After talking to a bunch of recruiters and other managers, it looks like User Experience is going to making a comeback in hiring. We’re the leading indicator for a lot of things (you can’t start a website application project with proper user experience, right?), so this is a good thing for all technology workers.

However, if you have questions on what to look for, or how certain factors play into people’s interest level in your organization, here’s a few answers that I can think of.

What should I look for in hiring a user experience designer?

It’s a combination of deliverables and people skills.

Not only do they have to have the skills to design a solution, they have the skills to sell that solution to multiple stakeholders. Due to the salary levels available to skilled user experience professionals, it also has become a breeding ground to project managers, bad designers and other people with good sales skills and not much else. That not only creates the “well, I don’t have much money because the last guy screwed it up” situations, it creates a sense of mistrust of the next candidates, but when you meet a real user experience designer, you’ll know.

• Look at their wireframes — are they clear? Do they make sense? Can you walk through them?
• Ask to see personas — is there data backing it up?
• Have them give a presentation — is their thinking structured? Can they speak well.

They should be able to explain the reasoning behind their thinking i.e. we tested the solution, it’s best practices, statistics backed it up.

What should I look for in hiring a user experience manager?

Hiring a manager is a much different task than hiring an individual contributor, and the roles require much different skill sets. I’ve seen situations where companies had manager positions open for months (or years), and this happens because there are a few internal team members that shoot down any decent candidates that come in.

Remember, you are hiring for a leader (read President William J. Clinton) versus someone that just maintains status quo or screws it worse (read President George W. Bush). Managing a set of wireframes is a much different tasks than managing a group of user experience professionals, all of whom are used to having their own way because that’s the way it’s been. Corporate culture affects how people manage (Joel On Software has a wonderful post about this), so factor this into the type of manager you hire.

I recommend having other managers in the organization interview versus the people that are going to be managed. A senior user experience architect may not realize that the skills to manage people are much different than the skills to build a wireframe, and usually don’t judge the candidate accordingly.

The level of candidate may differ depending on the size of the team. You’ll want more of a working manager if the team is four who’s more tactical versus managing a division of 25 because strategy is more important.

Why can’t I find good candidates?

As much as user experience professionals are motivated by pay, they aren’t necessarily motivated by pay. It could be a combination of several factors, like the type of work your organization does (one place I worked at, we did intranets — try attracting talent for that, and we were still able to grow the team to 25), the size of your company, or the project lacks integrity.

Outside of pay, most important is the environment because that’s where people are going to be spending 40 hours a week, at least. User experience professionals are in the industry of categorizing and judging people’s skill level, so they quickly detect whether or not they are to do well in an environment.

A few questions to ask yourself before moving forward:

• Do the interviewees get a sense the hiring manager is qualified? There’s nothing worse than interviewing with someone who isn’t qualified for the job you are interviewing with, much less being a manager. The hiring manager should be forced to go through questions that are not on a prepared list, because interviewees pick up on lack of experience. There’s nothing worse than the “we’ve had this business problem for six months, solve it in 15 minutes
• Are the company politics evident during the interview? In some agencies, the politics are so deep, it’s like having two jobs — dealing with the client, and dealing with the internal personalities. Some people like that. Or, if it’s a slow moving company with micro-managers galore, will it turn them off?
• Is your company a comfortable place to work at? If you are placed in the back corner, or have a cubicle that is the middle of everything, that’s not a place you probably want to work. Why expect a candidate to do the same?
• Are the projects interesting enough? Certain people are suited to certain environments, and while you might want to attract the best talent, you may not be able to keep them because the work isn’t fast-paced enough.

How much should I pay them?

That also depends on what you have to offer and which market you are in. At the end of the day, it’s what the market can bear, and as the economy recovers that will change.

If the job can be performed mostly offsite, they might be willing to trade some flexibility for pay. Same if the project is interesting and has a lot of upside. Boring, less glamorous projects may actually cost your organization more to attract talent because while it’s boring, it’s also very profitable.

The real answer:

• Look at the market. What costs you $100 per hour in the Bay Area might cost $40 per hour in Omaha. Talent that is also too cheap is a bad sign. Whomever you hire should have the track record to go with the pay.
• Talk to candidates that might be willing to do the onsite, offsite thing. It might not seem like a lot, but in certain metropolitan areas, that 2 hours of commute each day translates into 10 hours a week — which could be used doing other things.
• Most importantly, construct the job so it fits real world people. If you are trying to hire senior level people, and the pay doesn’t match, good luck. Also, if you have to overpay to get anyone in the door because decent candidates are avoiding you, read some of the tips in previous questions.

Constructing the right team is hard — take your time with it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your team shouldn’t be either.

Sometimes we forget about this, but white space is a very important component in design and user experience. Inspired Magazine has a great post about the usage of white space in design, even if it is print.

Certona Corporation is the creator of ResonanceR, a real-time personalization and revenue optimization platform for multi-channel retailers. Resonance automates a company’s ability to provide relevant, individualized experience and product recommendations in real-time, increasing average order value and revenue per visit. With seven patents pending, the “self-optimizing” system is powered by sophisticated neural networks and a portfolio of algorithms to deliver real-time product, content, and promotional offers through multiple channels – web, email, call center, point-of-sale, and mobile. Clients are typically up and running in less than a month, and include some of the most recognized online and multi-channel retail brands across all popular verticals. For more information, visit www.certona.com.

Position Description

Certona Corporation is looking for an experienced UI Designer to create the next generation of analytics and merchandising tools for Certona’s ResonanceR personalization platform. The successful candidate will have experience with the full software development lifecycle, starting with gathering requirements from internal and external customers, graphical design, GUI development, and testing. Understanding of software usability, SaaS applications, e-commerce, enterprise dashboards, business intelligence, predictive analytics, and e-mail automation is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Work with Product Management to ensure understanding of business requirement and use cases
• Establish design patterns working with common interface components
• to promote consistency and reuse across applications
• May need to assist in the development of UML diagrams and wireframes
• May need to provide UI prototypes for usability evaluations
• Develop presentation layer for web-based applications in XHTML/CSS/JS/.Net
• Ensure that presentation layer code is semantically correct, liquid, well-formed, and valid
• Ensure that the presentation layer architecture supports localization and internationalization Create UI specification for Development and QA

Qualifications

• BS in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science or related field
• Five years UI design and UCD experience with web-based applications
• Expertise with XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript is mandatory
• Familiar with semantic, liquid layout design is a must
• Familiar with localization and internationalization standards for web-based applications
• Familiar with chart and other data presentation controls for the web
• Proven communication skills and ability to excel in a team-oriented environment
• Self-motivated and attentive to detail

Please send your resume and cover letter to careers@certona.com.

How to measure social media can be a tricky thing. Chris Lake at eConsultancy has a good article about measuring it with this step by step guide.

Take a snapshot

Before you start the clock it is a good idea to benchmark where you’re at…

1. Make a note of the obvious numbers (number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Digg links, Delicious bookmarks, and referrals from social media sites, plus existing website traffic).
2. Make a note of the less obvious benchmarks (such as SEO rankings and referrals, customer satisfaction scores and other business data).
3. Make a note of ROI benchmarks. How much are you paying to acquire customers via other marketing channels? How vast is that advertising budget, and how is it being split up? And what proportion is being directed into channels that you cannot accurately measure?

Enjoy.

What were they trying to say again?