AURAS has always been a small firm, but over 40 years, many people have come and gone. Not counting people who didn’t last a week, more than 50 people have worked at AURAS. There is no rhyme or reason for what makes an employee a good fit at AURAS. Sometimes, I am not even sure when I finally choose someone exactly why I did.
Besides a good portfolio, solid references, and appropriate work history, I have looked for good people skills, enthusiasm for the studio zeitgeist, and—an ineffable sense of rapport. That last one has often been unreliable.
I admit that I have put an undue emphasis on a pleasant workplace where everyone enjoys one another’s company. Despite that, I have hired people who were—or just short of—psychotic, thinking they were all team players. Past jobs or a portfolio of good work was no guarantee that they would enhance the studio.
Over the years, when things clicked, people have stayed a long time. And when they left to pursue different kinds of work or better opportunities, it was often with some regret. One of the downsides to a flat organizational chart is the lack of organized promotion. Still, there are some hires I have had the pleasure of nurturing and watching grow.
Many young designers have worked at AURAS. As they grew and learned new skills, they were given new responsibilities, better pay and more interesting assignments. They became invaluable parts of AURAS. I have employees that have worked here for decades. They are talented, responsible, self-managing people who aren’t afraid of criticism and want to improve with every job. They talk to each other about their designs and ask for help when needed. Most of all, they like working here and enjoy each other.
When the Great Recession hit in 2008, it was devastating for design studios. We lost almost half our work, so I had to let people go for the first time in the studio history. If I am terrible at hiring, I am even worse at firing, and a complete failure at laying off people. I kept hanging on, hoping for things to improve, but it was clear after six months that it wasn’t going to happen. We were starting FPO Magazine and hemorrhaging cash. Telling people they had to leave was among the worst moments in my professional life.
Why have some hires failed at AURAS? Some people are not cut out to work in a collaborative environment. Some can’t work in an open space where everyone hears everything. Others are bad at taking creative direction from me or suggestions from other designers. A few have just not liked the way I run the studio or my long-term goals. They have moved on to start their own businesses and have been successful—maybe even more than I have been.
I have made many mistakes hiring people. My first hire was a disaster She was fresh out of college and way too immature for a full-time job. After a few weeks, she got bored and found excuses not to come in. She called and told me that she had to do something urgent with her father, who owned a dry cleaner in Silver Spring. Later that day he called, asking after her, and I said, “Um, she said she was with you today.” He replied, “If someone did that to me, I’d fire them.” With his permission, I did that the very next day.
It’s also a bad idea to hire people because you already know them and think that’s some assurance they will work out. I hired a designer because she was a casual acquaintance and had a nice portfolio. She slipped out every day at lunchtime, and eventually we realized it was for a daily appointment with her therapist. Self-care is fine, but I soon was told that she was trying to persuade other people at the studio that I was somehow abusing them. I value camaraderie as the essence of a good workplace, so this was just too much bad karma.
Being an early adopter of digital design made hiring more complicated. Designers who knew how to use computers were intoxicated by the opportunity to use the studio technology and sometimes went too far. A new designer wanted to work from 7 AM to 3 PM, a couple of hours before anyone else came in. A while later, I discovered work on our imagesetter that clearly was not for one of our clients. It was for a sports team, and there was a lot of work. Because digital design was still new, the designer did not understand usage logs or even how to hide his personal activity on AURAS computers.
It was clear from the time stamp on his repro and when he saved his files that he was doing lots of his own work—during AURAS work hours. He did learn the hard way about how one can lock and password-protect folders, because that is what I did to his non-AURAS work. Being the softie that I am, I gave him his files back—when I fired him. Later on I discovered he had downed an entire bottle of Johnnie Walker Black that we kept for special occassions. So—another bullet dodged?
Hiring a great designer with an exciting portfolio is always problematical because you have to wonder if they’ll be happy taking art direction and working within a team. A designer who has worked as the art director at a magazine is especially prone to believe working in a studio is “trading down.” It always prompted me to ask pointedly if they think they will be a good fit, and they universally agreed they would.
One designer had worked on an edgy music magazine and had presented some excellent work. I started him running a title we had recently redesigned and then assumed the monthly issues. He ran the production as if he was the only designer in the shop. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that after a few months he quit—and took the magazine with him. I have never had non-compete contracts as part of employment requirements. I just assumed if the client left, it was my fault.
But the worst hire I have ever made I didn’t see coming. She showed nice work from Art News, a renowned cultural magazine that anyone would assume had high standards for their staff. Looking at a well-designed eight-page layout, I asked her how long it took. She told me two weeks—that should have been a warning flag. We design entire magazines in two weeks. But she seemed pleasant and was not a newbie, so I hired her and gave her a monthly magazine to design. She never actually produced anything usable in three months.
I would tell new hires that we have evaluations on the “ones”—one week, one month, one year. But I have never really had a one-year evaluation with anyone. If they made it through the one-month evaluation, there was usually no need. Against my better judgment after a negative review, I let this designer stay. I stubbornly wanted to justify my choice and allow her to redeem herself. The decision frustrated the other designers who picked up her slack.
She struggled and would stay late and try to get work done. One morning I arrived to find her dozing in a rocking chair she had brought in. I startled her and she knocked her sling pouch over, and a half dozen bottles of prescription medicines tumbled out. It was clear that she would never be capable of doing her job and that the people in her references had been too kind. I finally had to fire her.
It didn’t end there. A month later, a good friend who managed design at American Chemical Society called to ask about her. She hadn’t used AURAS as a reference but had mentioned she had worked here. I warned my friend, under any circumstances, not to hire her. I related her experience at AURAS in detail, but my friend hired her anyway. A few weeks later she called and said, “I wish I had taken your warning seriously. Now, because of HR in this big organization, I can’t get rid of her.” It is not kindness to give good references to people who don’t deserve them.
So, is hiring a skill or a crap-shoot? After 40 years, my answer is that it is a bit of both. I have learned that there is no shame in realizing a new hire is not working out—you have to admit it, remove them quickly like a used Band-Aid, and move on. I wish I could tell my thirty-years-ago-self that piece of wisdom, but I probably would have ignored it anyway.
