

3 PitchingHave a large pipeline

• Many recruiters on contingency• Designer communities / directories• Use your social networks• Design schools• Creative agencies• Where are designers interested in your space?

• elegant.ly• tinyproj.com• carbonmade.com• pick.im• dribbble.com/designers• forrst.com/people/directory• www.krop.com/cdbsearch• zerply.com/ﬁnd/designer• builditwith.me• folyo.me/designers http://www.quora.com/Web-Design/Are-there-any-top-designer-directories-for-start-ups

“I want someone from Mint or Twitter.”

4 PitchingWhat can you do for the designer?

“The product is done, it just needs UX.”

Designers wantunique challenges.

Designers wantto be inspired.

Designers wanta seat at the table.

Designers wantto talk to users.

Designers wantthe latitude to get it done.

5 Pitching Learn the basicsyourself, and believe

6 IdentifyingGo behind the portfolio

Visual is a gut feel.

Can they write copy?

Design thinkingThe essential ability to combineempathy, creativity and rationality tomeet user needs and drive businesssuccess.

Start with the problem,ask why until you can’t anymore.

Critical thinking is good,too much process is not.

7 Identifying No ego,lots of empathy.

Not afraid to provedesigns in the real world.

Focused on the users, and little else.

8 ClosingFind personal motivators

Ask about family

Find risk tolerance

9 ClosingSocialize with the entire team

10 ClosingHire early

1 Understand what makes you unique 2 Understand your needs Pitching 3 Have a large pipeline 4 What can you do for the designer? 5 Learn the basics yourself and believe 6 Go behind the portfolioIdentifying 7 No ego, lots of empathy 8 Find personal motivators Closing 9 Socialize with your entire team 10 Hire early

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http://paris.minilogs.com	7
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Tactics for Recruiting Good Designers

by Jason Putorti on Dec 02, 2011

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Tactics for Recruiting Good Designers — Presentation Transcript