This episode is really addressed to both sides of the hiring coin in the tech start-up world.

If you are a designer with some years of experience working at large tech companies like Google, Meta, Uber, Apple, Microsoft, etc. and you are considering joining an early stage startup? Before you do, you should listen to this episode.

If you are a startup founder gearing up to hire your first designer, before you go burning through your runway, you should definitely listen to this episode (feel free to skip to the last 10 minutes of the episode).

Hopefully, by the end of this episode, both Designers looking to join early-stage startups and Founders looking for their first designers will have a much better idea of how to make this work for both sides, and how to make sure both will be happy with the decisions they made.

If you have questions, need an advise, need a recommendation, feel free to reach out, I can be found mostly on LinkedIn or ADPList.

This episode is honestly for both, designers and companies... in this episode, I dive deep into why designers should get out of the specialist bubble, and consider being more of a generalist or a T-shape designer, how this might help future-proof your career, and companies, well, I share why so many of you just keep losing the game of innovation, missing out on incredible talent and systematically shooting yourself in the foot by simply refusing to change your old ways of hiring people from outside of your bubble.

In this episode, I am having a conversation with a long-time friend of mine Co-Founder of The Joanne Weaver Group (www.joanneweavergroup.com) - an independent recruitment firm, founded over 17 years ago. We specialize in Design + Product + Research + Content searches for a variety of clients, from tech startups to Enterprise F500s to high-end design firms, and beyond. Executive & IC level searches; full-time & freelance.

During this very long conversation, we discuss cover letters, market conditions, general job hunting in today's environment, future outlook, and so much more.

Since this was my monthly ADPList session, we had about 50 or so people dialed in, and we answered some questions at the end of the conversation, so stick around until the last part of the conversation where we answer some questions that might be relevant to you.

WARNING: 1. This episode is long, over 45 minutes, and 2. my mic gave up at the beginning of the call, so it sounds like my computer was picking up the sound :( The sound is bad, I apologize in advance, and thank you in advance for enduring the agony of the sound :)

Otherwise, enjoy!

In this episode, I share my passion for design, how it began, how it steered my career, and how it shaped me as a designer, and creative, and developed my core belief system.

And why I think passion is a vital part of being a successful designer, and why you should find your passion too.

In this episode, I am talking about something that has been on my mind for a while now. With the new release of the Apple Vision Pro and the evolution of AI in recent 6+ months, I felt compelled to share some thoughts about where our industry is heading alongside these two new technologies that are going to shift our industry to its core, design industry and designer jobs will look different a year from now.