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Why Facebook, Medium, and UENO don’t ask for your design degree.
And how do they find great designers, if it’s not about the degrees?
In the last years I’ve been writing or reviewing many job listings for designers (just to be clear, here I refer to Product Designers. UX / UI sort of designers. How ever you want to call it, you know whom I mean). A lot of companies still love to require a design degree. Somehow its still a thing. My question here is always: Are you sure that someone with a degree is your best candidate?
Or, are you limiting yourself and might be missing out on some great candidates?
Ok ok, hold your horses. All you seasoned designers, thinking now: “How dare you, Stan? I’ve learned my design craft from the true masters. There is no way someone can learn this craft without studying it for many years!”
I hear you. And look, I’m not against degrees at all. I honestly believe a university degree is rather helpful to become better in your craft. Regardless of the craft. I also believe that its helpful to study design to be a good designer. As we all know, we learn a lot more soft skills in college besides the actual subject. That’s really good!
But, a design degree is probably not required to be a great designer.
And this article is just about that: Do you require a degree in your job listing, when hiring a designer?
Now, let’s look beyond parer and focus on results for a moment. Here is the job ad of BASIC, one of the best design agencies, working with companies like Beats, Fender, PlayStation and Nike. They are seriously awesome!
No word about a design degree. Rather “real passion for our craft: design, creativity, technology”.
Let’s move on and look on UENO, another top-notch agency, creating amazing work for brands as Lonely Planet, Google and Medium:
