How To Hire A Graphic Designer

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Graphic designers can be huge assets to companies, but it can be difficult to know how to go about hiring one. In this article, we’ll outline how to do this from the planning stage all the way through making a job offer.

Key Takeaways:

On average, it costs $49,450 a year to hire a full-time graphic designer.
The graphic designer hiring process has an average amount of competition, but hiring one usually isn’t too challenging if you have clear hiring goals.
You can find graphic designers on job boards or by sharing your job posting on social media.
You can hire a freelance graphic designer or hire a graphic designer as an employee, depending on your company’s needs.

To hire a graphic designer, you need to identify your needs and budget, write and post a job description, and assess your candidates.

Identify your needs. Ask yourself what it is you need from a graphic designer. For example, do you need someone to develop ideas for projects more independently, or do you want someone to work closely with other departments to make their ideas a reality?

All this will help you determine what you’re looking for in a graphic designer.
Determine a budget. Before you can do anything else, you need to establish how much you’re willing to pay a graphic designer. If you’re hiring someone full-time, you need to account for not just their salary and benefits but also their equipment, design software, and printing costs.

If you’re looking to hire someone to complete one job, determine how much you’re willing to pay for the completed project.
Write a compelling job description. Once you know what you’re looking for in a graphic designer, it’s time to write a job description to draw in qualified candidates. Include information about your organization as well as the particular job.
Post your job. Consider posting your job description on your company website, third-party job boards, and on social media.
Interview candidates. Once you’ve collected a few applications you’re interested in, start setting up interviews with the candidates, remembering to look at their portfolios as well.
Call references and complete background checks. After you’ve interviewed your candidates and have one or two finalists in mind, do your homework to make sure there aren’t any red flags about hiring them.
Make an offer. Once you’ve decided on your ideal candidate, make them a job offer. This should include a reasonable salary that takes into account their experience, their skills, and the average salaries of graphic designers in your area.

We’ll go into more detail about these steps below.

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How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Graphic Designer?

It costs an average of $49,450 a year to hire a full-time graphic designer. If you’re hiring a graphic designer on a freelance basis, you can expect to pay anywhere between $20-$100+ an hour, depending on the demands of the project and the skill required.

In the U.S., graphic designers make a median salary of $49,450, but they can earn anywhere between $34,000 and $96,000.
Hiring a graphic designer has an average level of competition compared to other jobs.
Graphic designers usually earn the highest salaries when they work in the technology industry, where they make an average of $59,067 a year.
Entry-level graphic designers usually cost less to hire, but they also bring less experience and expertise.

How to Write a Graphic Designer Job Description

To write a graphic designer job description, write out a summary of the role, the responsibilities the graphic designer would have, and the qualifications you’re looking for. You should also include some appropriate keywords to help your job posting show up on search engines.

Summary of the role. This is where you put the basic overview of the role (or project) you’re hiring for. For example, you could say you’re looking for a graphic designer to create advertising materials and other projects for your organization.
Responsibilities. Include a detailed list of everything your graphic designer would be in charge of. Take your time on this because this will serve as a reference beyond the job posting for both you and your new employee.

It will help clear up confusion when the graphic designer’s role overlaps with other employees, and it will serve as a written record of the responsibilities you’ve given them if they aren’t completing their tasks.
Qualifications and skills. Start by writing your wish list of skills and qualifications you’d like your graphic designer to have, and then pare those down to just the essentials.

Keep this list as short as is reasonably possible because if you list too many, you might drive away talented candidates who are missing just one of the qualifications.

Make sure you also keep your requirements reasonable for the job level you’re posting. In other words, don’t require two to four years of experience for an entry-level job.

You can also include a section of skills that aren’t required but would help make candidates more appealing to help give job seekers a better idea of what you’re looking for.
Keywords. To make your job posting more visible on search engines, you need to make sure you’re incorporating keywords and phrases that job applicants are searching for.

For graphic design roles, some of the most commonly searched keywords include:
- Graphic design
- Graphic designer
- Design
- Designer
- Remote graphic designer
- Graphics designer
- Art
- Artist
- Illustrator

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Where to Find Graphic Designers to Hire?

Good places to hire graphic designers include:

Zippia. Our job site works to connect employers with the perfect candidates. You send us what you’re looking for, and we’ll use our specially designed algorithm to find a pool of candidates that match your criteria. From there, you can pick the ones you want to reach out to.
Other job posting sites. Posting your job description on several job sites like Indeed, LinkedIn, and SimplyHired can boost its visibility and expand the number of qualified candidates you have to choose from. If your job is remote, consider using a site like FlexJobs that specializes in remote job listings.
Your website. Often job seekers start by deciding which companies they’d be interested in working for and then searching for job openings within those that match their expertise. Posting your job description on your website will help you take advantage of this.
Social media. Share a link to your job description on both your company and your personal social media profiles, and consider asking other current employees to do the same.
Freelance job board. If you’re looking for a graphic designer to just complete a single job, consider posting it on a freelance job board such as Upwork or Dribble.

Skills to Look for in a Graphic Designer

Important skills to look for in a graphic designer include:

Hard skills

Proficiency in graphic design tools. Graphic designers should know how to use design tools such as Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator proficiently.
Mobile and web design. Graphic designers should know how to format and adapt their designs for different websites and mobile platforms.
Print media design. Graphic designers need to know how to design and format print projects such as newsletters, fliers, and posters.

Soft skills

Collaboration and teamwork. Since they usually have to work with a variety of professionals and departments, graphic designers need to know how to work well as a part of a group.
Time management. Graphic designers need to know how to manage their time so that they can manage several projects at once and meet all their deadlines.
Flexibility. Often, graphic designers are requested to adjust their designs – sometimes multiple times – before a project is completed, and they need to be able to do this with professionalism.

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How to Interview a Graphic Designer

To interview a graphic designer, find ways to get a feel for their personality and how easy they are to work with in addition to their experience and design style.

Get to know their personality. For every employee you hire, you should pay attention to how well their personality will mesh with their team’s culture. When you’re hiring a graphic designer, you want to make sure you’re hiring someone who will add to the team and respect their boss’s, coworkers, and clients’ opinions.
Get a feel for how well they work with others. While a significant part of a graphic designer’s job involves independent, creative work, they still have to collaborate with coworkers and deliver on clients’ expectations. Ask candidates situational questions about how they’d respond to unhappy clients and how well they work with a team.
Ask about their experience. Graphic designers can come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Their education, the type of projects they’ve worked on, and the tools they’ve used can play a big part in how well they’d fit your job, so ask about these things in the interview.
Ask to see their portfolio. Graphic designers are artists, which means they often have a distinct style to their work. Take a thorough look through candidates’ portfolios to see if their style aligns with what you’re looking for or if they demonstrate that they can easily adapt to clients’ and employers’ styles.

Making a Graphic Designer a Job Offer

When you decide which graphic designer you want to hire, move quickly to make them an offer before another company snaps them up. Talk to your HR department to find out what steps you need to follow, and then put together an official offer.

Often, hiring managers will call candidates to offer them the job verbally before they send a written offer. If and when you do this, explain why you want to hire them and express your excitement about the possibility of their joining the organization.

Send your written offer quickly after the phone call so they can see what it is they’d be signing up for. Again, you should always talk to HR about what needs to go into this document, but typically it will include information about the following:

Salary
Benefits
Hours
Start date
Contingencies such as passing a drug test or background check

Provide the candidate with a date you need a response from them as well.

Tips for Hiring a Graphic Designer

Ask about their creative process. Sometimes hearing the “why” behind a project can be more valuable than just seeing the end result. When you’re looking over a graphic designer’s portfolio, ask them to detail their process of creating the design.

Pay attention to whether or not they talk about the client’s brand and target market, the different iterations they went through, and the computer programs they used. You should also look for evidence that they asked for and implemented feedback on their design.
Pay attention to their additional skills. Graphic design is often closely intertwined with marketing, coding, photography, and user experience design, so pay attention to candidates who demonstrate skills in any of these areas as well. They may prove to be a valuable addition to your organization.

This is especially true if you’re a small business and need to hire people who can wear a wide variety of hats.

Freelance Vs. Employee Graphic Designers

Many companies hire graphic designers to be on their staff full-time, while others hire freelance graphic designers.

Freelance graphic designers. Freelance or contract graphic designers work on a project-by-project basis. They’re usually self-employed, and they may be working on projects for several companies at once.

You pay these graphic designers for a completed project (that they set the price for), and you usually will have limited control over how they go about designing your project until you look at the final proof.

Hiring a freelance graphic designer is usually the best plan for small companies that just need someone to design a new logo, set up their initial website graphics, or complete projects as needed.
Employee graphic designers. Employee or staff graphic designers work for your company full- or part-time. This means they show up and get paid whether you have a project for them or not.

Companies that hire employee graphic designers usually do so when they have a steady stream of graphic design projects to be done. These projects can range from website graphics and digital ads to flyers and packaging.

Employee graphic designers also usually play a large part in establishing and protecting company branding, so they need to have a strong understanding of how to do this.