Ryan Spanswick is Director of Product Design at Praxent, a UX design company focused on empowering businesses. He is also the Leadership Development Chair at AIGA Austin.
Over his 14-year career in user experience design, visual design, user research and creative leadership, Ryan has served in roles including Senior Manager of Product Design at Blackboard and a Senior UX Designer at Starbucks.
Ryan is passionate about helping people grow personally and professionally while developing design teams that scale. In this guest post, Ryan joins us to discuss whether it’s better to hire a design generalist or specialist—and how to position yourself as a designer while markets evolve.
When building a design team, hiring managers must find the right balance of talent while meeting budget and size requirements. On one hand, hiring specialized designers allows leaders to build teams that supremely excel at what they do. On the other hand, hiring generalized designers with a wider variety of less-focused skills allows leaders the flexibility of assigning diverse projects to the same team.
Deciding whether to focus on perfecting a specialized skill set or instead market yourself as an all-purpose designer with multiple focuses is an equally weighty decision for design job seekers.
What is a design generalist? Generalized design roles require skills in multiple disciplines and typically have broad titles like Product Designer.
What is a design specialist? Specialized design roles focus on particular disciplines, like research, and have specific titles like User Researcher.
Changing Demand for Design Generalists & Specialists
Over the years as I’ve mentored designers and invested in design communities across locations nationally, I’ve observed that many companies tend to favor hiring design generalists for a period of time before shifting to hire specialists, and so on. This appears to be driven by business needs more than quality or type of work.
During my time as a design leader at Starbucks and Blackboard, I was able to observe the strengths of a lean-teams generalist hiring strategy as well as the high quality of work that came out of specialized teams.
Each time the company wanted to reduce team size to save money, they would hire senior professionals with broad expertise. The strategy would then cascade into other parts of the business, including design, moving towards “full stack” across departments. Conversely, when their focus moved toward specialization, the trend would, in turn, shift across most of the company and beyond, as other designers and businesses followed suit.
For both designers and hiring managers, it can be difficult to settle on a decision in favor of generalizing or specializing because market preference towards one or the other seems to ebb and flow, with a shift occurring periodically. While one strategy could be the right step for certain high-profile companies, it’s not always the best idea to follow their lead.
So how do you know what skills to look for when hiring a new member of your design team? Should you be seeking highly specialized talent, or focusing on those with more generalized skill sets?
Conversely, how do you know which road to take as a designer? Should you focus on perfecting your abilities in the area of design you are most passionate about, or should you widen your skill set to appeal to the most hiring managers?
The Pros & Cons of Hiring Designers with Specialized Skills
Having specialists on your team displays diversity from both an agency and client perspective. Hiring specialists also allows you to fill very specific needs, and fill them with a skilled designer. Since specialists are often those with a clear, strong passion, this passion is likely to come through in their work.
When you’re struggling to hire for a role, it’s easy to often turn to generalist titles as there are more candidates to choose from. Specialist job seekers have a target that is constantly shifting with the market requirements, so they may be more hard-pressed to find a role and have a more difficult time changing jobs when the market tends towards generalists.
The Pros & Cons of Hiring Designers with Generalized Skills
It can be easier to hire for a generalist role, and you may need fewer team members if you go this route. Generalists have a broad range of skills, so there will be more applicants and a larger pool of talent to choose from.
While generalists have broad skills, finding someone who is uniformly excellent at several skills can be unrealistic. For example, research doesn’t draw people who are naturally talented at visual design, and vice versa. A generalist may not be as strong at any specific task as a specialist, or you may need to hire both a generalist and specialist to round out your team.
3 Tips for Finding & Hiring the Right Designers for Your Team
If you’re actively seeking new talent to join your design team, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of finding the best fit.
Take inventory of hiring trends and tailor job descriptions accordingly. Find successful designers on LinkedIn and study their profile descriptions. Are they branding themselves as generalists or specialists? Read design-related news, focusing on articles about new hires. Who is being hired, and what is their new role? How big are those teams?
Don’t just focus on the trends—also pay attention to what makes sense for your organization and your customer base. Write job titles and make hires accordingly.
Don’t be too reactive or act too quickly, and keep in mind that things change every few years.
Unclear on the differences between design titles? Check out 8 Designer Job Titles & Why They Shouldn’t Matter Much in Your Search for Talent.
Finding Design Jobs: 6 Tips for Specialized & Generalized Job Seekers
As a design leader, you'll likely serve as a mentor. Here are a few pieces of advice I like to offer to designers out there in the job market seeking their next role.
When the market leans towards specialist: Highlight your specialty skill and list your other key skills as bonuses.
When the market leans towards generalist: Go with areas you are passionate about, but tailor your search primarily to preferred types of organizations and verticals.
Focus on the work, rather than the title. Titles can vary from place to place, so make your evaluation on what the team needs based upon their portfolio of work.
Tailor your resume and portfolio for each application and job you apply for. Regardless of whether you generalize or specialize, don’t apply to all jobs with the same set of information.
Target your applications according to several factors: the industry or market trend, size of the business and team composition.
If you’re truly passionate about something, pursue that. Just because the market might be trending towards generalists right now, it will shift back to specialists at some point. The market isn’t a reason to abandon your passions.
There is No Formula for Building Great Design Teams
Neither a generalist or specialist is inherently better when it comes to filling a spot on your team. The decision will vary based on market and industry trends, as well as your organization’s needs, size and budget. It’s also essential to keep in mind that things change over time. The most important thing you can do is make decisions based on what is best for your team and organization at each stage of growth.