Okay Netflix began doing it this year, but kind of curious why not build a talent pipeline? As a new grad it sucks to know some companies just won’t hire you. They have clearly found PMF and have a healthy amount of designers who can mentor new talent. #design #recruiting @webflow @rippling
Some places like to run with a leaner staff, and that usually means more heavily weighted to experienced hires. Startups and small companies are the talent development pipeline.
I see, thanks for the response
Rippling hires new grads, we even started a 2 months Program called Rippling Academy to teach new grads about tech stack and codebase
Do they hire new grad designers though? Ik they hire Swe new grads
We tend to convert interns much more often than hire new grads though. So it will be difficult if we have no experience with you. Not impossible, just a lot harder
Not all companies have work for junior designers. At different stages, even mature companies have different types of work that needs to get done. Junior designers typically do work with clear scope and a clear deliverable (for example, design a form to edit your profile). Senior designers will be working on more abstract and large scale problems (for example, design a solution to increase the authenticity of users on the app, and what it means to have an identity). And at the highest level, the most senior designers identify the biggest problem with the app/company and designs a vision and solution for that problem. The work that a junior vs senior designer does is very different. Not everyone is designing clear UI work at a company. Senior designers need to have ownership in the vision and strategy of the product and will be frustrated doing smaller UI work, while a junior designer won’t have the experience to navigate ambiguity or scope of changes that affect the entire company. At many companies I’ve worked with, they don’t have the senior design support and mentorship in place to hire junior designers. They need someone who will hit the ground running with minimal support, and they don’t want to make that investment, or have enough senior designers willing to mentor them.
Can you explain what a mid-level designer is like then?
A mid-level designer would be designing something a little more abstract than a junior designer, but still has a clear scope. Rather than being asked to design a form to edit a profile, assuming the solution takes in the shape of a form, the problem may be “design the best way to edit a profile” — it may not be a form anymore, but maybe a WYSIWYG editor, or pop up modal, or something else. There’s more creative range. A designer with a level above that may be designing a system for editing across the whole app or platform, or designing something that better communicates the value proposition of completing your profile to get users to want to invest in their identity.
We mostly don’t hire new grads because our products are so freaking complicated that it would be an awful experience for a new grad. I believe we hire new grads for some roles that aren’t for designing within the software, but we expect at least 3 years of experience before touching Maya, Inventor, Fusion, etc. There’s possible exceptions with interns who prove they’re good enough for the challenges.
This is why internships are so important, and why bootcampers have so much trouble finding work. At least with a Master’s you have the opportunity for an internship. It’s the best and least risky pipeline for hiring juniors. Juniors can be great for the team. It helps seniors grow in mentorship and management, it brings new life into the company, they’re excited and not jaded. I’ve hired a few juniors the past few years and they’ve been fantastic. But they take a long time to ramp up.
My experience with juniors in the past few years has been a mixed bag. Some truly stand out and I know they’ll be great designers. Others I think got into the industry because they read a listicle that it pays well or something.
I agree with Amazon, junior designers are really a mixed bag. I’ve mentored a lot of interns and lead junior designers in my career. Interns are almost always a net negative for the company and don’t save you any time, they require a ton of handholding and guidance. They take a long time to ramp up, and right when they can start doing things on their own it’s time for them to leave. Most of the time we’re just making sure they have a great summer so they go back to school telling all their friends what a great place we are to work and attract future talent. I’ve managed junior designers who were underperformers and didn’t have the design skills to do the job well, people who had motivation and work ethic issues, painfully shy and quiet interns who were difficult to connect with, and people dealing with crippling stress and mental health issues. Management is not for everyone, and it’s not all fun and rainbows. From my personal experience with interns, junior designers, and management, I would rather not manage or mentor another intern again.
Because you have to spend a lot of time mentoring them and overseeing their projects. Sometimes do the work for them if they are not performing.
rippling does hire new grads
Not designers
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I’ve interviewed at those places you mentioned and I don’t think the design maturity is as high as you’d expect for mentorship. A lot of folks hired are newly senior or IC staff types and proper people management is a totally different muscle. And with tightening budgets right now I imagine they’d rather pay for someone ready to contribute than have to train someone up.
I see. Noticed this isnt true for engineering though. Do you think design will ever get to that point?
Maybe eventually? Gonna take some time for more design leadership to develop and multiply and for tech leadership to value design as a discipline.