Team-building in a different sense

The best part of any company will always be the people who work there.

Having an amazing product, or a great idea, or being known by the entire world, will always be important at the end of the month (💸). But, as a worker, the people you deal with will be the most important “thing” at the end of each day.

In that sense, I believe that building a team has to be a really well-thought process.

Let’s get it started

The skills will determine if someone has what it takes to do the work (and that may, and probably should, be the first criteria). But what about who the person is? What are his/hers motivations? What is the “essence” of that person? Will that person fit with the rest of the team?

What I really believe is that who the person is, even though will only be discovered in second place by the employer, represents 80% of why someone should be hired, or not.

“As we know now, we should be looking for a combination of personalities and skill sets. But since trades can be taught, mindset will be the more important criteria to screen for when interviewing. A bright mind with full potential, curiosity, and a willingness to learn is often much more valuable than raw crafts.”

Ileana Georgiu in How to design a design team

A lot of companies have defined different processes having this in mind when recruiting.

After choosing some candidates based on the skills they showed on the resume, portfolio, Linkedin, … , whatever, and depending on the job you’re applying to, there may be:

1. Some task (or tasks) for you to show those skills on fake “real projects” you’d have to do on the company;
2. More than one interview with multiple people of the team in order to see how you’d fit there (there are some companies who actually make the candidates spend hours with the team, so that they can see how well-fitted for the company/team those candidates are);
3. You may have a team project to show your personality (make you build, create, ideate, … something as a team and see your role).

Anyway, whatever they make you do, make sure to be yourself. Not everyone needs to be a leader or an entrepreneur or even outgoing. But you need to show potential, who you are and who you want to be.

Wow, such scare, much pressure

So my advice is:

Whether you’re applying to a high profile company or a new startup, when writing your cover letters or going to interviews, it’s very important that you know the person you want to become and how you think that company will get you there (as well as where you see the company going and how you think you can help doing that).

My very own experience

I’ve been working at an international company for the past six months and if you’re thinking of joining one too for the first time be prepared to be asked “you know?” a lot.

Here I have seen a lot of people from all departments coming and going — “my” own department, Marketing Design, is “under construction” — and I have noticed that usually hiring someone here takes a while.

That made me realize that they really try to hire the perfect fit.

However I also see a lot of people leaving because they got better offers. At first glance, you may think that these says something about the core of the company itself, how it’s structured and how they see the people who work there, but I also believe that it can be a sign of how my company prepares us to new bigger challenges.

So food for thought:

“Take care of the people, the product and the profits — in that order.”

Ben Horowitz in The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Other sources

I’ve been reading a lot about how companies and teams should be structured. I think I would call myself a people-person in the sense that I really believe that people should always be our number 1 priority.

I may write more about this theme, but if you’re also interested in reading more about this I would recommend:

1. How to design a design team, by Ben Jordan
2. Building a Storybrand, by Donald Miller
3. The most important steps to becoming a great design leader, by Will Fanguy
4. Design Leadership Handbook, by Aaron Walter and Eli Woolery

If you have a different points of view or want to express your opinion, feel free to comment or send me a personal message.