10 Guides in finding perfect talent for your next Freelance “Graphic designer” Job

Finding “the best” is often easier said than done especially in graphic designing. When hiring in freelance graphic designing market, companies or clients always want the best candidates at the most affordable cost, but with so many freelancing hiring sites and competitive recruitment processes, the person who is the perfect fit for your graphic designing job may never even see your job listing.

But still, finding talent doesn’t have to be a mystery. With a few simple and well-executed practices, we offer 10 guides in finding perfect talent for your next “Graphic designer” Job

10 guides you can follow in finding the best talent for your graphic designing task

1.   Write clear a job descriptions (And make you designing task specific)

It starts with a good job description or a job post. Write job descriptions and be thoughtful about how you inspire candidates upfront, be clear about the expectations and share the background information required. Accurately describing the job is vital in finding the perfect talent for your next graphic designer job. Below listed are few key points to note when writing a perfect graphic designing job description:

• Mention your business goals
• Mention your target audience
• Indicate the art style you expect to see in the final output
• Give a rough indication of you budget
• Mention the expected timelines

2.   Provide a budget range (And attract only the matching candidates)

If an enthusiastic and motivated graphic designer with a slight lack of experience comes along, would you be willing to hire them? Sometimes, the most freelancers are not the best for the job. Providing a budget range gives you the opportunity to find candidates that will learn and work with you. Follow these few tips in deciding your graphic designing project budget:

• Compare budgets of similar designing projects
• Decide on what degree of quality you expect in the output
• Try to balance quality over the budget (Higher the quality higher the budget will be)
• Try to agree on long-term engagements

3.   Request for portfolios of work (And references)

Graphic designing is a highly subjective area. Judging the final output is virtually impossible until you see it visually. Therefore it is always a good idea to request for freelancer’s online portfolios or work templates to get a taste of the quality of his outputs. Below are few portfolios you can request from graphic designers:

• Freelancer Instagram feed (It will have references of their previous work)
• Their facebook page
• LinkedIn profile of the graphic designer
• Access to their personal blogs if any

A professional and a talented graphic designer always want to showcase their work to others. Therefore if a graphic designer is unable to provide such portfolios or references it is likely that they are not the choice for you.

4.   Appeal to the current generation of talent (And attract fresh talent)

Nowadays there are plenty of resources to learn software tools and master them. Becoming a professional graphic designer is no more a part of traditional educational systems such as schooling or getting Degrees.

Therefor in today’s generation there are plenty of graphic designing talents who are really good at it and are in search of freelance graphic designing work. But they have different set of wants and needs in additional to the pay they get. Below are some considerations for you as an employer to consider if you need to attract young talent for your graphic designing tasks:

• Approach them with a friendly attitude
• Always call them by their first name
• Discourage using honorifics when they are calling you (Get “Mr”, “Sir”)
• Always use emojies when chatting with them
• Show that you are flexible
• Always give a single point of contact to them (Younger generation like flatter organizational structures)
• Give them a certain level of engagement with your business goals
• Let them come up with their own suggestions. Always ask for their inputs
• Show that you are looking for a long term engagement than a one-off graphic designing task

5.   Engage proper internal staff (And minimize issues in the future)

As en employer trying to hire a freelance graphic designer for a graphic designing task, it is always a good idea to appoint an internal staff member who has certain level of expertise in graphic designing. Below checklist will help you in choosing the right guy to handle it:

• Does he have prior experience in similar freelance hiring done?
• How is his knowledge on graphic designing?
• Does is have enough knowledge on business objectives of this particular graphic designing task?
• How good is he in his negotiation skills with freelancers?
• Does he have a sound knowledge on the different graphic designing tools used in the industry?

Because the success of the final output of the creative job to a high degree depends on the role played by the internal staff member handling the project with the freelancer.

6.   Request for steps-wise action plan (And a milestone breakup)

Graphic designing is a highly subjective area. You cannot tell exactly at which point you are done with your design. Therefore it is always better to have a clearly defined set of delivery milestones both you and the freelancer agrees. Best is to request for a step-wise action plan from the freelancer so that you get an understanding on his/her way of approach to your graphic designing task. Below are few critical stages that need to cover in such an action plan:

• Freelancer verifying client’s requirement as understood by him
• Agree on the color codes to use
• Do a quick mockup of the design
• Revise the mock up as needed and come to an agreement
• Provide a first cut
• Revise it as needed and get approval from client to proceed
• Arrive at the final output

With such an action plan in place you can easily structure the milestones for your graphic designing task and split the overall budget accordingly.

7.   Seek out to rising talent (And ask them testing questions)

Everyone likes to hire fully-vetted and capable freelancers who can do the graphic designing task well. That’s always nice, but that’s also why they are hard to find. Look for talent that is “on the rise” and has the self-learning ability. Most of the rising talents will have very less to zero earnings in their profiles. But that is not a factor to strike them off. Few critical checks you can do when approaching such novel and rising talent are:

• Ask for their previous work references at external sites
• Test their attitude towards your graphic designing task
• Ask them how valuable your designing task is to them
• Ask them how can then ensure success of their design

Most of the “Rising talents” are eager to find graphic designing work and therefore they are likely to agree to do a good job with you. It is worth a risk to try

8.   Ask for the equipment and software used (And check how well freelancer is equipped)

Freelance graphic designing demands using high end software tools and supporting hardware with high specifications. A serious graphic designer always surrounds himself with all the latest tech that enabled him/her to provide quality output. By inquiring in to the setting of your shortlisted graphic designing freelancers you are better able to judge how well they are prepared to undertake your graphic designing task. Below are few checks you can make in this regard:

• Check if they use a Laptop or a Desk top (Desktops work better at graphic designing)
• Check for the hardware specs?
• What graphic designing tools they use and what versions they use?
• Do they have UPS backups?
• Do they use cloud or other software backup mechanisms?

9.   Check for copyrights (And lesson future hassles)

In the context of graphic designing there are plenty of sources of images, templates. Some are copyrighted and some are free to use. Freelance graphic designers make use of these content a lot and as long as they honor the copyrights you are safe. You can inquire from your shortlisted graphic designers on this regard and also it can ensure you acquire the rightful ownership of the final output. Below are few questions you can ask from them:

• What are the sources of different imagery used on the design?
• Do you use any paid images in the designing?
• What is the format of the final output file you provide?
• Do you intend to insert any references of yourself in the final graphic?
• Do I get the copyright of the final graphic?

With these queries you can gauge how protected you are if hiring the particular freelancer.

10.  Have an engaging interview (And assess freelancers graphic designing skills)

The interview step is a critical part of any freelancer hiring process. It is no difference when hiring graphic designing talent as well. You need to have a questionnaire ready before hand that captures all areas you need to address specifically to graphic designing. Below are few critical questions you can ask them:

• Is my design requirement sufficiently clear to you?
• What further information you need to know with regard to this graphic designing task?
• What color schemes do you think that best fits to this project?
• How fast can you provide a mock-up of your design?
• Are you able to provide references to your previous work?
• Do you have any design templates I can pick from?
• How flexible are you in your revision process should I need any alterations to the graphics?
• What software tools will you use?
• Do you have proof of expertise on those tools? Can you provide certifications?

By having a template set of questions you can direct them on all the shortlisted graphic designers and assess their responses. This way you can easily compare across them.

Final thoughts

Hiring online for Freelance graphic designing is always a subjective task. The quality of the output can only be gauged only by seeing the final output. Therefore it is vital that you as an employer or a client is fully equipped with necessary measures to take when hiring a freelancer for your next graphic designing task. Hope above list of 10 valuable guides will help you make your hiring process an effective one.