Hiring skilled Product Design professionals is crucial for any organisation delivering high-quality, user-centric digital experiences.

As businesses accelerate their digital transformation efforts, the need for UX/UI expertise has expanded beyond traditional tech companies, creating a highly competitive market for top talent.

However, the hiring process presents unique challenges due to the evolving nature of the field and the diverse skill sets required.

Here, we outline five primary challenges hiring managers face in the UX/UI industry.

1 – Identifying exactly what you need

The UX/UI domain is broad, encompassing various skills such as user research, interaction design, visual design, and front-end development.

Companies sometimes struggle to define the precise skill set required for a particular role, leading to ambiguous job descriptions and misaligned expectations. The rapid evolution of tools and technologies compounds this challenge, making it difficult to assess whether a candidate’s skills are up to date.

Recently, we were given a brief with a job description that was over four pages long and highly confusing. Together with the client, we developed clear and concise role definitions and assessment criteria, leveraging input from current team members to produce a one-page document outlining the precise requirements, skill-based assessments, and practical tasks required in the interview process. 

2 – Managing remote and hybrid work preferences

The shift towards remote and hybrid work models has changed the dynamics of hiring and onboarding UX/UI designers. Hiring managers must now consider candidates’ preferences for remote work and ensure effective collaboration and communication in a distributed team environment.

We frequently see poorly established policies for remote work collaboration and sometimes even changes to them during the hiring process, which can completely alter a candidate’s suitability.  

During the hiring process, we assess candidates’ experience and comfort with remote work and collaborate with our clients to ensure they have the necessary resources and support to succeed in a hybrid environment.

3 – Not overvaluing experience

Professional experience in any field will always be relevant and potentially valuable, and UX/UI scenarios are no different. However, finding the right person to match your needs as a company in these settings involves more than simply identifying the candidates with the most years behind them as designers. 

In practice, someone with relatively little experience, and without big name brands in their portfolio, might still be best placed to deliver the outcomes you want and need to see as a business. Fundamentally, it’s important to value experience but not to overvalue it, as you consider your hiring options. 

4 – Not being dazzled by portfolios

When hiring for UX/UI roles, it’s easy to be impressed by portfolios filled with visually striking designs and creative flair. However, from an employer’s perspective, it’s important to dig deeper than surface-level aesthetics.

A truly effective designer must prioritise the overall needs of the business, ensuring their work not only looks good but also functions well and delivers measurable results.

Clients want more than just a beautifully crafted process—they’re looking for the tangible outcomes that process produced. It’s about showcasing how your designs led to success, supported by data.

If a project didn’t meet expectations, it’s critical to explain why and how you would approach it differently next time. That’s the kind of insight that stands out in a portfolio, beyond just the final product.

5 – Over-reliance on internal recruitment teams

It will often make sense for highly skilled and savvy people within a business to handle their recruitment processes themselves. After all, they are likely to know the demands and the details of what a specific job role requires, and whether someone they encounter is likely to be a good cultural fit within their organisation. 

However, whilst some internal teams perform well, many lack the specific expertise to recruit for specialised UX/UI roles. This can lead to an over-reliance on advertising resulting in large volumes of unsuitable candidates being passed to hiring managers which become a resource-draining chore to sift through.  

Partnering with experts can speed up the hiring process because our specialist knowledge and experience means we can quickly discern whether an application is worth taking forward or not, so only relevant candidates are proposed.

Helping you get things right

At such an exciting time for tech innovation and particularly for UX/UI, making the right decisions on recruitment has never been more imperative. 

At Carson Harris Associates, we can draw on a huge wealth of experience and expertise to help our partners avoid the above mistakes and support them in finding the people best placed to drive their businesses forward.