How to support junior creatives with the skills they need to grow

In Alex’s case, his university experience was a broad visual communication course. It enforced his opinion that “part of why you go to university is to find a sense of yourself within the practice – both in terms of your abilities and also your outlook on the world,” he tells It’s Nice That.

This is also an opinion shared by each of our interviewees including James Hurst, global creative director at Pinterest. For James, in its truest form, “Design is about solving a problem,” and as a result, “Schools should focus on developing skills and confidence in that. You pick up the rest.” The creative director also believes that the greatest designers “have, through curiosity and ham-fistedness, bent programmes to their will”.

This is also reflected in the design skills Pinterest keeps an eye out for while hiring too, with James identifying two types of thinking he searches for. The first is “deductive (who follow best practice)” followed by “inductive (who invent new ways to solve problems),” he tells us. While there is obviously a need to balance these two approaches to designing, “we lean towards people who can think inductively,” he says. It’s the same notion when hiring for Sarah-Grace Mankarious, senior visual editor at CNN. In her case, although “it sounds cheesy,” she admits that “enthusiasm and drive are the most important attributes for me,” when it’s a junior applying for a role. “If they come to the table with ideas for projects, are keen to learn and can communicate well, it doesn’t matter if they don’t know the shortcut for outlining an object in Illustrator.”

Kitty Turley, executive producer at animation agency Strange Beast, feels similarly about the creative character. “In my experience, people who do really well on the creative side are basically always autodidactic,” she says. “I do think there is something in having the drive to just watch that tutorial and try and fail multiple times. That’s not just me trying to put a silver lining on education being ridiculously expensive and not giving enough practical support to people – there are just good sides to being forced to stand on your own two feet.”

Yet, as James at Pinterest points out, high expectations have always been expected of a graduating class. In his case, graduating into the financial crisis of 2008, the memory of his University of Brighton dean stating that “more people would graduate than [there are] jobs in the industry” has always stuck in his mind. “It was a hustle then and it’ll be a hustle now.”

Because of this, within Pinterest’s design teams there is also no assumption that creatives intuitively have the answer to every design question – in fact questions are encouraged. Describing his approach to training and development, this offering of space is mentioned again, particularly around offering “space to play and opportunities to think for themselves,” says James. It’s an approach that stretches upwards to other roles too. “Always be learning. I’m more hungry to push my thinking more than ever. I see an arc of new graduates having all the confidence, before hitting their stride and having the humility to ask more fundamental questions… The best ideas come when different people feel confident and safe to be generous with their thinking and comfortable enough to challenge whoever is in charge.”

For Sarah-Grace expectations have also risen due to how easy it seems (on paper) to learn new creative tools online. “Free programmes to make your ideas comes to life!” as she puts it. More is expected and so more is demanded, in a world where “what once used to be an iPhone mock-up to showcase a mobile website design, is now a prototyping App and programmes to convert design to code.” Nevertheless, at CNN it seems that personality will always be the nugget of gold Sarah-Grace’s creative team are searching for, explaining how at the end of the day: “A junior with a clear drive and strong ideas can still shine through even if their portfolio doesn’t have the ‘obligatory’ bells and whistles!”

With these mammoth expectations in mind, at Strange Beast the agency enables an environment for growth in a number of different ways. From a public-facing angle, it has The Greenhouse, an emerging talent roster of directors which act as “a way of allowing us to really champion emerging talent so they’re not getting lost on the main rosters,” as Kitty describes it. This also enables the team to set expectations with clients too, and “makes a slightly safer environment for people to thrive”.

Internally, Kitty explains that it is instilled in team members to make themselves a resource for brain picking. A “massive sense of responsibility” is also acknowledged across directors and producers in “making sure that people are experiencing professional development while achieving your vision”. Overall describing their approach to training as “something that we take very seriously, but also quite informally,” formal reviews are a must to balance friendships and professional development at work. “It can feel a bit weird because you’ve got such a good bond,” Kitty points out, “but I think it’s really important because it’s sometimes the only time to raise concerns.”

In fact, a close relationship with a manager “can sometimes be your undoing,” she continues, explaining that it can raise anxieties around stating specific needs, say if a team member feels they’re being blocked from an opportunity. Formal reviews therefore offer a chance for discussion and, in Kitty’s advice, it’s best to encourage this from both sides. “It’s really important, as a senior, to encourage your direct team members to give you critical feedback as much as possible, and give them space to disagree. Otherwise, it becomes a sort of dictatorship – albeit accidentally.”

Recognising that as a manager you can learn as much from your direct report as they learn from you is key to enabling growth on a company-wide scale. “I’ve never hired someone because I want them to be me,” says James from Pinterest. “But I am thrilled about what I’m going to learn from them, and how their thinking will surprise.” Confirming that one of the biggest design lessons that any creative, at any stage of their career, can learn is to “take your assumptions and ego out of the room and listen,” he says.

Across at Lovers, an employee’s training is assessed on a case-by-case basis, with Alex describing his team as “on a bit of an individual journey,” working towards “their own thing that they want to get better at”. He continues: “It’s my job to listen and notice that, and talk about it with individuals. To figure out what things are maybe good for them to be exposed to or connect to. We kind of play it like that.” Within this, Alex is also the first to admit that he’s “got lots of bettering to do,” but will continue to adopt a “general philosophy of letting people be who they are and become who they’re meant to be, not keep them trapped in a sort of role,” he says.

Whether it’s specific skills training an employee is after, a bit of space to grow into something else creatively, or nothing at all, “it’s important to help people remember that they can grow into anything that they feel they can,” concludes Alex. And if you – as a manager, a creative yourself, or a business owner – know that and consciously provide room for growth within your workplace: “I think that makes going to work a bit better.”