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Should you hire a junior designer for your startup?
Finding good people is hard, hiring them is an exercise in gambling and salesmanship, and keeping them is both a joy and a constant stress.
I’m often approached by founders who want advice on who their first design hire should be. You usually have two choices: hire fast and cheap (junior designer) or slow and expensive (senior designer). It’s worth mentioning that when I say “junior” I don’t mean young. I mean new to the field. You could be 100 years-old and still be a junior designer having come out of retirement for an epic centenarian career shift.
Most entrepreneurs are under incredible financial and logistical pressures and want to cut as many corners as possible to get up and running. I can understand the temptation of taking the fast and cheap option.
Hiring a senior designer is a taxing, strenuous affair, especially for a new company with no brand equity and a shallow creative network. I’ve helped lots of established organizations (Airbnb, IBM, Google) do this and even with their considerable design cred it is still exasperating.
Finding good people is hard, hiring them is an exercise in gambling and salesmanship, and keeping them is both a joy and a constant stress.
By contrast, finding junior designers is easy. In Silicon Valley’s current boom, lots of people are switching careers to the magical world of Visual and UX Design. I know, because I’ve taught hundreds of them at General Assembly over the last several years. I love sharing what I know with people eager and passionate about getting into design, but I know their drive often makes them willing to work for less. I cringe knowing strapped-for-cash founders will be ready to pounce on the promise of cheap talent.
As you might have guessed, this doesn’t go well. There are three flawed assumptions entrepreneurs make when they hire a junior designer:
Assumption 1: I can’t afford a more experienced designer.
Actually, you can’t afford a junior designer. While their salary might be lower, the organizational cost to support them will balloon invisibly in both time and money.
