Recruiting creative talent, bringing a humane lens to people & purpose

Recruiting for creative people, built on trust, not transactions. Hiring across brand and product design, engineering, product management, strategy, content, and more — both leadership and ICs. I can work with you to hire your first & founding designer, and plan a road map for future hires.

Clients include early and seed-stage startups (Automat, InScope, Yuni), Series A/B companies (Regrello, Sigma Computing, Syniverse), and VC (Sutter Hill Ventures).

Candidates placed include strategists, founding designers, design leadership, staff engineer, and CTO.

My differentiated offerings include:

• 30 years of building relationships across design and tech
• coaching new hires in their role for the first 90 days, included with placement fee
• rebalancing responsibility for a successful match, based on candidate and company profile

Current interests in the practice: authoring and open-sourcing a rubric for candidate self-assessment, peer/manager assessment, and hiring-manager planning; temp-to-perm work trials and trial project scoping; coursework for non-design recruiters on how to read a portfolio, and more.

“I first met Josh when he chaired my graduate program, and his tremendous support extended even after graduation. When a colleague and I launched a design agency, Josh connected us with several companies—many of which became our first clients. One of those relationships proved such a great fit that, with Josh’s guidance, I transitioned into a full-time role where, five years later, I’m now a partner. Many of our best hires came through Josh’s recommendations—he’s a natural connector of people and opportunities in the design world.”

– Emily VanderMey, Partner, Bunsen Studio