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The path to a career in the design field is generally understood. You study a relevant subject in school, you gain experience in an internship, you land a job in the field. And although not all routes follow tradition’s course, one thing is for sure: There are plenty of resources for finding out how to get a job, but there’s far less guidance available for those who are already on the career path.
“We’re not taught about careers. We don’t learn how to manage the course of the process throughout the course of a lifetime,” says Billy Clark, who founded Billy Clark Creative Management (BCCM) after more than a decade at New York–based talent acquisition firm Jack Kelly & Partners. Five years ago, Clayton Apgar, an actor turned interior designer turned BCCM client, joined the firm to helm its West Coast business. Together, the partners have counseled thousands of creative firms on organizational strategy and talent acquisition—Kelly Wearstler, Roman and Williams, Studio Sofield, and a slew of other AD100 firms among them.
Client or not, you’ll want to have pen and paper ready when Clark and Apgar are around. Their insights spout like a faucet in need of repair, spewing from all angles without any sign of stopping—an experience only intensified when you’re able to get the bicoastal business partners in the same room. Now, the partners behind BCCM are sharing all their insights on career development and methods for demystifying—or dare we say, enjoying—the job search in their new tome The Little Black Book to Land Your Dream Job. Pull out your highlighters, because this one is full of wisdom.
As a teaser to the book, which will donate 10% of profits to the Center for Employment Opportunities, Clark and Apgar caught up with AD PRO to share the actionable tips to hiring that they’ve been providing to some of the industry’s biggest players for years.
Prepare beyond the job description.
Though they’re great for accountability purposes, job descriptions tend to be one-sided hiring resources, offering more insight to the candidate than to the company itself. To balance the equation, Clark and Apgar recommend that employers create an ideal hire profile, based on considerations such as: What qualities should this person possess? What are the studio’s cultural nuances? “In an industry that provides a service, finding an individual who fits into the studio vibe is essential to maintaining harmonious discourse,” says Clark. “Job descriptions are important, but developing a profile of the individual you want in the office makes a longer-term play.”
Don’t get caught up in needing to quickly fill a role.
In the world of design, where every part of a project is thoroughly scheduled and delays or issues can pop up at any time, the loss of one team member can be a heavy burden on the process. “Oftentimes, principals want to put out the fire by quickly putting a butt in a chair, but that’s not necessarily the best way to move forward in terms of addressing the needs of the business,” says Clark. Rather, thinking beyond the immediate need and engaging more deeply in the hiring process produces better long-term results. That courtesy extends to the new hire’s transition as well. “You’re investing in a person, not an inanimate object,” adds Clark. “There will always be a learning curve—no one’s ready-made the first day they’re in the chair, regardless of whether you hire a junior or senior candidate. We’ve found that the more employers can be engaged in a long-term hiring dialogue, the better—not that it takes a long time, but that they are invested in the process of engaging with the candidate.”
Studio organizational charts aren’t one-size-fits-all.
Just as design aesthetics vary from firm to firm, so too can organizational charts. The senior designer at firm X may not meet the same experience and responsibility requirements as the senior designer at firm Y, making it difficult to assess the basics of a résumé. “The title is perhaps the least important of considerations, because titles can be so changeable studio to studio,” says Apgar. “Considerations like whether you vibe with the candidate and they with you, or whether they admire your work and find it exciting, are much more important.”
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Having macro structures in place will make the transition easier for new hires and existing team members alike.
Picture this: A small design firm gains some attention and quickly picks up momentum. The business takes off, firing on all cylinders, and soon, it’s been several years since they’ve considered its internal structure and whether its processes are as efficient and effective as they could be. “It’s likely they’ve cobbled together a structure up to that point, but they never thought about it in a strategic sense,” says Apgar of an industry case study he sees time and again. “Principals wake up every day with new creative problems to solve, which makes it difficult to think about macro needs. But the more demanding and chaotic the external factors—from project demands to difficult clients—the more important it becomes to have a rigorous, thoughtful, and efficient internal operation.”
No good job lasts forever.
Every job has a life cycle. In the case of the best working relationships, an end often comes about when an employee has felt the extent to which he or she can grow, or when an employer has maxed out what’s budgeted for the role. “With design talents, it’s often that they want to try another sector of design and their current studio doesn’t do that type of work. It’s not personal, but they’ve grown and accomplished and want to try something new,” says Clark. To keep track of such expectations, the business partners recommend holding biannual reviews to better assess both employee and employer goals so as not to be surprised by future shifts. “An employer has to realize that the individual contributed and has driven revenue and made a difference to the bottom line, and now it’s time for them to spread their wings somewhere else. The best employers understand that that happens with an employee, and it’s best to be supportive if they’re ready to make a move,” adds Clark.
A principal’s leadership contributes to long-term team retention and success.
Working with some of the top design firms today and understanding the dynamics of various studios has afforded Clark and Apgar fascinating workplace insights. Take, for instance, the power of tone: “We see that when a principal uses the same voice externally with clients as he or she does internally with the team—when there’s a consistency to the vibe—that really goes a long way,” says Apgar. “The more everyone feels as though they can put their best foot forward and the company itself isn’t getting in the way of that, the more productive everyone becomes. And if employers have a sense of how they’d like their company to function and present itself, both externally and internally, all of that contributes to a stability that manifests into success.”
