How to hire a designer

OwenM

Hi all,

We might be hiring an in-house designer in the coming months, my problem is are a startup and we have never had a designer on the staff and nobody who works there has hired one - so what questions do we ask - what are the core competencies.

We probably want someone who can construct markup as well as create assets and animations - is this a common skill mix, even better would be someone who has used css sprites and jquery - or was willing to learn it. So, thinking out loud the skill set is:

1. Photoshop and creative ability to style websites, smartphone apps and create icons.
2. Flash - nothing advanced or very fancy.
3. HTML & CSS - ability to layout elements in a static page
4. Experience with css sprites.
5. Javascript - JQuery - some experience with and willingness to learn more.

Is this a barking mad set of requirements for a job spec?

Please note: This is not a job advert - please don't send or pm any CV's.

Tks,
Owen.

Goodshape

Looks perfectly fine to me.

/edit: I might drop the flash requirements though, unless you have a specific need for it. Particularly as you mention smart phone apps - flash is a no-go here thanks to iPhone, and is generally best avoided on web apps if possible.

Trojan

CSS sprites is something that can be learned in a couple of hours - I wouldn't bother mentioning that unless it's a huge part of the role and you're doing something advanced with it.

If you mention Flash, particularly Flash programming, you're going to get someone with the right mindset to approach other coding issues - that might be a good enough reason to leave it in - say "not essential but nice to have".

I'd look for experience with Adobe Illustrator - I've found that one sign of a decent graphic designer is that they'll like to work with that a lot - not saying it's the only sign, just that it might be useful

p

You've listed many of the technical skills required. Do you have web developers who they'll be working with that can help you assess that side of their skill set.
The tricky bit will be assessing their design skills, there's two sides. General visual design and aesthetics, and usability/ux design. That's harder if you're not designers, but this should be at least 50% of your decision (if not more) - is there any way you can get an experienced designer to 'vet' the CVs or portfolios, even if you have to pay someone, that would be very worthwhile.

Other than that - in the interviews, as them about their design process, and to get you to talk through how they'd approach a design problem.

cdb123

p wrote: »

You've listed many of the technical skills required. Do you have web developers who they'll be working with that can help you assess that side of their skill set.
The tricky bit will be assessing their design skills, there's two sides. General visual design and aesthetics, and usability/ux design. That's harder if you're not designers, but this should be at least 50% of your decision (if not more) - is there any way you can get an experienced designer to 'vet' the CVs or portfolios, even if you have to pay someone, that would be very worthwhile.

Other than that - in the interviews, as them about their design process, and to get you to talk through how they'd approach a design problem.

It sounds normal to me. Just say basic / internediate Flash skills required.

Try to narrow down exactly what skills you'll need for the position in the job spec and you should attract the right type of people.

Best of luck!