Hunting Unicorns
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This document provides advice on how to find, hire, and retain a strong design team. It emphasizes that the hiring process takes patience and emphasizes growing talent internally. Some key points include: - Do not use vague job descriptions or labels like "rockstar", clearly describe the needed skills and responsibilities. - Do not rely on recruiters or LinkedIn to find candidates, instead reach out directly to designers you admire and look in their online communities. - Conduct thorough interviews to assess not just skills but how well you will work together and make decisions. - Prioritize company culture and employee happiness to retain top talent once hired.
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Hunting Unicorns
- 1. Hunting Unicorns How to find, keep and grow a design team Cap Watkins, @cap
- 11. 2010
- 12. 2011
- 13. 2012
- 14. 2013
- 17. Whoa.
- 18. Help us hire some more.
- 20. How do I find people?
- 21. How do I convince people?
- 22. How do I know who’s right?
- 23. One bad hire...
- 25. So where to start?
- 26. There Are No Unicorns
- 27. There Are No Unicorns Or rock stars. Or ninjas. Or Santa Claus.
- 29. Your job description determines who applies.
- 30. Be descriptive.
- 31. Advocate for the user.
- 33. UX-focused.
- 35. Writes html/css.
- 37. Moves quickly.
- 38. Breaks things.
- 39. Unafraid to be wrong.
- 42. Starting the Search Go get ‘em, tiger.
- 43. What not to do:
- 44. Don’t hire a recruiting firm.
- 48. Okay, here’s what works:
- 49. Be patient.
- 50. Really patient.
- 51. Like, a metric ton, boatload, omg unfathomable amount of patient.
- 52. Contact people you admire.
- 53. Find people in their natural environment.
- 57. Look for the writers.
- 62. Recruiters suck.
- 64. Guess who doesn’t suck?
- 65. Guess who designers want to hear from?
- 66. You.
- 70. Peeling the Onion Conducting a real design interview.
- 71. Forget design for a second.
- 72. What do you want to know?
- 73. Will we work well together?
- 74. How do they make decisions?
- 75. Take each answer and ask another related to it.
- 76. Do you want to work with them?
- 77. Keeping People
- 78. Keeping People Hiring doesn’t matter if people leave.
- 79. Attrition.
- 81. Control.
- 87. Ask them.
- 88. Managing Growth
- 89. Managing Growth The more things change, the more things should change.
- 90. Hey, things are going well!
- 91. We need more people!
- 92. Wrong.We need more people!
- 93. So, so wrong.We need more people!
- 94. Hire when it’s painful not to.
- 96. That’s okay.
- 97. Culture is fluid.
- 98. It changes all the time.
- 101. So, yeah.
- 102. So, yeah. That’s kind of it.
- 103. So, yeah. It’s about people.
- 104. So, yeah. It’s always about people.
- 105. Thanks :) Cap Watkins, @cap
- 106. This person
- 107. This person = really important
- 109. This person
- 110. is *the* unicorn.
- 111. is *the* unicorn.
- 112. But here’s the thing.
- 113. Hiring one takes patience.
- 114. Like, a lot of patience.
- 115. And in the meantime...
- 116. Shit is getting real.
- 117. Relax.
- 118. Build your product.
- 119. Rules for hiring designers.
- 120. Great people are usually pretty happy.
- 121. Great people are never looking for work.
- 122. Rule #1
- 123. Reach out in person.
- 124. Rule #2
- 125. Be prompt.
- 126. Rule #3
- 127. Be kind.
- 128. Growing Unicorns An alternative for those who don’t like hunting.
- 129. You have two options.
- 130. 1. Keep looking for a unicorn.
- 131. 2. Grow your own.
- 132. Anyone can be a unicorn.
- 133. Aptitude
- 134. Passion