Evaluating creative talent is incredibly challenging. The candidate needs to have the executional skills required for the job but execution is only part of the story. You need to feel comfortable with brining in a new personality into your well-oiled machine. One mistake can disrupt your department’s efficiency and jeopardize the happiness of your existing star performers.

Typically, the use of references can reinforce the good gut feeling you could have after meeting a candidate. But when evaluating creative talent right out of school, you will need to rely on other indicators.

After over 10 years of hiring entry level designers, art directors, and copywriters, I have developed my own set of evaluation criteria. Some are very tactical, checklist type items. Some are more emotional. All are critical.

First Impressions
I expect a firm handshake, confident tone in their voice, and a correct pronunciation of my name. This seems like a no-brainer but you will be surprised by the lack of professionalism that could roll through the door. This set of criteria is not to fuel my ego. I need to know that the candidate does their homework, their research, and is ok to put in front of a client.

Dress is not important to me as long as it isn’t disrespectful. I do find it funny when an entry level candidate comes in in a full suit. This is an ad agency people, not a bank.

Computer Skills
It is amazing how, in a short amount of time, computer skills have evolved from a “very nice to have” to a “mandatory”. My entry level teams spend the majority of their time tweaking creative. They are brought in to do one thing: churn out a high volume of work to aid the senior teams and to learn the agency and creative process while doing it. For the candidates I hire, art directors must have a proficiency in Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. They must also have a working knowledge in Quark Express, and understand basic HTML and Flash.

The Resumé
I simply loathe resumes done in a Microsoft Word template. We are designers! We don’t fall into templates. We design our own. A well-designed resume goes a long way. A template vanilla looking resume goes a long way too (the other way). I want to see creative expression. The design of the resume is another piece of the candidate’s portfolio.

The Website
In this day in age, I expect to see an online portfolio. There are many simple and free options to put up your portfolio online that not having one sends the message to me that they do not understand the current industry. An online portfolio is a great way to circulate a portfolio at minimal cost and it also gives the opportunity to update frequently with new work.

The Portfolio Presentation
It is very challenging for some one right out of school to pack a portfolio. I personally, don’t care about whether they have a printed piece in their book or not at this level. What is more important to me is the variety of work and how the candidate presents it.

First, let’s talk about variety. I am a big fan of seeing creative within multiple channels. It is impressive to me when I see an illustration or a photograph mixed into a bunch of ads. When looking at print advertising, I like to see one of them built into a campaign. I want to see how they can take an idea and flesh it out over multiple channels. With interactive work, I pay more attention to the branding than the quality of coding or imagery.

As for presentation, I want my creatives to be persuasive and energetic. I want them to engage my interest and keep me engaged. If it was a collaborative effort, I want them to explain how they worked with a partner or how team members generated a better idea. It is really tricky to find the delicate balance between confidence and cockiness. If the candidate is able to give credit, not blame to a partner, I am impressed.

The Questions
I tend to ask the same questions of all entry level candidates:
Question 1: What inspires you?
Question 2: What motivates you?
Question 3: What are you hoping to learn here?

There is no wrong answer to these questions. Rather, I like to hear confidence, ambition, and dedication in the answers. I want people who are willing to learn and are obsessed with moving up the ladder at all costs. I don’t like to hear answers like, “I don’t know. Do great work?” or “I just want a job.” I need people who feel confident they can make a contribution and they simply cannot wait to prove it to me.

The Follow Up
A thank you note will never hurt a candidate’s chances. But what i really like is a follow up with other work or some sort of leave behind of creative. I like to have something tangible of their work to put a name to. Sometimes they may not be right for the open position but still strong enough to hold onto for something in the future.

Conclusion
Entry level creative talent is the future of your organization. No one is naive enough to think everyone will stay forever. But getting that “special” candidate early and training them the right way, could translate to a solid contributor to your team for years to come.

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