I'm Hiring a Designer

Dan Mall did a post a while back creating a more thorough job of explaining a role and it struck me as a great way to define creative roles further than what's possible in a typical ATS with a generic job description. So I'm flattering with imitation.

I run creative at CG Spectrum, a global leader in creative industry education, and I'm looking for a designer to help us with a range of tasks in the business. The most important thing for me is finding someone who can execute all the way through. We are a smaller team in various time zones and take a loosely coupled but highly aligned approach. The ability to self-manage and proactively seek feedback will be critical to this role and this will be frustrating for both of us if that isn't the type of work environment you'd thrive in.

Skills & Responsibilities

We're looking for a design generalist who can take the current branding guides, expand them, and apply them to all areas of creative. We are primarily an online institution, so this is our face, and we'd like someone who can help us consistently apply that.

• Creating social media graphics

• Creating brochures and other promotional material for events

• Website visuals upkeep and additional graphics

• Content for marketing emails

• UI/UX design for our proprietary backend

• Internal annoucement graphics

• 
  

As you can see there is a range. The daily bread of this job will be creating lots of small graphics the different teams use to ensure we're all aligned on a look. These will be internal documents, community graphics, social graphics, website updates etc. Then we have a larger UI/UX project to really clean up our 'design debt' on our backend system to unify the look and usage with our other systems. Other fun tasks will be limited swag drops, event banners and flyers, one-off visuals for YouTube, and specialized collateral going out to schools, etc.

Some other nice to haves will be in motion design and video editing. We do have a full-time editor, but if you're able to create motion design graphics or help with show reels and the social post workload, certainly let me know.

Expressing the Brand

I know there are many different types of designers out there and that creatives love to explore, so I want to be upfront in that we're looking for someone comfortable working within a framework to express the CG Spectrum brand. We will no doubt flex our creative muscles with swag designs and social posts but in the day-to-day, you will become the arbiter of all things CG Spectrum and ensure we're all aligned visually across the company.

A good example of this is one of our new site pages which you can view here https://www.cgspectrum.com/courses/3d-modeling

If you enjoy creating clean and beautiful work that students can immediately recognize as ours, this could be a great fit for you.

Compensation

So let's get to the money.

This role is full time and compensation will range depending on your country of residence and determining contractor or staff employment, etc. but a good benchmark is 45-60k USD.

Staff are paid twice monthly and contractors are paid monthly per invoice.

Process and Timeline

We'll publish the official job application in about a week. It will be posted on our official LinkedIn account by our Chief of Staff, Erica Garis, who will also conduct the initial review process. If you'd like to get in early, please reply to this post so I can look for your name.

The last time we posted a job opening, we received over 800 responses. We don't use a big ATS system and like to give everyone a proper look. That said, we're a small group so we will look for easy ways to disqualify candidates quickly so please ensure everything is complete and easy to look at.

The listing will be open for a week as we evaluate all the applicants. Those will be narrowed down to approximately 5-10 for interviews by members of our content and marketing team the week after. Next, there will be a second round with myself and/or our Marketing Head to narrow down the final candidates.

We'll take the top 2-3 for a paid test. This will be a real project we need designed to demonstrate your ability to take a description and brand guide and turn that into a graphic. We will ask you to submit partway through for feedback and will need process images. AI certainly can have its place, but not for this test. We need to know you have the skills we're looking for even if you augment them after hire.

From there, will we make an offer. Assuming it's accepted, you could start immediately but if you're in another position and need to give notice that's no problem.

We typically start staff hires on the first of the month and contractors on the 16th but this can be flexible depending on your situation.

Tips for Getting Hired

The best way to get hired for this role is to show that you can express a brand and not simply create beautiful work. Show work that has been created around a single theme, brand ident, etc. One-off pieces are great, but knowing that you can execute different iterations of a guide will help us know we can trust you with ours.

The best way to express this is with a portfolio that is easy to access. Sometimes LinkedIn profiles obscure them, so ensure it's obvious where the link is.

Another one is to simply self-select that this is a role you would be excited to take on. If your profile and application focus on exploration and a multitude of one-off pieces then this may not be the right role for you and we'll likely pass it by. We would hate to bring someone on who would get bored quickly, is running multiple other freelance gigs only to leave within a few months. I'm proud of our low turnover and generally having a fun, chill place to work and we'd like to keep you here for a minute so you can become a part of that.

Lastly is to express your ability to self-manage. I'm looking for someone who will proactively look for feedback, ask questions about priorities and timelines, and juggle requests from different departments.

Working at CG Spectrum and with me

I've been fairly direct in this post in hopes of not wasting any applicant's time or ours if you don't feel this would be a good fit for you. But overall, I'm just a chill guy. I don't like to micromanage and would prefer to ensure that we're aligned on an idea, then to let you do your thing. I'm also not particularly onerous with tiny details. If you can express an idea in a beautiful way that fits within our larger picture I won't ask you to move things around a pixel or two. I'd like to know you would have done that yourself already. And then the last one I've mentioned already is that I'd like you to be proactive. I'm typically juggling quite a large number of disparate projects so you may need to remind me to look at something twice and that's no problem.

Working at CG Spectrum is unique. We value flexibility, so when you work is up to you—whether it’s late at night or broken into chunks throughout the day—as long as deadlines are met. However, with that flexibility comes the need for connectivity. We ask that you stay reasonably responsive on Slack during the day, even if it’s just to answer a quick question or acknowledge a request. Occasionally, urgent tasks arise, and having the ability to respond promptly is essential.

For example, if a UK-based teammate needs a graphic for an event, but you’re in Australia, that request might come through late in the evening for you. Questions about the task could cause delays if communication has to wait until the next day or even longer to align schedules. While these situations are rare, there may be times you need to be flexible in your schedule to prevent unnecessary hold-ups.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys “work-life integration.” It’s great for lifestyles that thrive on flexibility, but it’s not for everyone. If you prefer a strict 9-to-5 and complete disconnection afterward, you might find our approach frustrating.

That said, we aim to keep things relaxed. As a global, online team, we make time to chat and build relationships during meetings. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and love a good movie or pop culture reference. And if you haven’t yet, go watch Arcane on Netflix.

Now what?

Enough rambling about! As this is a team effort, I won't have exact dates for the job posting or evaluation but the job link will be up within a week or so. We're excited to have someone new join our growing team here and if you feel like that's you, hit us up.

Cheers!