How to hire your first designer.

Hiring designers is super challenging. Should it be a UX designer? A product designer? Someone who can code? Or all of the before?! Here's how to not get stuck or overwhelmed when looking for your first designer.

How to hire your first designer

As a business owner, you might have an idea, some mockups, or even a 'version one' of a product that brings in revenue. You want to take that product to the next level and need a designer to help you get there.

Several searches later, you feel stuck. Each portfolio is different and designers have too many specialties, labels, and skills to even count. You also already have ideas and a style direction in mind, which seems to make hiring a designer even more challenging.

How do you hire the right designer that helps you turn those ideas into what you have in mind?

I've been in design for 10 years now. During that time, I've been hired tons of times but have also sat at the other end of the table where I hired other designers for my team or a client's team.

In this article, I'll share what to you should keep in mind when hiring your first UI, UX, or product designer.

Qualities to look for when hiring your first designer

Hiring a product or UX designer depends a lot on the type of business you're in. The current state of that business matters, too. I'll start this part of the article with general skills and traits to look for in a designer before diving into specific business types and stages.

Skills to check for regardless of business type

These are the important skills every modern product designer should possess. It does not matter if you're an early-stage startup or long-time corporation. Your designer needs these skills. Period.

Let's take a look at the list.

The list is quite short, which hopefully makes things easier for you. Up next, I have two examples of specific company situations that might require something on top of the list of skills above.

Designers for early-stage companies

Starting with just an idea or MVP? You'll need a UX or product designer with strategic skills op top of what we just discussed. That's someone who can listen well, work on the right design when budgets are tight, and translate your vision into wireframes or clickable prototypes.

Designers for established ideas and companies

If you already have wireframes, mockups, or a live product, your design needs will depend on how advanced your current work is. For example, high-fidelity wireframes typically only need a UI designer to add polish through color, animation, and typography.

However, if your wireframes are more 'early-stage', consider a more allround UX designer who can challenge your current design and improve key user flows.

Practical ways to find the right designer for you

In almost any case, you can find the right designer in one of two ways. The first way is to go out on your own. Let's take a closer look at what that looks like.

Find the right designer own your own

If you're going to hire a product designer on your own, your first step is to determine your current company stage. Like I showed earlier in this article, designers have skills better aimed at certain company types and stages.

Once you have your list of requirements, you can search online for designers. Most designers have a strong online presence with a portfolio and social media accounts on different platforms.

Their portfolio websites help you determine if they tick most of your boxes. They usually also indicate if they're open for work and the type of work that would be (in-house, contracting, or productised services).

When they tick requirements on your list, you can invite them for a meeting to double-check and verify the remaining requirements. Letting them do a test run works, too, but make sure to compensate them for their time.

Hire a fractional head of design first

If you have the budget, working with a 'fractional head of design' can save you time and reduce hiring risks. It also helps when your design network is limited and you prefer a 'DFY' approach.

The fractional head of design is a designer with years of experience in strategic roles. These roles usually are 'first designer' roles at startups or design lead roles in mid-size companies or corporates.

Their main value is knowing what works and doesn't work from design experience. They communicate, explain, and share their design knowledge to help you hire the right designer for your business.

Usually, you'd pay the fractional head of design a retainer fee for 2-4 hours per week until you don't need them anymore, which can be after 1-3 months.

In some cases, this designer can also set up your initial design system and create a 'v1' your future designer can build upon.

I've been both the initial designer and the designer who 'inherits' the 'v1' in previous projects and I can tell you it is a great way to work. It saves you a lot of time compared to starting work only when you find that final designer.

Important tips when hiring a designer

Alright. With design profiles for different company types properly discussed, we move on to my list of important tips and tricks to remember when hiring your first designer.

Generalist over specialist

When hiring your first designer, start with a generalist. That's someone who's comfortable with UI, UX, product design, and basic UX research. In some cases, the design generalist is able to deliver the design in code, too. That would be even better.

This approach gives you a single point of contact rather than multiple parties for each step of your project. Those parties would need to communicate, which takes more time and is more expensive.

The cheaper one-person-for-all approach works well for early-stage startups with limited budgets, too.

Freelance first. In-house later (if at all)

Start with freelancers rather than rushing into a full-time hire. This way of hiring allows you to test your designer with lower risk. If things don't work out, it's much easier to try someone else.

One thing I want to mention, though, is to properly pay your designer when doing your test run. For design roles, it is too common to not pay someone during a test run, which I find to be wrong.

A designer's portfolio is only the start

When looking for a designer, look beyond the portfolio. Of course, the portfolio is super important as a first impression and an indicator of how a designer works, but there's more.

Can they clearly explain their design choices? Are they creating original work, or just copying design trends? Soft skills are challenging to put in a portfolio. They usually surface during a meeting or test run.

At the same time, experience in your particular niche or industry can be helpful, too. They're usually a bit faster than a designer who's working in your niche for the first time.

I consider this to be a 'nice-to-have'. If the designer you have in mind ticks all your boxes except for prior experience in your field of work, I'd still give this designer a chance.