Tips for the Interviewer

[Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- FS -dot- COM -dot- AU>]

Jennifer said:
> I'm starting to interview to hire 2 graphic designers this week.
> I am not a graphic designer, although I do have some background in
> document design / layout . . . I would appreciate any last minute
> advice on interviewing in general or my situation in particular.

The main thing I would look for is user focus. How do they know
whether what they have done is good? As they work, whose face is in
their mental picture of the person who will view it -- an end user's?
another graphic designer's? their own?

> I can pick out a good design from a bad design and tell you why.
> I can pick out a great design from a good design, but I probably
> couldn't tell you exactly why the great design is better than the
> good one.

That's an excellent question to put to the candidates. Get them to
explain to you the difference between bad, good and great. If they
can't do better than jabber 'clean' 'crisp' 'balanced', then you
have an unfulfilled artist on your hands. And that's fine if you've
always wanted to be a patron of the arts. . .

If you're going to work with this person you need to have shared goals
and some basic agreement on what would constitute a good, successful
product. Without that, you don't have much of a basis to resolve any
disagreements that arise during your work together.

Regards
---
Stuart Burnfield                "Fun, fun, fun
Functional Software Pty Ltd     In the sun, sun, sun. . ."
mailto:slb -at- fs -dot- com -dot- au