Presentation to help recruiters understand the nuances of hiring design positions in a hyper-competitive job market.
Presented at Recruiting Trends 2014 in Alexandria VA.
3. 3
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
4. 4
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.
5. 5
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
6. 6
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
7. 7
HOW MANY IN THE AUDIENCE
HAVE RECRUITED DESIGNERS?
Current State
9. 9
We’ve passed the point where design is
merely the look and feel of things.
10. 10
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 Investment
Fast Company Design, October 2012
16. 16
Government
Consumer 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.
17. 17
Non Profits & Associations
• increased donations
• better involvement
from members and
supporters
• increased visibility and
awareness for their
cause
• improved promotion for
organization events
18. 18
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
19. 19
• 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
21. 21
Current State: Process
Hiring mgr meets HR,
shares job description
Recruiting team
begins search,
posts & prays
Recruiters
review resumes
Resumes go to
Hiring Manager
22. 22
Current State: Process
Hiring mgr meets HR,
shares job description
Recruiting team
begins search,
posts & prays
Recruiters
review resumes
Resumes go to
Hiring Manager
Niche sites, meetups,
social channels
23. 23
Current State: Process
Hiring mgr meets HR,
shares job description
Recruiting team
begins search,
posts & prays
Recruiters
review resumes
Resumes go to
Hiring Manager
3rd party/agencies blast to
everyone who posted a
resume on the internet
since 1997
24. 24
What’s our mission?
• Get more qualified, diverse candidates
• In less time
• Without costly 3rd party recruiters
• And make offers to the best people
25. 25
So how is this working out?
• An unscientific survey
• But very telling
• 89 responses in 3 days
26. 26
How well do you feel recruiters placing design
positions understand the job for which they are
contacting you?
28. 28
Select the most frequent reasons
the jobs recruiters send you are
INAPPROPRIATE:
29. 29
On average, estimate how many times A MONTH you
receive correspondence from a recruiter (please
include email, LinkedIn, phone calls, or any other
communication).
30. 30
If you are employed, how did you
discover your current employer?
33. 33
Baseline: Design jobs
UX =
Design
http://www.onwardsearch.com/UX-Career-Guide/UX-Career-Guide-Infographic.pdf
34. 34
Goal: attract more qualified candidates
Hiring mgr meets HR,
shares job description
Recruiting team
begins search,
posts & prays
Recruiters
review resumes
Resumes go to
Hiring Manager
35. 35
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
43. 43
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).
44. 44
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
46. 46
Goal: Increase the pipeline
Hiring mgr meets HR,
shares job description
Recruiting team
begins search,
posts & prays
Recruiters
review resumes
Resumes go to
Hiring Manager
47. 47
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
48. 48
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
50. 50
Niche Design Job Sites
• 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
51. 51
Niche Design Job Sites
• 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
55. 55
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
56. 56
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
60. 60
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
62. 62
Goal: more accurately evaluate candidates
Hiring mgr meets HR,
shares job description
Recruiting team
begins search,
posts & prays
Recruiters
review resumes
Resumes go to
Hiring Manager
63. 63
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
64. 64
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
65. 65
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
66. 66
• 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:
67. 67
• 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
69. 69
Designer resume red flags
• 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
70. 70
Designer resume red flags
• 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
71. 71
Designer resume red flags
• 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?
72. 72
Designer resume red flags
• 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?
73. 73
Designer resume red flags
• 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”
77. 77
Goal: Make offers to best people
Hiring mgr meets HR,
shares job description
Recruiting team
begins search,
posts & prays
Recruiters
review resumes
Resumes go to
Hiring Manager
78. 78
Useful interview tactics
• Don’t just walk through page by page of
portfolio or website; ask for the design
process & candidate’s involvement
79. 79
Useful interview tactics
• Suggest a design exercise: hiring manager
provides persona, scenario, and simple
constraints to sketch
82. 82
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