July 19, 2022 • 27 mins
In this episode, Laura talks to Emmy Southworth, Principal Product Manager at Lendio about how she created an apprenticeship program to create new designers.
Interested in working with Emmy? Lendio is hiring!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast where we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both somehow absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein please be advised this podcast may contain drinking swearing screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts my guest today. Emmy Southworth Emmy is a principal product manager at lendeo and Emmy is absolutely hiring so just keep that in mind if you're looking for a new job which I think I don't know 90% of the industry is right now. So ah today emmy and I are going to be talking about oh something that is. Near and dear to my heart which is you know why? Why is it so hard to hire Ux designers and you know why has it always been so hard and emmy actually has a really interesting process that I think has made it a little easier so we're gonna talk a little bit about that I mean I'm not going to say that the. The actual process is easy I'm going to say that you you have a very clever solution to this welcome Emmy. It is so good to have you? Yeah no, it's I'm so excited to talk to you. So first of all, let's let's dive into the big questions. Um, why is it hard to hire you ex designers.
01:06.20
Emmy Southworth
Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me to this show today.
02:34.51
lauraklein
Why why are are we thin on the ground are we just are we all awful. What is it.
01:39.14
Emmy Southworth
Ah, definitely not not awful I think obviously supply and demand. There's not enough designers for what the tech industry needs. That's that's probably the major issue and the second issue is qualified designers a lot of times this position.
03:02.85
lauraklein
Yeah.
02:16.68
Emmy Southworth
Just because of the nature of it is more senior, especially when we have a lot of startups or smaller tech companies that that need more mature designers and less less large companies that are available to hire more Junior positions and so I think that's part of part of the issue. It's not just the supply of. Junior designers. It's a supply of of qualified senior designers that are ready to come in and can work the harder problems.
04:10.17
lauraklein
Yeah, it's so it's so tricky having been you know the only designer or you know 1 of 2 at a company that is just such a very different experience than going into place with you know, 2 or 300 designers that you can learn from and experience and you just need a whole different level of. Maturity and ability and problem solving. Um for for that kind of thing. What what have you done to to try to make it easier. What are what are some of the things that you've tried maybe some that have worked and haven't worked.
04:07.76
Emmy Southworth
Yeah that's that's a great question. So 1 thing I noticed when I was head of design that we we kind of reached a limit where we weren't getting enough candidates to fill the positions and so we decided that we we had 12 designers at the time and we felt like. We could start to help those designers become managers as well or start to like flex a little bit of leadership and so and we could we had time to mentor. So it. It was time to start a mentorship program so we we first started with an intern program from a local school and then actually did not work really well. Was a lot of overtime trying to manage individuals that were trying to check off the intern box because they thought that was that was the path towards career growth and they weren't super invested in our company and so after about six weeks we just asked the school to stop the program and so I decided to kind of revisit and think through. Why it didn't work and why what we really needed and the thing we needed as a company was a commitment to help us as the design team meet meet the bottom line like we had deliverables and we had key metrics that had to be had to be met. It wasn't just teaching other designers. that's that wasn't the objective and yes yes that's right that's right um and so I I had moved to another company and I decided I'm like okay I I need someone else to.
07:45.92
lauraklein
You're not a school. You're actually a business and with only 12 of you that's often means you're spread a little thin depending on how how many teams you're supporting. Yeah.
07:18.86
Emmy Southworth
Come on and help me part of it was budget. We didn't have budget to hire another senior designer so I had to be creative. How do I get a quality junior designer that's committed here. That's not and another intern and I came across um, a concept of an an apprenticeship. And thinking through like a journeyman in in. Let's see in carpentry or electricians that you will. You will go through a phase of your career. It's about a 2 year phase of partnering with someone as an apprentice and learning from them watching what they do. But you're also getting paid and you're also delivering on the job and working in real life experiences and your goal there is to come out with a certificate or capable career so you can either be hired by that company or can or go look at other work and you can't you can't get hired until you finish that apprenticeship.
10:07.23
lauraklein
Right.
(00:32):
09:09.00
Emmy Southworth
And achieve a journeyman or a master's level skill and I realized that ux design was was very much skill-based and it's it's not just being able to create an interface or design a layout like that's were in the early years being able to code.
10:48.25
lauraklein
Ah, exactly that's I mean that's that's how I got into it. But.
09:48.22
Emmy Southworth
Go to prototype right? So did so did I But that's not the only skills that need to be learned. It's not just the visual application. The the real trick is learning how to problem solve and get down to the real problem. That's that's trying to be addressed.
11:28.65
lauraklein
To her.
10:28.20
Emmy Southworth
To create value. That's what a designer really needs to do and that is difficult to learn at a boot camp or in school until you're on the job and you've got real world problems to solve and work through so this apprenticeship program I created a contract and it said this is what we as the company will teach you. In this six month program here's the curriculum you will have and that curriculum is you will you will have experience working with development teams and having learning technical constraints. You'll be able to do user research, you'll be in charge of your own projects. You will be held accountable by your mentor. Delivering on time and then you agree to us that you will commit for them that next six months to work with us and to work as a paid employee. Um, and here's your pay rate? Yes, yes.
12:53.81
lauraklein
Um, that's that's important. That's very important because that six months is yeah, you can't no working for free. Yeah.
12:13.98
Emmy Southworth
And then we we said we do not guarantee a job after this, but we do guarantee that you will come out hireable. You will have solid portfolio pieces and be able to be be hired in the ux career and so I hired my first first apprentice she was at a boot camp in New York she had previously been an architect for 10 years and decided to change because it just didn't move fast enough for her so she had the she had the basis of principles and design and then what I started out with was small projects if think was a carpenter I would like here put the nail here as we're framing the house so same thing with you x okay.
14:08.67
lauraklein
Ah.
13:31.12
Emmy Southworth
Ah designed this dropdown so it matches the brand and that's very small task and then it would be checkups very often and then we I started to create projects that would have less supervision and less constraints identified that she would need to go figure out.
14:39.91
lauraklein
E.
14:09.80
Emmy Southworth
And I would watch her to the point where she was getting frustrated ah maybe failing almost and I wouldn't step into help I would let her flounder a little bit more and maybe give a little hints and then she would come up with solution and it was like this aha moment and just she realized she hits succeeded at something very hard. But she didn't have that skill to do before and so the next project and I would after shed like floundered through a little bit was getting frustrated and she solved it I explained I did that on purpose that was part of the apprniceship to teach you How to problem solve without someone giving you direction on how to fix it and so.
(00:54):
16:17.95
lauraklein
And I got to say that is so hard to do just from the from the master's side from the from the non-apprentice side that is so hard to let them just not fail but flounder I think flounder is a great word for that like just struggle a little bit.
15:45.48
Emmy Southworth
Yes, yes, and the yeah, the hard part in is in working for a business and actual paycheck is like you don't have the opportunity to fill right? I think that's where a junior designer. We don't hire a lot of them because it's expensive.
16:56.41
lauraklein
Like it's it hurts. You don't want him to struggle. Ah yeah.
17:20.21
lauraklein
Ah, here.
16:22.44
Emmy Southworth
Had those failures and so mentoring someone but specifically settinging up projects where it's okay if they flounder for a bit. They have the time to go figure it out and then the next project I gave her we shorten the timef frame same same kind of loose constraint shorten the timef frame and so she gets faster at figuring out.
17:47.81
lauraklein
Is it.
17:02.42
Emmy Southworth
True problem. She's trying to solve and if her solution is effective and so at the end of the six months um she got hired as a senior position for a large fortune of 500 kind of yes then I was so mad I'm like no you were like I grew.
18:08.50
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
18:23.73
lauraklein
For someone else entirely. Ah you you you you.
17:35.18
Emmy Southworth
Didn't made this perfect Anyways, no, it was good. I was so Proud So proud of her So every position I've been in as head of design and and even in product now I have tried to create this concept in ah app preentice program where we can feed. We can feed into both the industry and also into our. Base and what it does is that ah those that are like beginning to get into leadership. It teaches them how to mentor someone but still give that person their their leadering their leadering they're leading give them Autonomy's I think that's a key to job satisfaction and success is if you learn as a leader.
19:36.37
lauraklein
Ah, ah, actually.
(01:16):
19:50.23
lauraklein
Well and it's It's amazing If you're also like as you say you know you're teaching your team to work with folks to do this because you're then having to coach almost at a skip level which I mean I just I want everybody who's listening to understand that.
18:48.50
Emmy Southworth
How to create autonomy for your team.
19:16.41
Emmy Southworth
That's right.
20:29.63
lauraklein
This is um I Joked about this not being easy. This is next level management stuff but being able to not just coach the person that's that's a whole thing to learn like there's a whole educational process to learn and to set up and then teaching somebody else to be able to. Do that and coach them and understand the process. None of that is easy but it sounds really valuable in growing new designers. Sadly not for your company I Guess that's the next step. Yeah, oh that's marvelous. Yeah.
20:22.78
Emmy Southworth
Some some have some have come onto the company right? My My first apprentice though I was I was happy I'm like we succeeded we like the the purpose of the apprenticeship worked and that just made me very excited about ah managing other people in the future.
21:39.41
lauraklein
And we are the the beginning.
20:57.10
Emmy Southworth
And I I Just want to talk about like where I learned that Concept. It was my degrees in art Education. So I wanted to become an art teacher because I'd had a great experience with an art teacher in high school and um, what I noticed in in art education I taught in an elementary and Junior high school. A lot of people's creative abilities get thwarted by people coming telling them how to solve the problem whether it's the parent or the teacher. It says you need to color that sky blue or and just telling them and it it completely sucks the Creative Juice. Or desire out of people to tell them how to create that like that that is the joy. Yes, It's good. Um why? why.
23:21.89
lauraklein
True story. Yeah, true straight in Fifth. Ah sorry in in fifth grade in fifth grade I was told I use too many colors ah I use too many colors I color it a map I used too many colors I was it was explained to me though that is too many colors you have used too many colors. They don't go together. Um I am now extremely uncreative I don't know that I'm not going to blame it on that I mean I sometimes kind of do um I just like to say I don't nowadays I'm kind of like I'm not sure there. Such a thing as too many colors. Ah.
23:24.60
Emmy Southworth
That's right? But I I think the creative field is somewhere where divergent bot needs to be nourished and encouraged and there's a time when it needs to divergent needs to converge into a solution but it. You will create the same thing as everyone else if you don't allow your design team to actually have that divergent thought and have the freedom of not being constrained and criticized to solve the problem that that is problem solving so taking that concept of like we don't go and critique people's creative abilities and.
25:17.37
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:32.96
Emmy Southworth
We do the same thing in in design and that's where managing the designer and figuring out how to like build that in a team to be more creative creating solutions that haven't been thought of in the marketplace. That's what gets the return on an investment of the design team and it's it's. Ah, design manager clearing that space for that team to grow and thrive.
(01:38):
26:16.59
lauraklein
And I and I love the focus on the problem solving too because I do think that there is the tendency especially for newer folks to um to sort of expect the design Brief. You know, like if you like alter you know if you do it in school or you go to? you know you get a design brief go design this thing. You start working with a product manager Maybe who has a real strong Opinion. It can you can sort of turn into um you know, ah a production you know a production person which nothing wrong with that like that's if that's what you want to be doing but when I think about Ux design or product management quite frankly, right? It's a. Process of figuring out the problems and figuring out the solutions together and that's a different skill than here. This is a perfectly understood problem to solve and here is the correct solution. Go implement. It. Ah. Find a start there I think it's great I Love the idea of starting there and then but you got to start letting you got to start letting go and teaching them to expect to have to do that you know otherwise I think it's really unfulfilling Personally I mean maybe that's just my own bias. But it's unfulfilling just to draw it.
27:44.26
Emmy Southworth
That's absolutely true.
28:49.30
lauraklein
Just to draw pictures of other people's ideas I don't want to do that. Ah.
27:50.82
Emmy Southworth
No, no, no one wants to do that. That's ah, that's why I'm in design because I I love thinking through and creating ideas. That's that's why it's fulfilling.
29:02.65
lauraklein
But that's not but do you.
29:18.73
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, that's the fun part right? I do want to ask 1 thing and we we didn't go over this earlier. So I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out a little bit of little bit of curveball. Um, because it's something I just thought of like I've noticed your your title is principal product manager so it sounds like you've you've crossed over to.
28:30.38
Emmy Southworth
Um, okay surprise me.
29:53.55
lauraklein
Product management can't.
28:52.90
Emmy Southworth
That's right, that's right about three years ago I was head of a design at a company and we had lost our Vp of product and my product manager I one I was working closely with Hagan I'm a turn leave so we suddenly had a vacuum of no product management.
30:25.65
lauraklein
Over.
29:27.86
Emmy Southworth
And at that time I realized that we had about twelve weeks where our dev teams would just we would soundly like stop producing. No no one was coordinating things and so as head of design I'm like I'm going to stop step in and create this vision of where we're going to go I'm going to outline the steps of how to get.
(02:00):
30:57.61
lauraklein
To her.
30:05.86
Emmy Southworth
Next the next place our release phases and what we're gonna do because we were right in the middle of ah a large rebrand and reimagining the project. We had just done a massive research phase and I am like oh my gosh All of my efforts are going to like just stop abruptly if I do not figure out how to get.
31:21.43
lauraklein
A.
30:43.98
Emmy Southworth
Company moving, especially the design and development side and so I did that and we 10 x numbers with our first release and I'm like like whoa that was actually really fun. That was a lot of fun and so I ended up moving moving companies about a year later. And I was hired on as a director of product management to kickstart from the like a ground up a startup within a larger corporation worked on that for a little bit. Unfortunately I experienced long covid step back from that. Yeah um, and was able to still stay on as a product management roll but just reduce it to not reduce. It.
32:40.67
lauraklein
Go wolf. Ah.
31:56.34
Emmy Southworth
Principal Product manager just means I can influence a lot in the company and I still have my own product line that I'm running and I love it like I Love being able to create the space for designers being able to prove. Be able to measure get into the data I don't know I suddenly started geeking out on it spreadsheets from the design side.
33:42.70
lauraklein
It's so it's so funny seeing Designers discover numbers and I'm like join us I'm very like I've always left qual and then as soon as I found out about Quant I was like oh but these work very well together. Do they not? So it's.
32:48.18
Emmy Southworth
Like yes, but.
33:07.30
Emmy Southworth
Yes, they do oh so much Justification that can come Yes, so it's true to me. It was just very satisfying. It's fine taking my career ah being able to manage designers but also in the startup world of creating products and take.
34:15.73
lauraklein
Very very exciting I Love I Love seeing that. Ah yeah.
33:40.10
Emmy Southworth
Take the product manager and say I want to create a successful team where designers are enabled work well with their product Product Managers Deb teams are creating Great Great products at a good pace like we're not overwhelming anyone but we're well organized it just it. It. I Guess the management portion of from design management into product management and product leadership was a really natural transition Once I got there? yeah.
(02:22):
35:32.33
lauraklein
I Think in a lot of places that's true. Yeah, a lot of places that's true I think that at the high level I mean especially when you're talking about like problem solving like I said you know like if if your view of a designer is solving problems and reducing uncertainty and. Exploring you know ideas and understanding what works and what doesn't I mean that sounds a lot like what we do in product management as Well. I'm I'm actually curious if you've ever like if you have similar approach to hiring product managers or if you find that different at all I'm sort of curious about. Both if um, if you've if you want to talk about that.
35:43.98
Emmy Southworth
Um, yeah I actually ended up hiring 5 product managers on this my very first product position and some were some were a bit more junior some were more experienced and I I think I I'm definitely still learning that aspect and definitely watching. I've got a great vp of product right now that is just a fantastic mentor and I'm I'm watching him train the entire product organization to level everyone up. That's his end goal and so he's what he's done is he's gone through and define what success looks like in our job role and then he's he's not coming in and telling us what to actually create.
37:52.59
lauraklein
Ah.
37:01.10
Emmy Southworth
But he's holding this accountable for delivering on on the numbers. But he's broken it down into like here's the qualitative ways and and have do your job to improve your numbers and it's he holds a weekly training and it's fantastic. I'm just. And paying very close attention because I know like I'm like this is my career path and I really want to take his approach of ah but but just a fantastic teacher. That's really what it's really what he is and everyone just wants to level up because they want that a grade from the teacher right? They they want that like you did that? Well great job but easy.
38:42.33
lauraklein
T. Um, yeah.
39:09.23
lauraklein
Yeah.
38:13.50
Emmy Southworth
For him what he's measuring. He's measuring the right things. He's very careful on what he measures so it's the company succeeds when the product team is doing their job. Well.
39:20.89
lauraklein
Ahead.
39:35.67
lauraklein
Yeah, it's so it's so interesting because I'm I'm hearing these very these patterns across both teams and honestly having having worked in engineering I think it actually is very true for engineering too that it's just it's making sure that the people are at.
38:57.62
Emmy Southworth
Specific.
40:13.27
lauraklein
Right level and that they're getting sort of the right opportunities to stretch and learn and sometimes maybe fail a little bit and and get better and improve and instead of trying to go out and hire that you know like super senior like if if you've got this all set up if this is all working and set up i. You know and you've got a team that can all do this instead of going out and you know having to hire that I don't know ninja rockstar grew you know, super senior 20 years of experience person. You can take somebody and grow them into whatever whatever it is that you need them to be by making sure that they're focused on the right. Things they have the right level of responsibility and um, you know that they're getting that feedback and that's so important and it doesn't feel like it's part of hiring but it is a hundred percent part of hiring because if you if you don't have that you have to hire entirely differently.
(02:44):
40:48.82
Emmy Southworth
And absolutely it's It's honestly if you hire someone and they don't know what they're being measured on or what success looks like for them. You're going to have a large amount of turnover. So having job definitions for different levels.
42:17.17
lauraklein
Ah, yeah.
41:26.92
Emmy Southworth
How someone progresses from 1 level to the next not not just only in pay but also in how do I succeed at my job. What does that look like what is this? what? what soft skills? Do you need me to learn to get better. It's.
42:44.39
lauraklein
Yeah.
42:59.17
lauraklein
Yeah.
42:02.98
Emmy Southworth
I think that's key to hiring and then it's easier to go through and do evaluations of of candidates and you can say yeah, they've got ten ten of ten of these skills or this person has 5 of the 10 where are they missing? Can we do? We have the time to mentor them or. Should we look at this other candidate that's got maybe even less skills but she has the ones that we don't need to. We don't have time to mentor in I think it's.
43:54.49
lauraklein
Yeah, ah yeah, yeah, that that finding that that balance on the team of maybe this person is super senior but they're super senior at a thing that I don't really need because I've got 3 other people. So yeah, kind of meshing that's that's such a good thing and.
43:15.72
Emmy Southworth
Exactly.
44:29.55
lauraklein
And I Love the idea of the apprentice program just being able to get people to where they need to be., But yeah it it does take it takes a lot of a lot of effort upfront I Just want people to to know that not be afraid of it because it's such a huge payoff. Um. You told me that you have some um, some some great recruiting story. So Some things that you did that you did a little differently and I would I would love to hear those.
44:18.64
Emmy Southworth
So they were it was it was during a time where it was definitely the candidate's market so they they could be picky and choosy which makes it. Oh yeah, it's like it's like house buy in right now you've you've got to have your offer in hand ready before you can go and see the house and you know you like it.
45:41.24
lauraklein
Relatable.
(03:06):
44:57.78
Emmy Southworth
So we we were hiring for remote locations but we wanted to connect with with the team. So we flew in a candidate from Minnesota and we I live in Utah where we had fantastic skiing great mountains and we really wanted this candidate. He had a great portfolio. He had done a great. Interview but he was like on the fence if he wanted to join the company or not so I went to ah Rei the store and rented snowshoes and we went snowshoeing for the candidate's interview and.
46:40.37
lauraklein
A.
47:03.69
lauraklein
Nice.
46:08.52
Emmy Southworth
I'd plan like we we'd go up to the trail and get to the peak and it be fun, but instead what we did is we just ended up like rolling in the snow and jumping off mounds of snow and there was so much laughter and fun and after that interview the candidate's like yeah your team is like awesome and my whole team is like that was the funnest thing I've ever done like it.
47:46.51
lauraklein
Ah, yeah, that's so interesting.
46:44.86
Emmy Southworth
It was building the team camaraderie in the interview process and then I had another candidate that I did something similar but I I knew that he loved rock climbing and so for our interview we went past the prime rock climbing spot in Utah up to lunch in park city so he could see all the opportunities there. I was it was totally I had to be a really good sales salesman on this job and.
48:31.45
lauraklein
Yeah, it sounds like that's so funny that you're just like oh let's let's just go to lunch at this great place that I know of oh look over that look. It wouldn't doesn't that bouldering look nice Mul bit that that would be fun. Ah.
47:55.28
Emmy Southworth
Ah, exactly exactly trying to sell them on like well first like some of them had to move like from the East Coast here and then others just needed to know the team was I kind of like did some background research on more than just accountants portfolio on their.
49:10.85
lauraklein
Is he.
49:30.41
lauraklein
It's yeah on what they like I'm trying to think what would work on me and I think it's like if you drove me, you know, like on a little tour. It's just like oh look. There's some that we there's that artisanal chocolate shop over there and oh.
48:30.28
Emmy Southworth
Their interests and then what what were they looking for with the company. What.
(03:28):
49:57.89
lauraklein
Oh this is a really good local coffee place and and look look. Oh they do the best pedicure So I've just I'd be like well yeah, that's fine signed up. Ah.
49:06.52
Emmy Southworth
Oh perfect, perfect. It's it's like a dating. It's it's sort of like dating when you're interviewing a candidate like they they've got to know do I want to stick to this relationship with you and you've got to know the same thing is this worth and so each each interview is like the second date the third date like you're getting to know each other more and more.
50:21.30
lauraklein
Um, yeah I Yeah yeah.
50:43.89
lauraklein
Yeah.
49:45.50
Emmy Southworth
To know if it's That's really what the Ux hiring process is like because people can be picky. They should be yes.
50:54.35
lauraklein
Yeah, and they should be picky. That's the thing that's like I mean honestly, if it were all rock climbing I've tried rock climbing I was um and five foot three and kind of old didn't go. Well yeah, but.
50:19.56
Emmy Southworth
Ah.
51:28.65
lauraklein
Not Not really my thing more of a you know pedicures and and coffee kind of girl. Um, but yeah, like you you want to know that like you want to know that what the team is like you know what? the the organization is like I mean that's one of the reasons I like the apprentice idea so much is that you get to actually do the work. And C and I mean I like the fact that it was considered a success that they became designers you know and you don't want the ones that I mean maybe you do but like the the ones are like no I'd rather go work someplace else. It's like you know what? great Maybe maybe sometime in the future we will work together Again. And I think that's always sort of a nice way to leave things. Um, just because you know look I put another designer out into the world I I believe in Design karma that way. Ah, no, those are those are those these are amazing tips and um I Just want to.
51:59.26
Emmy Southworth
Ah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
53:18.79
lauraklein
That is all the time that we that we have for today I have personally learned so much. So thank you? Um, but I want to I want to thank Emy Southworth for joining us. Um I also want to thank everybody out there listening and I want to wish everybody the best of luck with with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee I just want you to know I am rooting for you.
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast where we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both somehow absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein please be advised this podcast may contain drinking swearing screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts my guest today. Emmy Southworth Emmy is a principal product manager at lendeo and Emmy is absolutely hiring so just keep that in mind if you're looking for a new job which I think I don't know 90% of the industry is right now. So ah today emmy and I are going to be talking about oh something that is. Near and dear to my heart which is you know why? Why is it so hard to hire Ux designers and you know why has it always been so hard and emmy actually has a really interesting process that I think has made it a little easier so we're gonna talk a little bit about that I mean I'm not going to say that the. The actual process is easy I'm going to say that you you have a very clever solution to this welcome Emmy. It is so good to have you? Yeah no, it's I'm so excited to talk to you. So first of all, let's let's dive into the big questions. Um, why is it hard to hire you ex designers.
01:06.20
Emmy Southworth
Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me to this show today.
02:34.51
lauraklein
Why why are are we thin on the ground are we just are we all awful. What is it.
01:39.14
Emmy Southworth
Ah, definitely not not awful I think obviously supply and demand. There's not enough designers for what the tech industry needs. That's that's probably the major issue and the second issue is qualified designers a lot of times this position.
03:02.85
lauraklein
Yeah.
02:16.68
Emmy Southworth
Just because of the nature of it is more senior, especially when we have a lot of startups or smaller tech companies that that need more mature designers and less less large companies that are available to hire more Junior positions and so I think that's part of part of the issue. It's not just the supply of. Junior designers. It's a supply of of qualified senior designers that are ready to come in and can work the harder problems.
04:10.17
lauraklein
Yeah, it's so it's so tricky having been you know the only designer or you know 1 of 2 at a company that is just such a very different experience than going into place with you know, 2 or 300 designers that you can learn from and experience and you just need a whole different level of. Maturity and ability and problem solving. Um for for that kind of thing. What what have you done to to try to make it easier. What are what are some of the things that you've tried maybe some that have worked and haven't worked.
04:07.76
Emmy Southworth
Yeah that's that's a great question. So 1 thing I noticed when I was head of design that we we kind of reached a limit where we weren't getting enough candidates to fill the positions and so we decided that we we had 12 designers at the time and we felt like. We could start to help those designers become managers as well or start to like flex a little bit of leadership and so and we could we had time to mentor. So it. It was time to start a mentorship program so we we first started with an intern program from a local school and then actually did not work really well. Was a lot of overtime trying to manage individuals that were trying to check off the intern box because they thought that was that was the path towards career growth and they weren't super invested in our company and so after about six weeks we just asked the school to stop the program and so I decided to kind of revisit and think through. Why it didn't work and why what we really needed and the thing we needed as a company was a commitment to help us as the design team meet meet the bottom line like we had deliverables and we had key metrics that had to be had to be met. It wasn't just teaching other designers. that's that wasn't the objective and yes yes that's right that's right um and so I I had moved to another company and I decided I'm like okay I I need someone else to.
07:45.92
lauraklein
You're not a school. You're actually a business and with only 12 of you that's often means you're spread a little thin depending on how how many teams you're supporting. Yeah.
07:18.86
Emmy Southworth
Come on and help me part of it was budget. We didn't have budget to hire another senior designer so I had to be creative. How do I get a quality junior designer that's committed here. That's not and another intern and I came across um, a concept of an an apprenticeship. And thinking through like a journeyman in in. Let's see in carpentry or electricians that you will. You will go through a phase of your career. It's about a 2 year phase of partnering with someone as an apprentice and learning from them watching what they do. But you're also getting paid and you're also delivering on the job and working in real life experiences and your goal there is to come out with a certificate or capable career so you can either be hired by that company or can or go look at other work and you can't you can't get hired until you finish that apprenticeship.
10:07.23
lauraklein
Right.
(00:32):
09:09.00
Emmy Southworth
And achieve a journeyman or a master's level skill and I realized that ux design was was very much skill-based and it's it's not just being able to create an interface or design a layout like that's were in the early years being able to code.
10:48.25
lauraklein
Ah, exactly that's I mean that's that's how I got into it. But.
09:48.22
Emmy Southworth
Go to prototype right? So did so did I But that's not the only skills that need to be learned. It's not just the visual application. The the real trick is learning how to problem solve and get down to the real problem. That's that's trying to be addressed.
11:28.65
lauraklein
To her.
10:28.20
Emmy Southworth
To create value. That's what a designer really needs to do and that is difficult to learn at a boot camp or in school until you're on the job and you've got real world problems to solve and work through so this apprenticeship program I created a contract and it said this is what we as the company will teach you. In this six month program here's the curriculum you will have and that curriculum is you will you will have experience working with development teams and having learning technical constraints. You'll be able to do user research, you'll be in charge of your own projects. You will be held accountable by your mentor. Delivering on time and then you agree to us that you will commit for them that next six months to work with us and to work as a paid employee. Um, and here's your pay rate? Yes, yes.
12:53.81
lauraklein
Um, that's that's important. That's very important because that six months is yeah, you can't no working for free. Yeah.
12:13.98
Emmy Southworth
And then we we said we do not guarantee a job after this, but we do guarantee that you will come out hireable. You will have solid portfolio pieces and be able to be be hired in the ux career and so I hired my first first apprentice she was at a boot camp in New York she had previously been an architect for 10 years and decided to change because it just didn't move fast enough for her so she had the she had the basis of principles and design and then what I started out with was small projects if think was a carpenter I would like here put the nail here as we're framing the house so same thing with you x okay.
14:08.67
lauraklein
Ah.
13:31.12
Emmy Southworth
Ah designed this dropdown so it matches the brand and that's very small task and then it would be checkups very often and then we I started to create projects that would have less supervision and less constraints identified that she would need to go figure out.
14:39.91
lauraklein
E.
14:09.80
Emmy Southworth
And I would watch her to the point where she was getting frustrated ah maybe failing almost and I wouldn't step into help I would let her flounder a little bit more and maybe give a little hints and then she would come up with solution and it was like this aha moment and just she realized she hits succeeded at something very hard. But she didn't have that skill to do before and so the next project and I would after shed like floundered through a little bit was getting frustrated and she solved it I explained I did that on purpose that was part of the apprniceship to teach you How to problem solve without someone giving you direction on how to fix it and so.
(00:54):
16:17.95
lauraklein
And I got to say that is so hard to do just from the from the master's side from the from the non-apprentice side that is so hard to let them just not fail but flounder I think flounder is a great word for that like just struggle a little bit.
15:45.48
Emmy Southworth
Yes, yes, and the yeah, the hard part in is in working for a business and actual paycheck is like you don't have the opportunity to fill right? I think that's where a junior designer. We don't hire a lot of them because it's expensive.
16:56.41
lauraklein
Like it's it hurts. You don't want him to struggle. Ah yeah.
17:20.21
lauraklein
Ah, here.
16:22.44
Emmy Southworth
Had those failures and so mentoring someone but specifically settinging up projects where it's okay if they flounder for a bit. They have the time to go figure it out and then the next project I gave her we shorten the timef frame same same kind of loose constraint shorten the timef frame and so she gets faster at figuring out.
17:47.81
lauraklein
Is it.
17:02.42
Emmy Southworth
True problem. She's trying to solve and if her solution is effective and so at the end of the six months um she got hired as a senior position for a large fortune of 500 kind of yes then I was so mad I'm like no you were like I grew.
18:08.50
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
18:23.73
lauraklein
For someone else entirely. Ah you you you you.
17:35.18
Emmy Southworth
Didn't made this perfect Anyways, no, it was good. I was so Proud So proud of her So every position I've been in as head of design and and even in product now I have tried to create this concept in ah app preentice program where we can feed. We can feed into both the industry and also into our. Base and what it does is that ah those that are like beginning to get into leadership. It teaches them how to mentor someone but still give that person their their leadering their leadering they're leading give them Autonomy's I think that's a key to job satisfaction and success is if you learn as a leader.
19:36.37
lauraklein
Ah, ah, actually.
(01:16):
19:50.23
lauraklein
Well and it's It's amazing If you're also like as you say you know you're teaching your team to work with folks to do this because you're then having to coach almost at a skip level which I mean I just I want everybody who's listening to understand that.
18:48.50
Emmy Southworth
How to create autonomy for your team.
19:16.41
Emmy Southworth
That's right.
20:29.63
lauraklein
This is um I Joked about this not being easy. This is next level management stuff but being able to not just coach the person that's that's a whole thing to learn like there's a whole educational process to learn and to set up and then teaching somebody else to be able to. Do that and coach them and understand the process. None of that is easy but it sounds really valuable in growing new designers. Sadly not for your company I Guess that's the next step. Yeah, oh that's marvelous. Yeah.
20:22.78
Emmy Southworth
Some some have some have come onto the company right? My My first apprentice though I was I was happy I'm like we succeeded we like the the purpose of the apprenticeship worked and that just made me very excited about ah managing other people in the future.
21:39.41
lauraklein
And we are the the beginning.
20:57.10
Emmy Southworth
And I I Just want to talk about like where I learned that Concept. It was my degrees in art Education. So I wanted to become an art teacher because I'd had a great experience with an art teacher in high school and um, what I noticed in in art education I taught in an elementary and Junior high school. A lot of people's creative abilities get thwarted by people coming telling them how to solve the problem whether it's the parent or the teacher. It says you need to color that sky blue or and just telling them and it it completely sucks the Creative Juice. Or desire out of people to tell them how to create that like that that is the joy. Yes, It's good. Um why? why.
23:21.89
lauraklein
True story. Yeah, true straight in Fifth. Ah sorry in in fifth grade in fifth grade I was told I use too many colors ah I use too many colors I color it a map I used too many colors I was it was explained to me though that is too many colors you have used too many colors. They don't go together. Um I am now extremely uncreative I don't know that I'm not going to blame it on that I mean I sometimes kind of do um I just like to say I don't nowadays I'm kind of like I'm not sure there. Such a thing as too many colors. Ah.
23:24.60
Emmy Southworth
That's right? But I I think the creative field is somewhere where divergent bot needs to be nourished and encouraged and there's a time when it needs to divergent needs to converge into a solution but it. You will create the same thing as everyone else if you don't allow your design team to actually have that divergent thought and have the freedom of not being constrained and criticized to solve the problem that that is problem solving so taking that concept of like we don't go and critique people's creative abilities and.
25:17.37
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:32.96
Emmy Southworth
We do the same thing in in design and that's where managing the designer and figuring out how to like build that in a team to be more creative creating solutions that haven't been thought of in the marketplace. That's what gets the return on an investment of the design team and it's it's. Ah, design manager clearing that space for that team to grow and thrive.
(01:38):
26:16.59
lauraklein
And I and I love the focus on the problem solving too because I do think that there is the tendency especially for newer folks to um to sort of expect the design Brief. You know, like if you like alter you know if you do it in school or you go to? you know you get a design brief go design this thing. You start working with a product manager Maybe who has a real strong Opinion. It can you can sort of turn into um you know, ah a production you know a production person which nothing wrong with that like that's if that's what you want to be doing but when I think about Ux design or product management quite frankly, right? It's a. Process of figuring out the problems and figuring out the solutions together and that's a different skill than here. This is a perfectly understood problem to solve and here is the correct solution. Go implement. It. Ah. Find a start there I think it's great I Love the idea of starting there and then but you got to start letting you got to start letting go and teaching them to expect to have to do that you know otherwise I think it's really unfulfilling Personally I mean maybe that's just my own bias. But it's unfulfilling just to draw it.
27:44.26
Emmy Southworth
That's absolutely true.
28:49.30
lauraklein
Just to draw pictures of other people's ideas I don't want to do that. Ah.
27:50.82
Emmy Southworth
No, no, no one wants to do that. That's ah, that's why I'm in design because I I love thinking through and creating ideas. That's that's why it's fulfilling.
29:02.65
lauraklein
But that's not but do you.
29:18.73
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, that's the fun part right? I do want to ask 1 thing and we we didn't go over this earlier. So I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out a little bit of little bit of curveball. Um, because it's something I just thought of like I've noticed your your title is principal product manager so it sounds like you've you've crossed over to.
28:30.38
Emmy Southworth
Um, okay surprise me.
29:53.55
lauraklein
Product management can't.
28:52.90
Emmy Southworth
That's right, that's right about three years ago I was head of a design at a company and we had lost our Vp of product and my product manager I one I was working closely with Hagan I'm a turn leave so we suddenly had a vacuum of no product management.
30:25.65
lauraklein
Over.
29:27.86
Emmy Southworth
And at that time I realized that we had about twelve weeks where our dev teams would just we would soundly like stop producing. No no one was coordinating things and so as head of design I'm like I'm going to stop step in and create this vision of where we're going to go I'm going to outline the steps of how to get.
(02:00):
30:57.61
lauraklein
To her.
30:05.86
Emmy Southworth
Next the next place our release phases and what we're gonna do because we were right in the middle of ah a large rebrand and reimagining the project. We had just done a massive research phase and I am like oh my gosh All of my efforts are going to like just stop abruptly if I do not figure out how to get.
31:21.43
lauraklein
A.
30:43.98
Emmy Southworth
Company moving, especially the design and development side and so I did that and we 10 x numbers with our first release and I'm like like whoa that was actually really fun. That was a lot of fun and so I ended up moving moving companies about a year later. And I was hired on as a director of product management to kickstart from the like a ground up a startup within a larger corporation worked on that for a little bit. Unfortunately I experienced long covid step back from that. Yeah um, and was able to still stay on as a product management roll but just reduce it to not reduce. It.
32:40.67
lauraklein
Go wolf. Ah.
31:56.34
Emmy Southworth
Principal Product manager just means I can influence a lot in the company and I still have my own product line that I'm running and I love it like I Love being able to create the space for designers being able to prove. Be able to measure get into the data I don't know I suddenly started geeking out on it spreadsheets from the design side.
33:42.70
lauraklein
It's so it's so funny seeing Designers discover numbers and I'm like join us I'm very like I've always left qual and then as soon as I found out about Quant I was like oh but these work very well together. Do they not? So it's.
32:48.18
Emmy Southworth
Like yes, but.
33:07.30
Emmy Southworth
Yes, they do oh so much Justification that can come Yes, so it's true to me. It was just very satisfying. It's fine taking my career ah being able to manage designers but also in the startup world of creating products and take.
34:15.73
lauraklein
Very very exciting I Love I Love seeing that. Ah yeah.
33:40.10
Emmy Southworth
Take the product manager and say I want to create a successful team where designers are enabled work well with their product Product Managers Deb teams are creating Great Great products at a good pace like we're not overwhelming anyone but we're well organized it just it. It. I Guess the management portion of from design management into product management and product leadership was a really natural transition Once I got there? yeah.
(02:22):
35:32.33
lauraklein
I Think in a lot of places that's true. Yeah, a lot of places that's true I think that at the high level I mean especially when you're talking about like problem solving like I said you know like if if your view of a designer is solving problems and reducing uncertainty and. Exploring you know ideas and understanding what works and what doesn't I mean that sounds a lot like what we do in product management as Well. I'm I'm actually curious if you've ever like if you have similar approach to hiring product managers or if you find that different at all I'm sort of curious about. Both if um, if you've if you want to talk about that.
35:43.98
Emmy Southworth
Um, yeah I actually ended up hiring 5 product managers on this my very first product position and some were some were a bit more junior some were more experienced and I I think I I'm definitely still learning that aspect and definitely watching. I've got a great vp of product right now that is just a fantastic mentor and I'm I'm watching him train the entire product organization to level everyone up. That's his end goal and so he's what he's done is he's gone through and define what success looks like in our job role and then he's he's not coming in and telling us what to actually create.
37:52.59
lauraklein
Ah.
37:01.10
Emmy Southworth
But he's holding this accountable for delivering on on the numbers. But he's broken it down into like here's the qualitative ways and and have do your job to improve your numbers and it's he holds a weekly training and it's fantastic. I'm just. And paying very close attention because I know like I'm like this is my career path and I really want to take his approach of ah but but just a fantastic teacher. That's really what it's really what he is and everyone just wants to level up because they want that a grade from the teacher right? They they want that like you did that? Well great job but easy.
38:42.33
lauraklein
T. Um, yeah.
39:09.23
lauraklein
Yeah.
38:13.50
Emmy Southworth
For him what he's measuring. He's measuring the right things. He's very careful on what he measures so it's the company succeeds when the product team is doing their job. Well.
39:20.89
lauraklein
Ahead.
39:35.67
lauraklein
Yeah, it's so it's so interesting because I'm I'm hearing these very these patterns across both teams and honestly having having worked in engineering I think it actually is very true for engineering too that it's just it's making sure that the people are at.
38:57.62
Emmy Southworth
Specific.
40:13.27
lauraklein
Right level and that they're getting sort of the right opportunities to stretch and learn and sometimes maybe fail a little bit and and get better and improve and instead of trying to go out and hire that you know like super senior like if if you've got this all set up if this is all working and set up i. You know and you've got a team that can all do this instead of going out and you know having to hire that I don't know ninja rockstar grew you know, super senior 20 years of experience person. You can take somebody and grow them into whatever whatever it is that you need them to be by making sure that they're focused on the right. Things they have the right level of responsibility and um, you know that they're getting that feedback and that's so important and it doesn't feel like it's part of hiring but it is a hundred percent part of hiring because if you if you don't have that you have to hire entirely differently.
(02:44):
40:48.82
Emmy Southworth
And absolutely it's It's honestly if you hire someone and they don't know what they're being measured on or what success looks like for them. You're going to have a large amount of turnover. So having job definitions for different levels.
42:17.17
lauraklein
Ah, yeah.
41:26.92
Emmy Southworth
How someone progresses from 1 level to the next not not just only in pay but also in how do I succeed at my job. What does that look like what is this? what? what soft skills? Do you need me to learn to get better. It's.
42:44.39
lauraklein
Yeah.
42:59.17
lauraklein
Yeah.
42:02.98
Emmy Southworth
I think that's key to hiring and then it's easier to go through and do evaluations of of candidates and you can say yeah, they've got ten ten of ten of these skills or this person has 5 of the 10 where are they missing? Can we do? We have the time to mentor them or. Should we look at this other candidate that's got maybe even less skills but she has the ones that we don't need to. We don't have time to mentor in I think it's.
43:54.49
lauraklein
Yeah, ah yeah, yeah, that that finding that that balance on the team of maybe this person is super senior but they're super senior at a thing that I don't really need because I've got 3 other people. So yeah, kind of meshing that's that's such a good thing and.
43:15.72
Emmy Southworth
Exactly.
44:29.55
lauraklein
And I Love the idea of the apprentice program just being able to get people to where they need to be., But yeah it it does take it takes a lot of a lot of effort upfront I Just want people to to know that not be afraid of it because it's such a huge payoff. Um. You told me that you have some um, some some great recruiting story. So Some things that you did that you did a little differently and I would I would love to hear those.
44:18.64
Emmy Southworth
So they were it was it was during a time where it was definitely the candidate's market so they they could be picky and choosy which makes it. Oh yeah, it's like it's like house buy in right now you've you've got to have your offer in hand ready before you can go and see the house and you know you like it.
45:41.24
lauraklein
Relatable.
(03:06):
44:57.78
Emmy Southworth
So we we were hiring for remote locations but we wanted to connect with with the team. So we flew in a candidate from Minnesota and we I live in Utah where we had fantastic skiing great mountains and we really wanted this candidate. He had a great portfolio. He had done a great. Interview but he was like on the fence if he wanted to join the company or not so I went to ah Rei the store and rented snowshoes and we went snowshoeing for the candidate's interview and.
46:40.37
lauraklein
A.
47:03.69
lauraklein
Nice.
46:08.52
Emmy Southworth
I'd plan like we we'd go up to the trail and get to the peak and it be fun, but instead what we did is we just ended up like rolling in the snow and jumping off mounds of snow and there was so much laughter and fun and after that interview the candidate's like yeah your team is like awesome and my whole team is like that was the funnest thing I've ever done like it.
47:46.51
lauraklein
Ah, yeah, that's so interesting.
46:44.86
Emmy Southworth
It was building the team camaraderie in the interview process and then I had another candidate that I did something similar but I I knew that he loved rock climbing and so for our interview we went past the prime rock climbing spot in Utah up to lunch in park city so he could see all the opportunities there. I was it was totally I had to be a really good sales salesman on this job and.
48:31.45
lauraklein
Yeah, it sounds like that's so funny that you're just like oh let's let's just go to lunch at this great place that I know of oh look over that look. It wouldn't doesn't that bouldering look nice Mul bit that that would be fun. Ah.
47:55.28
Emmy Southworth
Ah, exactly exactly trying to sell them on like well first like some of them had to move like from the East Coast here and then others just needed to know the team was I kind of like did some background research on more than just accountants portfolio on their.
49:10.85
lauraklein
Is he.
49:30.41
lauraklein
It's yeah on what they like I'm trying to think what would work on me and I think it's like if you drove me, you know, like on a little tour. It's just like oh look. There's some that we there's that artisanal chocolate shop over there and oh.
48:30.28
Emmy Southworth
Their interests and then what what were they looking for with the company. What.
(03:28):
49:57.89
lauraklein
Oh this is a really good local coffee place and and look look. Oh they do the best pedicure So I've just I'd be like well yeah, that's fine signed up. Ah.
49:06.52
Emmy Southworth
Oh perfect, perfect. It's it's like a dating. It's it's sort of like dating when you're interviewing a candidate like they they've got to know do I want to stick to this relationship with you and you've got to know the same thing is this worth and so each each interview is like the second date the third date like you're getting to know each other more and more.
50:21.30
lauraklein
Um, yeah I Yeah yeah.
50:43.89
lauraklein
Yeah.
49:45.50
Emmy Southworth
To know if it's That's really what the Ux hiring process is like because people can be picky. They should be yes.
50:54.35
lauraklein
Yeah, and they should be picky. That's the thing that's like I mean honestly, if it were all rock climbing I've tried rock climbing I was um and five foot three and kind of old didn't go. Well yeah, but.
50:19.56
Emmy Southworth
Ah.
51:28.65
lauraklein
Not Not really my thing more of a you know pedicures and and coffee kind of girl. Um, but yeah, like you you want to know that like you want to know that what the team is like you know what? the the organization is like I mean that's one of the reasons I like the apprentice idea so much is that you get to actually do the work. And C and I mean I like the fact that it was considered a success that they became designers you know and you don't want the ones that I mean maybe you do but like the the ones are like no I'd rather go work someplace else. It's like you know what? great Maybe maybe sometime in the future we will work together Again. And I think that's always sort of a nice way to leave things. Um, just because you know look I put another designer out into the world I I believe in Design karma that way. Ah, no, those are those are those these are amazing tips and um I Just want to.
51:59.26
Emmy Southworth
Ah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
53:18.79
lauraklein
That is all the time that we that we have for today I have personally learned so much. So thank you? Um, but I want to I want to thank Emy Southworth for joining us. Um I also want to thank everybody out there listening and I want to wish everybody the best of luck with with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee I just want you to know I am rooting for you.
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