10 years of hiring designers

14 insights into what has changed in design recruitment

I've been helping designers and leaders find jobs for coming up 10 years.

In that time I've seen a transition in how companies view design, how you find a job, mindset of designers, different levels of education and how that effects the expectations of designers.

In this article I explore the noticeable changes I've seen in the design industry my perspective.

My perspective is from the recruitment side of things. I don't claim to be a designer, I'm not a designer and I do not want to be a designer.

1. Where did IA go?

Whatever happened to Information Architecture as a discipline? When I joined the recruitment world I remember getting briefs from companies for UX Architects and/or Information Architects.

Now I do not see this at all, I rarely see IA mentioned in a UX/Product Design JD.

It's for sure not covered in most bootcamps.

IA is hard and complex, so why has it gone into the wilderness?

Who’s picking this up? Content Designers? Content Strategists?

It seems IA is a lost skill for many.

I’d love to hear thoughts on the state of IA. Is it needed in a specialist role anymore?

2. Obsession with job titles

Job title inflation in design is rife.

There are many CDO’s VP’s, SVP’s on LinkedIn.

How can you be a CDO of a one-person team?

Or, a Head of Design with 2 years experience? Please.

This happens when:

- Companies do not know how to hire

- Companies do this to entice people

- Companies try to retain top talent

Resulting in:

- They get out of their depth down the line.

- It dilutes the quality of the levelling.

- They struggle to make an impact at the right levels.

- Resulting in poor design utilisation in their orgs.Focus on the person when hiring, don’t get swayed by their title, dig deep and benchmark with a proper career rubric.

Phil’s post recently sums this up perfectly

3. More emphasis on "player-coach"

I've seen a decimation of middle management in design teams. The rise in "player-coach" requirements is vast, people who can lead through the work and lead a team at the same time. People who are first and foremost great designers who happen to be able to lead as well.

My take on this is it's needed at times, but majority of "player coaches" will burn out if they are over utilised, and not protected in the company. High performers often move from IC into management and end up taking on a ton of work, making it work, but feeling burnt out.

Some companies do this well, others not so much.

Design managers are underrated, it's a tough role to get right. How hands on vs people management vs strategic work shall I do?

It's underrated for many reasons:

• You're not leading the whole team

• You're not executing the "work"

• You're in back-to-back meetingsYou need a mature org to understand the value you bring.

Benefits of design managers:

• They translate the vision of a CDO/VP to the wider team.

• They unblock situations, so ICs can get on with work.

• They can attract and develop high-performing ICs.

• They influence the day-to-day work of the team

If your design managers are burnt out, it will affect how engaged your team is, which affects output, which affects quality of product, which affects bottom line. Voila.They're crucial for the health of your design organisation.

4. Design > Business Functions

Design is one of the only disciplines where design can benefit every part of an organisation. Here's to designers moving into other disciplines, if that is your calling.

Interesting career moves I've seen:

• Designer > Founder

• Design > Engineering

• VP of Design > Senior IC

• Design Leadership > CXO

• Design > People leadership

• Head of Design > Director of Product

• Senior Design Director > Design Partner

There's so much opportunity to utilise design experience in other areas of the business.

Many designers want to go into product roles. There's a real need for design-led Product leaders.

Whoever leads Product should index heavily on creative thinking, with an understanding of business, strategy, market and commercial and connect the dots.

Great Product leaders meet these, but the creative part can't be taught.

Designers have that in their DNA. IMO, hire people around the leader who are experts in different areas, but not leading the Product organisation. Creative people, who embrace failure, ideation, rather than indexing on operational product create better innovation in the market. Operational leaders focus more on shipping features, story points concluded, and revenue.

They are all essential, but outcomes of the process.

Customer value = business value = profit. Good design is good business. The data is clear.

5. Personal brand > Job Boards

Rarely, will you find a job these days on a job board, click apply and get the role. (Not talking about LinkedIn)

In 2024 the competition is tough, there are fewer roles on the whole, and how most people get roles these days is who you know, or more importantly who knows you.

Having a online presence is more important than ever.

A few foundations to think about:

LinkedIn:

• Executive summary, including certain keywords for people to find you.

• Resume style information on each role. Including impact and any metrics. Often people are looking at LinkedIn over a CV, I know I am.

• Professional headshot. No words needed here.

• You can click open to work on LinkedIn so recruiters can notice you first, but that is optional. I think for leadership hiring, it's not needed especially if you're in a job.

"Portfolio"

• A leadership deck that demonstrates how you influence business decisions through design

• How you handle ambiguity, chaotic environments

• How you have progressed your career from IC, Manager, Leader.

• Are you hands-on vs people focused? How do you define hands-on?

• What has your impact as a leader been like on a business? This demonstrates your ability to be a business executive which is what I believe companies are looking for.

Content strategy:

The advice of "you must post to be noticed" is rubbish. Commenting can be as powerful as needing to post every day (Here's an example - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alicjasmin_my-commenting-strategy-on-linkedin-is-untouchable-activity-7213488939574149120-TtWH?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop)

Some of the best leaders and designers are people you’ve not heard of.

They are too busy building teams, products, services and creating impact to be talking about it all the time. So my advice for busy leaders is think:

• Do you want to share your expertise?

• If so writing longer-form article posts to demonstrate depth of thinking instead of short dopamine hit style LinkedIn posts is the way forward. A combination of both is good for awareness and depth.

• If you don't want to talk about you can start by writing to yourself 1-3 years ago and solving the problems you had then and now solved as there will be many people in the same situation you were once in.

• Talk about design and business challenges. What are companies trying to solve from a design perspective? Write about that.

It's so easy to stand out on LinkedIn (if that is your preferred platform) because only 1% of users actually post.

6. Rise of design founders

I've worked with 2 design founders this year:

It's no surprise one of them is killing it on the app store, huge funding, great investors, 10x growth, and a clear path to success.

The other is quietly making insane 7-figure monthly profit margins, building a strong community with 0 outside investors.

Design led> Product first.

This is the reason we more design founders to have the confidence they can do this.

As a designer you’re focused on creating a desired outcome, and there is no place better to do that than at the 0-1 stage of a company.

Note: my advice would be to find a co-founder or early stage team-member because being a great designer doesn’t mean you’ll be successful in business. It helps.

7. Obsession with "design craft"

What does this even mean? For many it's attention to detail on visuals. But as we know design is more than that.

Personally when looking for strong product designers I look for key things such as:

• Strategic Thinking: Do you understand the long-tail implications of your designs? Are you capable of creating artefacts that go beyond the surface and shine a light on hidden and underlying challenges?

• Technical Acumen: Do you understand how digital products are built and distributed? Do you understand the low-level technologies that allow a given digital product to deliver its value? Do you understand the constraints and limitations of your technology stack?

• Visual Skills: Can you produce generally appealing designs that are aesthetically pleasing and that promote trust? Are you able to capture the cultural dynamics of a product and its audience and create visuals that trigger an emotional response?

Andrea Pilutti said it so well on a recent post of mine about the rise in the obsession with “Craft”:

“I think behind that demand we might find two types of companies:
1. companies with low design maturity that thinks that design is just making things pretty
2. companies that intentionally put lot of emphasis in crafting high quality products, who understand that the “design last mile” is as important as the rest of the design process, starting with research.”

Link to full post here.

8. The barrier for getting into design is low

The barrier to being a "designer" is low.

You can't be an engineer in 3 months. You can't be a doctor in 3 months. You can't be a pilot in 3 months. But, you can be a "designer" in 3 months.

Democratising design to the point an online UX course or a 3-month boot camp with claims you will be a fully-fledged designer is wrong and misleading. It's an entry, a foot in the door.

The design industry needs standards, guilds, foundations and vetting to stop the dilution. Design is hard and gnarly.

Design can support solving the biggest problems in the world, so we need standards, now.

I'm not saying bootcamps are inherently bad, but people need to understand doing a course for 3 months doesn't give you the sway it used to walk into a role, you need to keep learning, get mentors, do projects you might not enjoy to get some commercial experience under your belt.

9. Move away from UX to Product Design

I cannot remember the last time I took on a UX brief, it’s all product design now.

I see Product Designers doing “pure UX” roles, and UX/UI designers doing product discovery type work. You have to look beyond the job title. Product Design is a lot easier for companies to understand.

Andy Budd wrote a short article on this here. Great read.

10. Leaders going through an identity crisis

2022-2024 has felt like we've had a decimation of design leadership. Many companies have downsized, so we've seen new boards come in, take out design leadership, have design move into products and design wrapped up under a CPO/CMO/CTO.

Why? I am grappling this myself. Has design done a good enough job of selling it's value? This is a big question, one I don't feel qualified to answer, but I am merely reporting what I have seen.

Researching through the years and speaking to leaders (Because I was not around then in the 90's/2000's) it seems the need for UX skyrocketed in 2000's, and then 2012 onwards there was a rise in companies building in-house design capabilities partnering with strategic agencies.

But now we see less CDO level roles. I believe a lot of still understand the value of design somewhat, and hire CDO/VP level folks on fractional basis but see the permanent slot as a luxury hire.

Questions/thoughts I have going into 2025:

• Will the Product role be more prominent to run design teams?

• Will we see more design leaders become founders or move into other areas? I think yes. It makes total sense.

Design leaders MUST think of themselves as business executives first and foremost that solve business challenges with other peers, not constricted by the design title.

11. "Design needs a seat at the table"

Such a buzzword phrase. I once heard from a VP, a lot of people want the seat, but get there and don't know what to do.

I've said this before, I'll say it again, C-Suite members want design leaders who think of themselves as a business executive that brings design to the "table"

A good start would be:

• Translate design success into how business views success.

• Stop saying "design". Speak the business language.

• Start talking about what CEOs, CPOs, CIOs care for.

• Take initiative. Infuse design into business strategy.

A lot of execs don't like spending money. Show them design needs investment. CEOs care about customers, satisfaction, increase in shareholder value .CIOs care about streamlining processes, saving 5%. CFOs care about profit, revenue, and savings.

Design can support all of this. Some people just don't know yet.

Non-designers don't understand design like designers, speak their language. Make them listen and care.

Rogier van der Heide spoke about this in a recent post:

"Dear design leader, it is your responsibility to be understood and appreciated. Do not expect business executives to speak “design”. Instead, embrace their language: the language of business, and frame design as a driver of strategic goals. You own a discipline that delivers growth, value, and customer loyalty.

In large corporations, having a C-level design executive in the boardroom will certainly make all of the difference; but only if that design executive does what everyone in the boardroom does: making a contribution to corporate strategy, creating alignment and connections with the other corporate functions, and translating the boardroom’s business goals and strategic vision into design activities... As well as strategic design choices that include the organizational and resource decisions for the design function. In other words: if you want to play with the big girls and boys, then be a big girl or boy and ensure that design is embedded in executive strategic discussions right from the outset."

12. Companies understanding their designers need business competence

The more companies I speak to, and hear how C-Suites overlook design, I'm starting to understand why they do.

The problem some designers have is they cannot articulate what exactly their value is. When challenged to provide strategic guidance, they fall back on the comfortable tactical aspects of design or process vagueness.Most design leaders can hardly justify the existence of a proper design practice beyond the idea that engineering needs design support to build the right products.

More and more in 2024, I am rarely seeing design as a strategic function.

Speaking to peers in the industry it seems more companies are investing in business design educstion, workshops as they know that to be successful they must have competence in communicating upwards the value of design.

13. Everyone thinks they can hire designers

There was hardly any design recruiters when I started, talking mainly to Europe, I know there are a few great ones in the US who have been doing this a long time.

But in London in particular there were very few. Now every recruitment agency wants to get involved. In-house teams often don't have design specialism. If you're a good recruiter you should be able to hire your standard designer, but the more niche roles is where it gets tough.

People who don’t understand the nuances of how to hire designers, should not hire designers alone, they need support.

For example, I feel many design teams lack Visual Design, Motion, 3D. Real creativity.

Companies that invest in world-class UI, Motion, and 2D/3D artists, win.

In 2019, I worked daily with David Martin the founder at Fantasy. It's taught me how to pick out the top 1% of Designers and know the nuances of 2D, 3D, Motion, UI, UX and how it fits into business. I had to learn from him.

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What have you noticed in the last 10 years?

That’s it until next time! 👋

P.S. I’m looking into 2025 and have openings to take on new searches. If you’re looking for senior level IC’s through to design executives, please do get in touch to see if we can help.