Who Should I Hire First: Admin Assistance or Junior Designer?
This question is one I hear often. Who should I hire first? An assistant (local or virtual)? A junior designer? Some other position? There is not a one-size fits all. Let’s take a look at the tasks needing to be done, the timing, and the income plan of the company.
What do you need?
When you think you need help it is easy to quickly go into hiring mode without really considering what you need. Here is an exercise I often do (and have my clients do). When you have too much work and feel overwhelmed, start a list of all the things that you would love to delegate to the right person. Ask yourself with everything you do, “if this is the last time I do this would it make me happy?” And if the answer is yes, write it on a list.
Once you have the list pulled together, begin by looking over the tasks and see which ones automatically fall together. You can then use these to create a job description and title. Be careful not to just throw everything into one catch-all job which could be tempting if it is your first hire. You want to carefully cultivate a job description that lends itself to a clear set of tasks, strengths, and skillset.
If the tasks all align with design work, then start considering a design position. If all the tasks are more admin, marketing or other business support tasks, maybe an admin (local or virtual) will be the best decision.
Timing
With the tasks in mind, let’s look at timing. First, how often do these tasks need to be done? Daily, weekly, sporadically? Is there a certain time of the day they are needed? Is this short-term or long-term?
If the tasks need to be done now and there is little to no time for learning or training, then this will give you an idea of whether or not to hire a more advanced person or more junior. Remember, the more junior, the more teaching time and on-boarding time is needed. The more advanced, the quicker they can get to the job. In another blog, we will look at employee vs. contractor status, but timing plays into this decision as well.
Income Plan
Consider the job opportunities you have by looking at their billable status. If the job is truly an admin position, with little to no billable tasks assigned, then the money to pay that person has to come from those who are bringing in the income. If that is only you, your hourly rate (or equivalent) will need to cover this position and it will be an expense of the company. This is not bad. Hopefully, it means that your time will be freed up to bring in more income because of the work they are doing.
If the position is one that is billable, consider how many billable hours a week you need to charge to cover their pay plus to bring in additional income for the company. This works well if they can bill enough to cover their own salary and bring in additional revenue with billable hours and free up your time to bill separately on other work. If done well, this type of position will not be a drain on the company in any way. Make sure that if the job needs 10 billable hours a week that you have created the job description to make those billable hours available.
Sometimes an admin will be the best hire and sometimes a junior or senior designer. Analyzing your company’s needs, timing to hire, get the job done and train, as well as income potential, will help you make the best decision.
In The Designers’ Inner Circle we tackle these types of business growth challenges often. If you would like assistance in determining what is right for your organization, check out The Designers’ Inner Circle where our goal is to equip, encourage, empower and educate you to run your business well.
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