Effective Ways to Hire Designers: My Experience and Insights
I share my 5-step hiring process, interview questions that I ask and my learnings so far.
Over the past decade, I have gained extensive experience in hiring and building teams in the design industry, having established and managed the hiring process at reputable companies such as Cleartrip, BookMyShow, and Jupiter.Money. I have successfully built teams ranging from 0 to 20 members in a startup and streamlined a team of 80 down to 30 in mid-scale organizations, resulting in a remarkable 400% increase in output efficiency. Additionally, I have been providing guidance and support to entrepreneurs, and startup founders in their search for top talent in design leadership roles.
Currently, I am working as a Director of Design at PropertyGuru in Singapore and always looking out for passionate designers to hire or be in my network. As someone with extensive experience in hiring designers, I wanted to share my insights on how to approach this challenging task.
Hiring is tough, taxing, and time-consuming, and you can find millions of articles and podcasts on “hiring designers.” In fact, on my own podcast, Audiogyan, I create a series “Where are the designers?”. Here I interviewed 12 influential designers and design recruiters. The purpose of this series was to gain insight into how they establish and maintain a great design culture that provides business value, as well as their approach to hiring and retaining employees.
Recently I stumbled upon an interesting philosophy by Gary V saying
“Hire fast, Fire faster, Promote fastest. And be honest about it during the interview rounds.”
Not sure if I subscribe to it. But I would like to share with you the hiring process steps I follow and the questions I ask, which have proven effective for me. My hope is that this information can benefit not only designers who are hiring but also those who are applying for jobs. Additionally, I hope that recruiters find this information helpful.
In this post, I will discuss:
My 5-step hiring process
The interview questions that I ask (not 5)
My 5 learnings so far
My 5-step hiring process
Once impressed with your portfolio and case study articulation (preferably on your website), over an email, these 5 rounds follow for all levels of hiring, with conversation maturity being the only varying factor.
STEP 1 — Know the designer
Schedule a 45-minute call or meet over coffee — This first interaction is all about culture assessment. It’s the most critical part of any hiring. How do they embrace diversity? Is she a rockstar in 0 to 1 products? What motivates him to be in an agile setup versus a highly process-driven organization? What are they looking for in their next adventure? How diverse their exposure has been with respect to industries and problem statements. Try and understand their journey as a designer, world views, and definition of “design.” Discuss the importance of design in today’s world and ask them to convince the CEO in a tweet. Maybe ask “How do you know when your design is complete?” Do they heavily depend on research or constantly proactively observe data, and user behavior? How interested are they in understanding human psychology?
STEP 2 — Case study: Sing the song
For the second round (typically lasting 60 minutes), I delve deeper into one of your case studies, preferably presented in a STAR framework. This approach has two benefits: it keeps the conversation objective and makes efficient use of time by splitting the presentation into show and tell. As a personal preference, I suggest spending less time explaining your design solution. A good solution is like a good song; don’t dissect the lyrics and the tune, just sing the song. As a designer myself, I understand the thought process behind it and can ask questions if needed. However, if a non-designers is present and requires a more detailed explanation, feel free to elaborate on the hypothesis, research, data, testing, and more. To draw an analogy, talk about instruments used or the discarded lyrics which didn’t fit the meter while making the song.
But remember, the final track is what matters the most.
STEP 3 — Live whiteboarding exercise
In this round, which is my personal favorite and lasts for around 60–90 minutes, I invite a product manager to join us. I present a pre-designed hardware product that comes with an uncomfortable amount of constraints. Your task is to identify the use cases for the given hardware and design the interactions accordingly. This exercise helps me understand how well you can grasp reality and human emotions. It also tests your concept of empathy and simplicity, which are crucial in the design process. If you successfully solve this problem, and we still have time remaining, we can critique your most loved product.
Trust me, you’ll love this exercise and gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to simplify things. No spoilers though!
STEP 4 — Technical round
In this 60-minute panel round, I invite another designer and an engineer to join. Yes. Engineer. In my episode with Hrush Bhatt, he said, a designer should know “design, write, and code”. Understanding the medium is crucial in delivering exceptional digital products. He further elaborates “An architect understands bricks and cement. A sculptor knows stone, marble or clay. A digital designer should understand his/her medium.” Users experience the real product and not Figma prototypes. While coding is no longer a requirement for designers, it’s a valuable life skill. At Cleartrip, where I worked for 6 years, all designers use to code HTML/CSS and Javascript. Knowing front-end code helps in creating reusable components and collaborating better with engineers. The front-end engineer in the panel generally asks about your obsession with pixel-perfection and interaction design. I try and understand how you build a culture of excellence with your counterpart.
STEP 5 — Decision (Not really round)
After going through these interactions, we — Product Managers, Engineers, and other designers assess the potential candidate. If it’s for a lead or a managerial role, I prefer the team talks informally to get the vibe. Of course, everybody at the start or during the interview life cycle, keeps snooping around his/her social media profile. The spot where they got trolled or how cool is their work-from-home setup posted on Instagram. Subscribers on Youtube or not updated Linkedin since 1678.
Design is still a small and well-connected community and it goes without saying, informal background checks on Whatsapp keep happening. If all looks good, we hire you.
Still configuring parameters and their percentages. Hiring is a gamble. If that’s too harsh, it’s like dating, hoping to build a long-term relationship.
Questions I ask in interviews
I typically categorize my questions into three buckets — People, Product, and Process — depending on the role I am hiring for. While there are numerous articles and question templates available online (including mine compiled with the help of Abhinit Tiwari), I am more interested in getting to know the designer’s outlook toward life.
What is their story? What do they enjoy doing outside of design, such as… Which film directors do they follow? Artists and poets whom they look up to. What kind of music do they listen to? How do they handle failure and criticism? Who are their role models outside of the design industry? What is the difference between good and great? And why do they think art exists? In short, I am interested in understanding the whole person. Let me share a brief story to illustrate this point.
Trivia: I hired Karishma Rathore at Jupiter without all these formal rounds just because she read “🚀 Getting hired as a designer at Jupiter — a cheat sheet”. Before applying she re-did her portfolio and I was sold.
My 5 learnings so far
You can also consider these as tips.
Culture first: Look for attitude over aptitude. How willing are they to try, learn and fail every day? My best hires are who ask a lot of questions in the interview. They are passionately curious.
Evaluate and respect motivations: Try an understand how sincerely they want to solve the problems of the industry they are venturing into. At times, Designers switch to financial incentives or unhealthy setups in the current organization. Respect those motivations equally. (Trivia: Once a designer said, “I want to join you because your office is 2 blocks away from my house.”)
Look beyond work: Assess areas of interest and passion for it. A side project, a triathlete, a classical performer, an amazing chef — anything in that Range. I have a similar “12-year” practice theory (Maybe the next post)
Shipping matters: Your portfolio needs to showcase the work that you’ve shipped. For designers starting their first job, impress with point # 3
Embrace diversity: Mike Monteiro in his book “Ruined by Design” shares about how everything is designed for a “White Male who is 6 feet 2 inches”. Ashwini Deshpande in her Audiogyan episode talks about the need for diversity in hiring designers to make products more inclusive and sustainable. Navneet Nair shared — “Unknowingly though, 9 out of 11 designers in my team have cats. We have so subtle subconscious biases.” Diversity is essential to make products and experiences more resilient.
How can I not end with my favorite line from Steve Jobs?
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” — Steve Jobs.
I trust that this post provides a greater comprehension of the vastness of design that goes beyond the realm of Apps, UI, UX, and Figma. With 20 years of experience in design, team management, and talking to 250+ designers and artists on Audiogyan, I can confidently attest to this fact.