As the design is taking a more and more leading role in the digital industry, especially in terms of creating websites, the need for web design services is becoming more significant by the day. Consequently, web design teams end up having issues with time and hands. An increasing number of companies hire freelancers for extra help to make up for this in house labor shortage.  

While modern web design teams rarely have trouble with workers spread all over the world living across many different time zones, it is still somewhat challenging to find ideal employees. Considering these difficulties, web design agencies must overcome some of the most unexpected and unconventional obstacles to land top talent. 

In this brief guide, we are going to mainly discuss whether it’s best for you to hire specialists or generalists for your web design team, and we’ll try to find the best way for you to do this. We hope that you will have a much better idea of the challenges you face, how you can handle them and to see the finest web design experts that will help your agency soar above your competitors in today’s harsh environment for web design. 

So let’s start. Before starting to look for potential employees, you have to decide whether you need a generalist or a specialist web designer on your team. At least for the project you’re currently working on. 

Benefits of Employing a Web Design Specialist 

There are a few benefits to hiring a specialist web designer. Firstly, specialist designers are often proficient in two areas and at the very least have several years of experience. One can’t be proficient in some design areas without years of practice. This is why hiring a web design specialist is the best option for short-dated projects that have pre-arranged parameters and briefs. 

Specialists are also a great option for web design agencies that require someone who is capable of performing a very specific task on your team or of supporting the team with highly specialized technical assignments.

Benefits of Employing a Web Design Generalist 

Hiring generalist designers also has some benefits. A generalist web designer is going to be good at handling various tasks. A generalist designer is going to be the Swiss Army Knife on your team. One thing is certain: such workers are extremely adaptable. This means they can work through each stage of the web design process and are able to change tasks and roles quickly. Hiring a generalist is perfect when the project’s objective is prone to changes or if you want your team to be more agile. 

What Are the Downsides? 

Both web design specialists and web design generalists have their disadvantages. Although specialists are very effective in handling a few specific tasks, they aren’t very flexible or adaptable. At the same time, generalist designers are capable of dealing with a wider range of tasks. Still, they certainly lack the technical acumen required for handling complex assignments or intricate roles.

Skills That You Should Hire for 

So, what things should you focus on in the first place, when hiring web design experts onto your team? What are the professional skills that you should consider top priorities? The very first thing you have to do is to be specific when listing the skills that you want to see in your candidates. Although this may seem obvious, many team leaders forget to do this. 

At the same time, many companies tend to be too vague in terms of the skills they want when looking for candidates. They do this on purpose because they don’t want to limit talent pools to skill lists and, thus, scare off the candidates who could ultimately become a great employee. Nevertheless, such an approach has a huge potential to backfire, since you will be getting tons of CVs from people that aren’t suitable for the job along with the CVs from web design experts. 

Furthermore, if you are looking for remote freelance employees, you should be very specific in your requirements, as dealing with such workers is a different experience compared to working with in-house team members. It isn’t very easy to review the work of remote designers, so you will have to be sure they are trustworthy.

Also, you have to look for people that are capable of concise communication. Although web design is mostly associated with visual art, it is also a case of clear and appropriate communication. If a person you are considering hiring can’t communicate in this way, perhaps you’ll have to pass on them, because communication is critical when working in a team. 

You will also have to make certain to detach tools from workflows. Both web design generalists and web design specialists focus on getting used to particular design tools instead of trying to comprehend overall web design principles. It doesn’t matter if you want to hire a generalist or specialist, any candidate must be able to adapt to unexpected changes. 

Conclusion 

Specialists are terrific, while generalists are fantastic as well. But, when you’re dealing with web design, it is always best to have a combination of both. At times, you’ll have to focus on aspects that require in-depth comprehension and knowledge, while at other instances, you’ll need a more agile team that can adapt and change its work process, while still executing high-quality tasks. The simple fact is that if the web design industry didn’t need either generalists or specialists, one of these groups would have already vanished for good. But the reality is that both of them are still around, alive, and well, and both of them have their benefits for web design agencies from all around the world.