Designers: How to Get Hired
By Ryan Carson @ryancarson
18 October 2010 | Category: Design
We just hired two amazing people at Carsonified (original job post here) and I wanted to share with you how our new designer got my attention and ended up getting hired. We received 46 applications for the design job of which 10+ had registered new domains and designed brand new websites to get our attention like dearcarsonified.com, carsonify.me and others. It's hard to stand out from a big crowd like that so I thought I'd share how our new designer did it.
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The Application
Allison House sent me a link to a page she designed specifically for the job application. The first thing that struck me is that it was beautiful. Now that she had my attention visually, I proceeded to read the copy. It was well written, clever, friendly, showed she was knowledgeable, and demonstrated a detailed knowledge of Carsonified.
Normally, I’d right-click to view the source (all web designers should be able to write clean, semantic markup). However, Allison made the effort of specifically pointing out that she cares about writing beautiful markup, and linked to a new page where that displayed the unstyled markup. Awesome.
I still viewed the source of the page to double check that it was semantic and clean. It was even written in HTML5. Points = Points + 1.
The Back-and-Forth
Now that she fully had my attention, we began exchanging emails. I decided to ask her to design one more page for us, just to be absolutely sure that her skill level was top-notch. I said we were toying with the idea of re-branding Think Vitamin Membership (more on that later) to make the whole offering much more clear.
I was torn about asking her to do this, as it could be perceived as spec work. It obviously wasn’t, as we wouldn’t be using the design, but I didn’t want her to think I was trying to get a bit of design work for free.
I decided to go ahead and ask her, but made it very clear she could say no if she didn’t have time to do this.
Well … Not only did she design a kick-ass page, she recorded a screencast explaining her design decisions and process. If I wasn’t impressed before, I was completely blown away by now.
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Closing the Deal
Once I had decided to hire her, we started to discuss pay. It was interesting, because the subject never came up during all the emails we had exchanged. In the end, we negotiated a pay that worked for both of us and we officially offered her the job.
Looking back on this entire process, here are the things that really helped Allison rise to the top of the crowd:
- Artistic talent: The first requirement is that she had to be a damn good designer. The first response I needed to have when I saw her work was “Oooooh, nice.” If you can’t get past that, it doesn’t matter what else you do.
- Attention to detail: Everything from a subtle mouse-over reference to Star Wars, to using CSS3 Media Queries for an iPhone layout, the whole page just shouted that she crafted every little detail.
- Friendliness: At Carsonified we believe in treating other people like we want to be treated – that being friendly and kind is one of the most important things in life. Allison really showed that she shared those beliefs by the way she wrote the copy and the emails she sent me. I knew she was a perfect fit culturally.
- Hard work: I’m not sure how many hours and days Allison put into this application process, but I know it was extensive. She showed that she really, really wanted the job, and that went a long way in seperating her from the rest of the crowd.
So that’s the story of how our new designer rose to the top of a huge list of potential candidates. I’m humbled and honored that the most talented people in the world want to work for us at Carsonified. It simply blows my mind. But my hope is that in sharing the story, it will help those of you out there who are looking for design jobs to rise above the crowd and nail it. Go get ‘em! :)
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