April 2018, I suddenly found myself out of a job—included in a round of layoffs that shut down the office I worked in. As there was no long drawn out descent preceding my being let go, I wasn’t burned out, and, in fact, found myself energized. I dove into the job market, looking for opportunitiesContinue reading “Thoughts on Hiring a Design Leader (director-level and above)”
Category Archives: recruiting
Conduct better designer portfolio reviews with this tool
TL;DR: Here’s a Portfolio Review–Set-up and Assessment Tool for you to use. A couple years ago I contracted with Capital One to help bring some order to their rapidly expanding design organization. I focused on recruiting and hiring practices–when you’ve got ~40 open reqs, you want to make those processes as efficient and effective asContinue reading “Conduct better designer portfolio reviews with this tool”
If I were to write a second edition of Org Design for Design Orgs…
It’s been about two years since Org Design For Design Orgs came out. After having worked with it, taught it, and spoken with many design leaders and seen many design orgs, there’s a list of things I know I’d want to address if we wrote a second edition (note: no plans to do so). Make dual-trackContinue reading “If I were to write a second edition of Org Design for Design Orgs…”
Design Exercises are a Bad Interviewing Practice
Recruiting and hiring is among the most difficult and time-consuming aspects of a design manager’s job, and wherever they gather and share experiences, the subject of design exercises inevitably comes up. We wrote about it briefly in our book: Design Tests? A topic of some controversy within product design circles is whether candidate interviews shouldContinue reading “Design Exercises are a Bad Interviewing Practice”
Design recruiting, portfolios, and showing work
Jared Spool tweeted about hiring designers and requiring portfolios a couple days ago: If you’re trying to hire designers & require a portfolio, you’re not gonna get top talent. The best designers don’t have them. Too busy. — Jared Spool (@jmspool) November 2, 2016 As a design hiring manager. I require a portfolio. In Org DesignContinue reading “Design recruiting, portfolios, and showing work”
Org Design for Design Orgs 