Hiring Market Updates

By Jenifer Bulcock

On Nov 16, 2021 IxDA NYC hosted Jared Tredly, Director from the design recruiting firm Bamboo Crowd. Jared led an insightful and empowering talk and discussion on the current state of the hiring market for both job seekers and hiring managers.

Candidates in demand

  • T-shaped designer - Early-stage startups are mainly looking for these designers, who might have a depth of expertise in UX and shallow expertise in research who can take work through to high fi. 

  • Product design specialists - These could be designers who are strong in a particular topic/industry 

  • SME designer - Designers with a depth of skill eg. UI / mobile

  • UX researchers - Companies are starting to prioritize this role

  • UI designer - People who are very visually focused 

Who’s hiring 

  • The short answer: everyone 

  • Series A and B startups who are VC funded and looking to scale - lots of demand for the founding designer

  • Scaling design organizations - mainly in tech companies

  • Product design agencies - cooling off a little, was hot over the summer

  • Freelance - in high demand. Companies are competing for talent and are more comfortable with this type of hiring now 

Hiring processes 

  • Speed and efficiency are key for hiring companies. Those that optimize the candidate’s time will have an advantage. A company that is not being efficient is not being competitive. For these reasons, he is seeing companies trying to adapt their processes to be competitive.

    A first phone call should be with the hiring manager (45 mins) to get to know the candidate, and talk about the team and work, setting the stage for the process to follow.

    Next is the portfolio deep dive. Usually reviewing 2 case studies - go deep, give insight into who you are as a designer, include time for Q&A (for them and you). Jarred suggested questions like: “How do you empower your designers?”, “How do you develop your designers?”

    He’s starting to see more of the whiteboard/collaboration task over zoom or miro. These are opportunities to work through a prompt with other team members (PMs, design team, etc). The goal is to try to simulate what it’s like to work with you.

    Then might have a cultural conversation after this - to round the process out.

  • Take-home tests. Jared goes on to empower designers to say “no” to take home design tasks. He invites hiring managers to reconsider these as part of the interview process as they have the potential for creating bias in the interview process – favoring candidates who aren’t time poor such as working parents. Similarly, designers should feel that they can say no to spec work (ie. design our website home page), unless they are paying you. Some phrases he suggests to negotiate another path forward are: “I have other people I’m seeking with - they aren’t doing the task and they are moving quickly”. “I only have so much time I can commit”. However, if you are a designer who doesn’t have a ton of work to show and you really love the company he suggests that this might be when you need to think more deeply about doing the task.

  • Ask about their process. He also highlights for job seekers that they should feel entitled to know how long the overall process will take and what steps are involved. Designers should be conscious about how much effort and energy they are spending - “are you putting it in the right areas in the right roles for you?”

How to stand out

Job seeker

  • Linkedin - Make sure LinkedIn is up to date and broadcasting information about who you are. Recommendations for structuring LinkedIn: curate a complete profile - contact details / email / portfolio / about you section (SEO optimized) roles and interests. Don’t be afraid to put in some personality - hobbies, likes/dislikes. He uses it to help remember you. And a good recruiter will mention it in cold-call emails. 

  • Job history - give a sentence or two on what you did and what you worked on, projects, or areas of the business. Just relying on past company names may not work - highlighting evidence of work helps you get to the top of the list. This could be a website, landing page, or deck. Are there pieces of work that can be recycled and reused - be conscious of your energy.

  • Portfolio - Prepare a portfolio that breaks down large continuous, complex projects into shorter chunks. Consider the delivery and make sure there is a narrative. Be careful not to be too brief either, make sure the hiring manager can’t tell what you did. You don’t always have to share metrics - make it more about your process. Show people why they would want to work with you, It’s common for case studies to be skimmed by hiring managers as the first pass.

Hiring manager

  • Promote your team - Set yourself apart by highlighting evidence of your experience and your team’s. Peel back the curtain and give candidates a peek into your design culture. This could be done with a designer one-pager - outline the open positions, pod/team structure, experience of team members, and how you work.

Salaries 

  • Since covid, companies experimenting with localized rates since remote work has become a competitive advantage. NYC sits second to SF across the nation in salary rankings. It’s a good time to get a strong fair rate as a designer.

Titles

Job seeker

  • Be clear on what you want - And for job seekers, he poses the question: “What does the title matter to you? Where does it rank in relation to the offer, the company, etc?”

Hiring manager

  • Be purposeful - He invites hiring managers to be purposeful with titles - do your titles marry with the job responsibilities and are they in line with the rest of the industry (for role and compensation). What’s the progression path for the role?

Event summary

  • It’s a great time to be a designer

  • Go after what you want

  • Designers have more choice than ever 

  • Use your time and energy effectively 




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