Dlead Design Hiring Loop

---
name: dlead-design-hiring-loop
description: Builds a Design Hiring Loop with competencies from the role's real work, loop stages, portfolio review prompts, a timeboxed exercise brief, the same questions for every candidate, a blank anchored form each interviewer fills alone and debrief rules. Use for "run dlead-design-hiring-loop", "design interview process", "structured interview for designers", "portfolio review questions", "design exercise brief", "interview scorecard template", "hiring a product designer", "debrief rules", part of the Claude for Design Leaders Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Design Hiring Loop

## When To Use
You open a design role and the loop is "chat with the team and see". Every interviewer asks different questions, the debrief is whoever speaks first, and nobody can say what the role needs. It answers: what does this role do in its first year, how does each stage gather evidence on it, and how does the team decide fairly?

## When Not To Use
Once someone is hired, use Designer 30-60-90 Day Plan. This skill designs the process only: it does not screen CVs, read interview notes, or say who did best, and it is not for performance conversations.

## Inputs
- The role: what the person will actually do in the first year, the team, who they work with
- Who can interview, how much candidate time you can ask for, and your current loop and job ad if any
If you have none of this, I start from your description of the role's first-year work and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
Structured interviews as the US Office of Personnel Management describes them: questions drawn from a job analysis, behavioural and situational formats, the same questions for every candidate, and each interviewer rating alone before any group discussion. The judgment: decide what good evidence looks like before meeting anyone, so the debrief compares evidence to the role, not candidates to each other. The failure it prevents: a confident presenter wins the room, and the team only notices later that nobody asked about handling a stakeholder who says no.

## Workflow
1. Ask three questions: what will this person do in their first year (three to six real pieces of work), who can interview and for how long, and is a design exercise part of the loop?
2. Turn the first-year work into four to six competencies, each written as a behaviour on the job ("frames a vague request into a problem before designing"). No competency for "culture fit" or personality.
3. Map stages to competencies: who runs each stage and what it covers. Every competency is assessed in at least one stage; no stage tries to cover everything.
4. Write the questions, the same for every candidate: behavioural ("tell me about a time you...") and situational ("what would you do if..."), with follow-ups fixed in advance. Portfolio prompts ask about decisions, trade-offs and what changed after feedback, not polish. No question touches protected characteristics or personal life.
5. Write the exercise brief: timeboxed, scoped to judgment over speed, the same for everyone. Whether unpaid take-home work is acceptable, and how adjustments are offered, is the lead's call; check with a qualified adviser.
6. Write the blank anchored form per competency: what weak, adequate and strong evidence looks like, as observed behaviours, plus a box for the evidence heard. Each interviewer fills it alone and submits before the debrief. I write the blank form only.
7. Write the debrief rules: forms in before discussion, evidence before opinions, the hiring manager decides. Employment law, data retention and adjustments: check with a qualified adviser.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Design Hiring Loop
**Role:** [title] | **Hiring manager:** [name] | **Opened:** [date]
## Competencies from the role's work
| Competency (as behaviour) | First-year work it comes from | Assessed in stage |
|---|---|---|
| [behaviour] | [real work] | [stage] |
## Stages
| Stage | Run by | Length | Competencies covered | Questions or prompts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [portfolio review / exercise / interview] | [role] | [minutes] | [list] | [ref] |
## Questions (same for every candidate)
1. [Behavioural question] | Follow-ups: [fixed]
2. [Situational question] | Follow-ups: [fixed]
## Exercise brief
[Task, timebox, what is provided, what is looked at]
## Interviewer form (blank, filled alone before the debrief)
| Competency | Weak evidence looks like | Adequate | Strong | Evidence I heard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [competency] | [behaviour] | [behaviour] | [behaviour] | [left blank] |
## Debrief rules
[Forms in before discussion; evidence before opinion; hiring manager decides]
## Decision
[Hiring manager] approves the loop by [date]; employment law and data points are checked with a qualified adviser before the first interview.
```

## Done When
- Every competency traces to real first-year work and appears in at least one stage
- Every candidate gets the same questions, prompts and exercise, and the form is blank with behaviour anchors
- Debrief rules require written forms before discussion

## Quality Bar
- No question about age, family, health, origin, beliefs or any protected characteristic, and no "culture fit" competency
- Claude declines to fill a form, summarise interview notes into a verdict, compare candidates or screen CVs
- Employment, adjustment and data retention points end with "check with a qualified adviser"
- Claude writes the loop and the blank form; it never scores, ranks or compares a candidate, and the interviewers and hiring manager decide.

## Next
Run dlead-designer-30-60-90 (Designer 30-60-90 Day Plan) to plan the new designer's first months.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).