Hiring designers is difficult if you don’t come from a design background.

Too often, hiring decisions are based on portfolios that look impressive but don’t clearly demonstrate how a designer thinks, collaborates, or contributes to business outcomes. This leads to mismatched expectations, unclear roles, and underutilized design talent.

The Strategic Designer Hiring Framework was created to change that.

This downloadable resource gives non-design leaders a structured, objective way to evaluate design candidates across the capabilities that actually matter to organizations, including:

• Strategic thinking and business alignment

• Understanding users and markets

• Communication and cross-functional collaboration

• Adaptability and problem framing

• Managing constraints and complexity

• Long-term scalability and organizational impact

Rather than asking, “Do we like their work?”, the framework helps teams ask better questions:

• Can this designer solve the problems our business actually has?

• Will they work effectively with our teams?

• Are they operating at the level this role requires?

• How will hiring this person improve outcomes, not just outputs?

Built specifically for companies without internal design leadership, the framework introduces a tiered evaluation model that adapts expectations across junior, mid-level, senior, and leadership roles.

The result is better hiring decisions, stronger designer–business alignment, and a clearer understanding of the real value design brings to an organization.

Whether you’re hiring your first designer or growing a mature product team, this framework helps you evaluate design talent with confidence and clarity.