I often come across design managers who use the approach of assessing "demonstrated and comparable work" as a major hiring criteria. Jared nailed an important piece of the hiring puzzle with his comments and I agree completely - but, for balance, I humbly add: don't overlook candidates because they don't have the absolute, precise, mix of work you require. For instance, I recently worked with a manager who needed someone with desktop application design experience. We found someone who had worked on web mainly, but had a great portfolio displaying amazing skills in visual thinking, logic through wireframes and writing communication. The first instinct was to overlook this person, but we pushed to have them back for another round of interviews. Turns out they hired this person and it's been a great relationship - better, in fact, as the person had incredibly solid design thinking skills and came up to speed in no time to assist in other projects such as a a web interface!
You can have it all when hiring employees. Just remember that the dynamics of design productivity are more than a portfolio of micro- focused projects. Someone who has designed ten cell phones does not necessarily translate to someone who will make you a better cell phone on the eleventh try; or that they can grow into something more with your organization. I've made a habit of hiring the person first and the skills second whenever possible.
Again, this doesn't negate what you said Jared - just a balancing point to caution against going a little too far with the definition of "demonstrated and comparable work".
Best, -Dan On Mar 13, 2009, at 2:38 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
So, we work hard to focus purely on those candidates who have demonstrated comparable work to the stated objectives.
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