When it comes to hiring a junior designer or virtual assistant (VA), avoiding common hiring mistakes is crucial for brand and website designers. These mistakes can lead to inefficiencies and misunderstandings. In this blog post, we'll discuss important steps to take before hiring a junior designer or VA.

Deciding to Hire

If you’re trying to decide between hiring a J.D. or V.A., the first thing you should do is review your to-do list. Look at your full list of actions over the next month and break them down into 3 categories:

• Love doing: this includes work you really love to complete. It typically includes work that is design or development-related because that’s why you got into this business!

• Dislike doing: There are always parts of our jobs we don’t love. That might be making revisions based on client feedback, creating social media posts, going through email, creating moodboards, etc. Once you’re done with this section, I suggest ranking it from somewhat dislike to hate. This will give you a clear view of who you should hire to take these things off your plate.

• Cannot Delegate: These include tasks that you might not Love but you also cannot delegate. Usually, this includes Discovery/Sales calls or Client Strategy calls. But don’t automatically assume it would include all client calls.

Now that you have your list, do all (or most) of the ‘dislike’ tasks fall within a similar bucket? If so, it should be easy to decide between a Junior Designer or a Virtual Assistant. You might be able to niche down on the type of VA based on your needs, making it even easier to hire the right person.

Prep for Post Hire

This part will take time and does not need to be done before hiring but it can help tremendously. The sooner you start, the easier your life will be post-hire.

1. Begin tracking your time

2. Write SOPs

3. Write Onboarding To-Dos

4. Determine Team Communication

Time Tracking: Efficient time tracking is essential to monitor project progress and to know where your time is going. Doing this before you hire will help you know how long it takes an expert (you) to complete. You’ll then be able to make assumptions on how long a new person would take so you can plan for that lag.

Use time tracking tools or software (Clockify or Toggl are both great and FREE) that allow you (and your new team members) to record the time spent on different tasks accurately.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Having clear SOPs is essential for smooth collaboration with a junior designer or VA. These procedures outline step-by-step processes for different tasks, ensuring consistency and smooth workflow.

Start by creating SOPs for every task you plan to delegate to this new person. The rest of your SOPs can come later. Record screenshare videos of you completing processes that you will be delegating and include these in your SOPs - remember some people are visual learners, so having a video and written instructions will be extremely helpful. Make sure you let the new team member know they can suggest improvements or add additional notes to the SOPs.

Write Onboarding To-Dos: Determine what you want to cover with the new person on their first day. What will they need to know about you, your business, your clients, and their assigned work? You’ll also need to make sure you have a way to assign them work, give them access to the tools they need, and pay them.

Determine Team Communication: How will they ask you questions or let you know a task is ready for you to review? Having a process in place for will help make them feel comfortable working in your business.

One of the biggest mistakes is assuming that your junior designer or VA can read your mind or instantly understand your preferences and expectations. Proper onboarding is key to their success.

Prep for Job Posting

To write a job description you’ll need to know your budget, the skillset or experience needed, availability, activities, and process.

Budget: what is the market rate for the type of person you want? Then identify how many hours each month you can afford to hire them. I recommend determining the budget this way so you find the right person rather than just a person willing to work for the hourly rate you decide. As you expand your profits, the person who has been paid adequately for their skillset will stick around and take on more work while the person you hire for “cheap” is most likely to leave once or not complete the tasks you want in the way you want.

Tasks + Skillset: now that you know how many hours you can afford to hire for, determine what tasks (ie. the job description) you’ll ask that they complete. You’re using the time tracking data in the last section to identify how much they could do based on your budget.

Availability: Determine if there is any reason this person needs to work every day or a specific time of day. Sometimes you can find better people if you can have flexibility on when they need to complete the tasks, although this isn’t always possible.

Process for hiring: Lay out the process you want to use for hiring and create any forms, automation, databases, etc needed. Then you’ll be able to use a standard process to find, interview, compare, and hire the right candidate.

Conclusion:

Hiring a junior designer or VA can be a valuable asset for brand and website designers, but it requires careful planning and preparation. By implementing SOPs, ensuring effective time tracking, optimizing systems, and avoiding assumptions, you can set the stage for a successful working relationship (and save yourself so much time and stress in the long run).

Not sure how to do any of these steps on your own? I’ve got a free resource on hiring that is in-depth and contains a job description template for you to use.