Hiring a UX Designer is a difficult task if you’ve never worked in the UX world before. The best practices are being established and changed every day, there are multiple focuses that fall under UX talent, and the field is highly competitive.
Before adding a UX Designer to your team, make sure that you understand these common hiring challenges and learn how to find someone whose skills match your open role.
Identifying Your Specific Challenges
If you don’t understand what you need from a UX Designer, then it will be impossible to find the right professional for the job. UX design is a big field and many designers have different experiences and backgrounds. For example, if you find an extremely talented generalist designer, they might not be able to understand your specific challenges and will have a hard time proposing solutions. However, if you’re able to first identify and describe your problems to candidates during a preliminary interview or in a job description, you will find it’s easier to attract and speak with more qualified candidates.
Narrowing Your Focus
Not only do UX Designers have different backgrounds, but there are also many areas of focus within the UX field. Interaction Design, Visual Design, User Research, Prototyping, Typography, etc, are all different roles you may encounter while searching for UX talent. This long list of specialties can be intimidating, but if you have identified your specific challenges, then it should be easy to narrow down which type of designer you need. Once you know the problem you’re trying to solve, you can then research different job descriptions for each role and what type of work should be included in each portfolio. If you don’t first identify the problem, then it’s impossible to craft a recruitment strategy that will produce the right type of designer.
UX Designer Are In High Demand
It’s no secret that UX Design jobs are highly competitive and that companies will aggressively sell their opportunities to top candidates. This high demand and low supply of talent give top UX professionals the upper hand. However, there are still ways you can attract top talent to your company, even if you’re not able to pay the highest salary. One of the best things you can do is communicate to the candidate why your opportunity is unique and how they can make a direct impact on the company. Top candidates and Millennial talent aren’t just interested in money. They want career growth, learning opportunities, and work-life balance, and if your company can provide these things that you will have an advantage over the competition.
Also, don’t just depend on job boards to recruit talented job seekers. Get active in local networking events, industry meetups, and social media.
Navigating the UX world can be very difficult and making the wrong hire can have lasting negative effects on your business. If you need more assistance with hiring a UX Designer, reach out to Naviga Recruiting at 866-487-4156. And we offer contract marketing services that allow you to hire a UX Designer on a contract or temp-to-perm basis.
