Hire Ed, Part 2

Unlocking the mystery of how we order food, uh…I mean hire talent.

A lot of design, illustration, photography students and graduates ask, ‘How do I get hired?’. We’re happy to share our process that helps us find the right fit for a project.

In last week’s post of this three-part series (by the way, have you been dancing??), we wrote about how promotional pieces don’t really do what they’re intended to do. And, if we’re honest as a studio, they don’t inform our decisions with how we hire collaborators for projects in general.

Consider how you choose or select a restaurant in your own life. I know, another food analogy in a Hambly & Woolley blog post. (Not sorry, we like food, let’s taco about this later).

What are the parameters for deciding on where to eat? There’s a handful of factors, right? Who we’re with (the client), how much we can spend (budget), what is in season (trends), what did we eat yesterday or last time out, and what are we eating tomorrow (context). Even the feel or vibe we’re looking for (style). And then the dreaded ‘Do they take reservations or have space for us last-minute!?!?’ (availability).

If we look at what goes into the decisions we all make around food, there’s a lot of parallels in the parameters and process for hiring at the studio.

Hey, look! An unofficial hiring process diagram from our studio. How handy!

When we are beginning to source collaborators for a client project, we very much go through that restaurant choice matrix.

We always want the work we do as a studio to fit the client and their brief as well as possible. So, our process for choosing illustrators, photographers and any contributor really, remains the same. If a promo was memorable or kept, we would consider it early in the process to see if there is a fit. Next, we will usually consider collaborators we know first to see if there’s a person who checks all the boxes and with whom we have a comfort or trust level. 

Established trust and positive project history goes a long way, but they don’t override the process. If the fit isn’t going to be right, we keep looking. We then move to our network. Who has worked with friends of the studio? Just last week, Barry Quinn from Quake gave Dom a recommendation for a potential collaborator. 

So, what does that mean for you as you try to break into the industry? We’ll have a few suggestions and examples next week in our final post in this series to consider around networking and making meaningful connections. Stay tuned! In the meantime, stay curious, ask questions, and keep pushing your work.

We’re excited to see what you’re up to! Just because we might not be hungry right now, doesn’t mean we aren’t scoping what the next meal might look like!