On building a great creative team

When it comes to creating great work and wonderful products, you need a team able to manifest that vision. Over my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to both inherit teams, grow teams, and even build one from scratch. My priority has been developing a consistent and effective method of hiring great creatives.

Previous roles have been sourcing creatives very close to my own background. Designers, ADs, and a little bit of motion graphics. For someone fresh to the role of hiring, it was reassuring to know I would be looking for creatives who spoke the same professional language.

The most challenging aspect of hiring comes from creating a multi-disciplinary team where your expertise may not align with those you’re interviewing. How can one make an informed decision, and even offer relevant creative direction to someone who has a different range of skills?

The simple answer is to learn. One of the most common quotes a hiring manager will hear is to always hire people better than you. Due to a perpetual state of imposter syndrome on my behalf, it’s not hard.

In reality, there are a few key elements to every interview I conduct. No matter your background, I believe these few steps will rarely steer you wrong.

Getting in the door

To get into an interview stage, any creative must have an up to date portfolio or a way of sharing their work for outside consumption. In the age of WYSIWYG sites, Behance, Dribble etc. There’s no excuse not to have an online (shareable) presence.

While I do miss the feel of printing the latest iteration of my book — and there’s still definitely a place for that — Hiring managers often don’t have a lot of time to wait to see the final thing.

Your site does not need to be the pinnacle of web design or functionality. Especially if your chosen field bears no connection to web design. In fact, one of my favourite examples of this is from a great copywriter I currently work with. Their site, for all intents and purposes, is outdated and basic. But, it displayed their work and I was able to navigate without any issues. I saw the work, it was great, so we got them in for an interview.

Plus, the site had a cropped and rubbish quality picture of them pretending to throw a dog to themself. What more could you need?

For a resumé — keep it simple. Who did you work for and what did you do there? One or two pages, maximum. This also relates to your cover letter.

Everyone is passionate. Everyone is a team player. Everyone is dedicated and ‘works too hard’ all the time. That’s your baseline, no need to say it. If you’re not any of the above, then I’m not sure there’s much more to add!

What I’m looking for is why the job you’re applying for is relevant to you. What do we as a business offer you, and how can your background answer the job specification? A couple of lines outlining the company’s relevance is often all it takes.

Skill charts

Speaking of resumés, a formal request to any and all fresh creatives out there: remove skill bars and charts from your resumés. I was once one of those, I saw the trend and thought it was a great way to fill out a despairing empty page.

However, they don’t work. What are you comparing yourself too? What is the baseline? Are you telling me that with 3 years’ experience you are a master 10/10 5 stars Photoshop power-user?

The truth is we’re all learning all the time, and we should never stop. Products come and go. Creative Cloud updates more often than I’ve had coffees and it’s a case of constant learning and adapting.

What I’m interested in is not your aptitude with software, it’s your ability to take a question posed in a brief and find a wonderfully creative solution. Products can be taught, ideas can be nurtured. I want to see ideas, and even if the execution isn’t perfect that can be improved over time and with the right team.

Creativity isn’t the sole preserve of a MacBook Pro and expensive software license.

Process

Quite simply, how do you get from a brief and blank piece of paper to a wonderful piece of creative execution?

There’s clearly no ‘right’ way of doing this. No magic solution to answering a brief and certainly not one Medium post that rules them all. Yet, what is vital is that any creative should adhere to some sort of process.

That could be as simple as research — ideation — execution, or an incredibly convoluted 12 step program toward creative enlightenment.

Some projects are simple. They need some well-written copy and a beautiful image to help generate an email selling something in particular. With a strong brand voice and clearly curated art direction, these challenges can be simple. The key is getting to the point in which we have a great tone and design.

One thing I notice time and again is the reliance on the end product. I know how hard it can be collating everything from day one, and the temptation is to show final_final_print.jpg in your portfolio. More often than not, that gets you in the door.

What I want to hear is how you got there. What sketches did you scrawl across your notepad in search of the ‘big idea’. How many doodles did it take to nail the logo? When working with clients or key stakeholders, how do you deal with difficult situations and iterative rounds of feedback?

It helps justify your final piece that much more. I often joke that ‘we’ll always have ‘Round 1’ after a collective grown from feedback to round 6,7 or 8. If that’s the work that truly dictated the direction of your final creative, be proud to show it. Nothing excites me more in an interview that seeing all of the work that didn’t make it.

Interests

Yes, learning that you were the under 12’s national table tennis champion is fascinating. However, what I’m really looking for here are people who live and breathe this stuff. People who actually care about the industry to the point in which they’re browsing It’s Nice That at 11 pm and think that’s totally normal.

Is your Instagram feed filled with fresh new creative inspiration or photos of your friend’s latest dessert? Both are acceptable, but it’s what you do with that information that matters.

Great creatives are those who pay attention. Do you walk down the street looking up? Have random outburst of joy at something that’s innocuous to the rest of the world?

It’s amazing to me how many creatives have no outside interest in creativity. What are your favourite ads from the last year? What brand gets you excited? Which agency or product gets you hot under the collar every time you see something new from them?

I’d never expect a candidate to possess an encyclopedic knowledge of all things creative industry, god knows I don’t. An awareness of what’s great is not just useful for these type of questions — but integral in bolstering your own base of inspiration. Something completely tangential to a current design problem could well be the solution.

Our job is to notice things, seeing the beauty in the world and explore why it looks, feels, reads or sounds the way it does.

Being human

One element that supersedes all the above is the candidate’s potential fit. Sadly, this is almost completely down to the hiring manager themself. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to staff culture.

The best advice that can be given, is to be yourself. Interviews can be stressful times, — for both parties. For me, the only way to avoid potential awkwardness and the wrong hire is to be as open as possible.

The candidate is never the only one being interviewed, and it’s in your best interest to focus on what is best for you. If in the interview you’re not made to feel comfortable in behaving as your truest self, then that job isn’t for you. It’s the hiring manager’s duty to ensure that they’re finding out what your personality quirks, intricacies, and skills are. — And it’s vital for anyone looking for that job to present themselves in a manner that best suits them.

When it comes to finding the right people for the team, I find the best candidates always leave me with an idea. A new perspective and a new outlook on a potential solution. No matter your seniority or experience, if the above points all line up then chances are we’re golden.

These are of course so many other elements that are vital to a successful hire which I haven’t delved into here. Things such as salary negotiation and diversity demand an entire post to themselves. What I’ve outlined today are the core traits and elements I look for from a behavioural perspective.

These relate to my own personal hiring style, but also something I bear in mind whenever interviewing for new roles myself. We’re always learning and this applies to everyone — whatever side of the table you’re currently sitting on.