This document provides advice on how to find, hire, and retain a strong design team. It emphasizes that the hiring process takes patience and emphasizes growing talent internally. Some key points include: - Do not use vague job descriptions or labels like "rockstar", clearly describe the needed skills and responsibilities. - Do not rely on recruiters or LinkedIn to find candidates, instead reach out directly to designers you admire and look in their online communities. - Conduct thorough interviews to assess not just skills but how well you will work together and make decisions. - Prioritize company culture and employee happiness to retain top talent once hired.

1. Hunting Unicorns
How to find, keep and grow a design team
Cap Watkins, @cap

11. 2010

12. 2011

13. 2012

14. 2013

17. Whoa.

18. Help us hire some more.

20. How do I find people?

21. How do I convince people?

22. How do I know who’s right?

23. One bad hire...

24. Can affect everything.

25. So where to start?

26. There Are No Unicorns

27. There Are No Unicorns
Or rock stars. Or ninjas. Or Santa Claus.

28. Non-descriptive labels suck.

29. Your job description
determines who applies.

30. Be descriptive.

31. Advocate for the user.

32. Has product vision.

33. UX-focused.

34. Visually cohesive.

35. Writes html/css.

36. Measures success.

37. Moves quickly.

38. Breaks things.

39. Unafraid to be wrong.

40. Describe the person.

41. Starting the Search

42. Starting the Search
Go get ‘em, tiger.

43. What not to do:

44. Don’t hire a recruiting firm.

46. Don’t use LinkedIn.

48. Okay, here’s what works:

49. Be patient.

50. Really patient.

51. Like, a metric ton, boatload,
omg unfathomable amount
of patient.

52. Contact people you admire.

53. Find people in their natural
environment.

57. Look for the writers.

61. Reach out yourself.

62. Recruiters suck.

63. Recruiters (mostly) suck.

64. Guess who doesn’t suck?

65. Guess who designers want
to hear from?

66. You.

68. Sell your passion.

69. Peeling the Onion

70. Peeling the Onion
Conducting a real design interview.

71. Forget design for a second.

72. What do you want to know?

73. Will we work well together?

74. How do they make
decisions?

75. Take each answer and ask
another related to it.

76. Do you want to work with
them?

77. Keeping People

78. Keeping People
Hiring doesn’t matter if people leave.

79. Attrition.

80. Maximize happiness.

81. Control.

87. Ask them.

88. Managing Growth

89. Managing Growth
The more things change, the more things should change.

90. Hey, things are going well!

91. We need more people!

92. Wrong.We need more people!

93. So, so wrong.We need more people!

94. Hire when it’s painful not to.

96. That’s okay.

97. Culture is fluid.

98. It changes all the time.

101. So, yeah.

102. So, yeah.
That’s kind of it.

103. So, yeah.
It’s about people.

104. So, yeah.
It’s always about people.

105. Thanks :)
Cap Watkins, @cap

106. This person

107. This person = really important

109. This person

110. is *the* unicorn.

111. is *the* unicorn.

112. But here’s the thing.

113. Hiring one takes patience.

114. Like, a lot of patience.

115. And in the meantime...

116. Shit is getting real.

117. Relax.

118. Build your product.

119. Rules for hiring designers.

120. Great people are usually
pretty happy.

121. Great people are never
looking for work.

122. Rule #1

123. Reach out in person.

124. Rule #2

125. Be prompt.

126. Rule #3

127. Be kind.

128. Growing Unicorns
An alternative for those who don’t like hunting.

129. You have two options.

130. 1. Keep looking for a unicorn.

131. 2. Grow your own.

132. Anyone can be a unicorn.

133. Aptitude

134. Passion