Hiring someone new is a big task, and it can be challenging to even know where to begin. This week, we asked seven designers—Nicole Cole, Angela Harris, Lina Galvão, Anu Jain, Jamie McGlinchey, Alyssa Mondi and Anouska Tamony—what they consider when bringing on new team members.
Unspoken Moments
“My advice is to hire for the moments that never make it into a portfolio. The way someone handles a delayed order, a client’s uncertainty, or a detail that needs another pass tells you so much about how they will contribute to a studio. Alongside a strong design eye, I value people who ask thoughtful questions, communicate with care and follow through. Ask candidates to walk you through a project that went off course, including their own role in getting it back on track—you’ll learn a great deal about their judgment and willingness to learn. Ultimately, I want the care in our finished spaces to be felt in the way we work too.” —Anu Jain, Atelier Oleana, San Francisco
Skills to the Test
“When hiring, we always provide our candidates with an assessment where they design one room, select furniture, and draw their own floor plan in CAD. We like to see their actual skills versus solely relying on a portfolio, which often has the input of their previous firm. We provide this assessment with clear instructions and give them a week to complete it. We then assess whether the design is well thought out, whether it works with our brand, and whether they are at the right level for the position. Once the hire is complete and the new employee starts, build in a 90-day onboarding process, with 30, 60 and 90-day check-ins. That time period should have an onboarding plan by week, with training and shadowing and down time built in. The worst thing you can do is throw a new employee into a project right off the bat without them understanding your tools, processes and company culture. Give your employees time to adjust so they are set up for success and empowered to do good work.” —Lina Galvão, Curated Nest, Greenwich, Connecticut
In-House Recruiters
“We keep our team lean on purpose, so every hire shapes the studio. Every designer on our staff is professionally educated, which means we care less about a perfect portfolio and more about core skills and the right cultural fit. We’ve worked with recruiters in the past, but we’ve found better candidates by running the process ourselves. Our most recent hire actually found us through an Instagram post saying we were hiring! We also stay well connected in the industry, and a referral from someone on our team is always a green flag.” —Alyssa Mondi, Donna Mondi Interior Design, Chicago and Denver
Lay the Groundwork
“This year, I’m working toward hiring my first employee, having built the studio with freelance support. That transition has made me think carefully about what I need to learn as an employer, as well as what a designer needs to learn from me. For me, spending time working together before making a longer-term commitment is invaluable. A portfolio tells you about someone’s design ability; working together reveals how you communicate, respond to feedback and approach the less glamorous parts of a project. Shared values and care for the work matter as much as talent. With a junior designer, you also need to make room for teaching. You can’t expect someone to absorb your judgement and processes simply by sitting beside you. And I want that exchange to go both ways. A system that works [only] when it rests largely on a founder’s shoulders may need rethinking when other people take responsibility. My advice to another founder making this transition would be to involve your solicitor and accountant early. Have a proper employment contract drawn up and make sure you understand your responsibilities around payroll, tax and pensions before committing to a hire. Alongside the salary, allow for the time you’ll need to spend teaching, reviewing work and supporting someone as they find their feet.” —Anouska Tamony, Anouska Tamony Interiors, London
Check Your List
“Hire for the [broader] background the role needs, not just industry experience. Our studio manager came from procurement and operations in apparel and fashion, not interior design. Those skills transfer directly to tracking orders, vendors and deliveries, and leading teams in the logistics and operations realm. Design processes and firm-specific knowledge can be taught; operational instincts are harder to teach. Define the role in writing before the person starts. When we brought on a studio manager and a logistics coordinator at the same time, we wrote a role scope document that spelled out who owns what. It prevented overlap and gave each new hire clear ownership from day one. It also clearly communicated to the team what roles each person would fill, so they knew who to go to for what. Don’t skip reference checks, even when you’re eager to fill the seat. Make sure to take the time to get a couple references and talk to them not only about their experience working with your potential hire, but what you can do to help bring your new person success in your firm. Not every need [warrants] a full-time hire. For studio and logistics support, we brought on a part-time studio associate—an employee who brought years of experience from a previous career, but was ready for a lifestyle change of working less while still applying her skill sets in a fun and dynamic workplace.” —Nicole Cole, Vestige Home, Philadelphia
Multidisciplinary Additions
“The first thing we look for is alignment with our culture and purpose. Skills can be developed, but we want people who genuinely want to win together, people who value creativity, collaboration, curiosity, and the power of the collective voice. We look for individuals who believe that [holistic] design matters far beyond aesthetics, and understand that the work we do has the ability to influence how people live in, feel, connect with and experience their communities. At Trio, we often say that we are here to learn, grow and serve others, and that philosophy is central to how we hire. We want people who are intellectually curious, generous with their ideas, willing to challenge convention, and equally willing to listen and learn from others. Increasingly, we are also looking for people who are comfortable working across disciplines. Our work is evolving at the intersection of art, the humanities and the sciences, and we believe some of the most meaningful creative ideas emerge when those worlds come together. Technical ability and experience absolutely matter, but ultimately, we hire people who believe creativity can serve humanity and who want to be part of something larger than simply designing beautiful spaces.” —Angela Harris, Trio, Denver
Fresh Perspective
“Before founding my studio, I spent more than six years at [fast-casual salad franchise] Sweetgreen during a period of rapid national growth, which gave me a lot of experience hiring and building a design team at scale. One of the biggest things I took from that experience is that hiring doesn’t end when someone accepts the offer. A new hire’s first day is critically important, and so is their experience over the first 90 days. Now, running a small independent studio, every new person has an outsize impact on the culture. My biggest tip is not to treat onboarding as administrative. The small gestures matter. They communicate what you value as a company long before an employee has fully learned how you work. And you can teach skills, but taste is inherent, so I look for candidates with a fresh perspective that can communicate their point of view with humility.” —Jamie McGlinchey, Now or Never Studio, New York
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