Treat hiring a website designer the same way in which you would hire a new employee. Ask these ten questions to ensure your hire the right candidate.
1. What motivates you to do what you do?
Find out why the two of you are here in the room together. Why is your website designer a website designer – what motivated them to pick this career path and what motivates them to stay on this path? Understanding why somebody does what they do can help them to do their jobs better. For example, if the prospective website designer explains that they are motivated by helping people to reach their goals, explain how your business helps your consumers and use this common interest to build you working relationship together.
2. Now that you know about me and my company; how do you feel that you will make a contribution to this project?
Separate those who will want to research more about your company after meeting you from those who are trying to design your website based on an initial meeting and first impression. Those who take the time to meet you and hear from you exactly what you want, who then go away and analyze your needs further within analyses such as S.W.O.T., P.E.S.T.L.E. and competitor’s analysis and come back to you with feedback and further questions are the people who you want to design your website.
3. Tell me about the toughest negotiation that you’ve ever had to navigate.
Feeding on from the last question, ask about their negotiation skills and how they have handled previous tough situations. You may really want to implement X into your new website regardless of costs and timeframes, but the professional website designer may argue and justify that Y is a better solution for you and for the overall project. How good are they at creating client satisfaction while also getting across their own professional expertise?
4. If I was to reach out to previous companies that you designed websites for and ask them where there would have been room for improvement in general; what feedback will I hear?
Just like you would with a CV and references, ponder what the outcome would be if you were to contact the websites in the designers’ portfolio to gauge their experiences. Here is a great opportunity for the prospective website designer to either a) admit that there have been some mistakes along the way but they have grown and learned from each one and made it right or b) explain as to why their design process and systems and procedures guarantee a hassle and complaint-free working relationship.
5. Describe the best client you ever worked for.
Why did a particular client strike a chord with the designer? Learn the traits and stipulations that stick out in the designers’ minds as to somebody with who they can work well and collaborate on a successful project. From this, you may pick up on threads of a colleague or employee who may mirror these traits and way of working. Perhaps they should be your point of contact with the website designer to ensure a smooth, productive, and successful website build?
6. When it comes to important company and strategy decisions, how do you involve your staff force in these?
Lead into this question after the last one has been answered to ascertain the website designers’ staffing and support network. If they are a freelancer, do they consult any of their professional peers if they have an important decision to make? If they have co-workers or a team assigned to them, how often do they consult with them especially in the realm of important decisions? The answer to this question will reveal the type of person you may end up working with. Do they think they know-it-all or are they open to collaboration and suggestions?
7. What is a source of frustration for you as a person and as a professional?
A website build is a long project that will involve weekly interaction between yourself and your website designer. Find out what makes them tick so that you can avoid any tension from the get-go. If the designer relays that they are frustrated when the client does not pass content to them by set deadlines, you can have this prepared and ready beforehand to keep everything moving along according to plan. As a person, they may explain that a lack of communication frustrates them as it can leave them at a dead end on where to go next with the project. Pre-empt this by ring-fencing time to check in with them on an ad-hoc basis to show that you are grateful for their time and effort.
8. If you could start your career over again, what would you do differently?
When somebody makes a mistake, the best thing that they can do is learn from it and move on. Discover with this question how your potential website designer has grown as a person and as a professional from when they initially began their career. Hindsight may be a great thing, but in the world of online and digital media; advancements and trends are moving at a breakneck speed. Earmark candidates who are appreciative of the past but do not cling to it and are willing to embrace new ways and ideas to grow.
9. In five years’ time where do you see yourself?
Use this question to see how clued in they are with these aforementioned advancements in the online and website design world. Just as your website should be responsive, so too should your website designer be on the pulse of things to come to safeguard your website from the future. If they know that X is coming in the next two years that will affect your website (e.g. think to how five years ago more websites were accessed via desktop as opposed to mobile but how this has switched now); they should set your new website up to be receptive to it.
10. Why should I hire you?
Finish with the all-encompassing ‘why should I hire you?’ question. If the prospective website designer can touch upon the answers to your previous questions while answering this one, it shows their preparation for meeting you as their answers are thought out and not thought of on the spot. This is also the opportunity for them to leave a lasting impression on you, so be receptive to statements here that ring true to you and your company’s values to make sure that you hire the right candidate for the job of designing your website.
Put as at Ireland Website Design through this interview process and we are sure to pass with flying colors. We ensure that we are up to scratch with our fully responsive and bespoke website design and our fully confident that our websites will bring you, customers. Our sprawling portfolio, testimonials, and existence all attest to this.
