If you’re like many of our clients, you don’t have an internal UX team. But your user experience needs attention.
Maybe you’re missing out on sales because the competitor’s product looks more modern. Or, your competitor is beating you to market with the features your user base craves.
You reach out to a UX firm and you start seeing the benefits. Users, prospects, even investors start to notice, and they look at you differently. Before long, you realize you’re ready to make room on your team for permanent UX.
So how do you hire a great UXer? The first step is with a great job description. And, that’s not just about how it’s worded–it’s also about internal alignment. Here are some questions to ask yourself in the process:
What UX skills do you need the most? For many organizations, UI design is important. But, UX also encompasses user research, information architecture, visual concepts, accessibility, content strategy, content development, prototypes, animation, and more. If you’re hiring your first position, you may find individuals with several UX skills, but finding someone with all skills is unlikely. What’s most important to you?
What caliber of change do you need to drive? Are you hoping to hire someone who can help make your organization more user-centered (e.g., UX Director), or do you need someone to do UI design for your agile workflow (e.g., Product Designer)? Do you need someone who can go toe-to-toe with opinionated leaders on behalf of a department that you’ll soon grow, or is this an individual contributor on a two-pizza team?
Do you need someone with recent hands-on experience? If you're hiring someone for a hands-on role, consider that in your search. There are many amazing UX leaders who haven’t been in the pixels themselves for periods of time because they’ve been focused on strategy (PPT decks!) or leading others. They are likely to be a little rusty with the tools. What’s your tolerance for reacclimation time? What’s their patience and appetite for doing it themselves in the beginning? When talking portfolios, it's good to understand what the candidate's contribution was on each sample. Someone with a mix of recent design and direction may be ideal if you need a leader in the long-term and a doer in the short-term.
Have you considered diverse backgrounds? You don’t have to hire someone from your industry or from a company of similar size. While those things can make it easier for a candidate to acclimate, diverse team experience pays big dividends in the long term.
Preferred pace and work style matters. If you hire someone from a large, slow-moving corporate environment into a fast-paced, work-all-hours startup, they could be invigorated–or miserable!
Type of design experience is important. If you hire a fabulous product UX specialist for your web team, you might find that they’re not used to design content-rich, curated stories. If you hire a website-focused UXer onto a product team, they might need to brush up on their understanding of database structure or AI.
Will this person become a leader? Will this person become a manager within a year? Within two? What experience do they need to lead other UXers, agencies, etc.? What type of management roles have they had? What do they want to try? Some hires will crave design leadership while others will aspire to be the one providing it. If you’re not sure whether leadership opportunities will open for this role, be careful what you promise and beware a candidate who is super motivated to run the team someday as they could easily end up disappointed.
Do they have bootcamp experience only? Design programs continue to produce candidates with strong case studies, but those candidates are sometimes lacking actual UX work experience. While it can be very rewarding to nurture and cultivate emerging UX talent, don’t hire a junior UXer if you can’t provide the support and guidance they need. It's important to pay close attention to candidates' real work experience alongside their portfolios, and factor in necessary management guidance.
Despite plentiful entry-level UX candidates, the market for mid- and senior-level UX talent can be tight, especially in large cities full of tech companies. To compete, showcase your company’s culture and benefits.
Here are a couple of sample listings from our hiring process:
Good luck with your hiring process! And as always, we’re advisors in UX so contact us with any questions or for help staking out a hiring plan.
Don’t miss it: Our cofounder Erin Young was featured in an article on the UpCity website entitled, “How To Hire A UI/UX Design Company”.