To Hire Consultants or In-House?

What are some typical contractors and consultants? Lawyers, construction, accountants, and therapy. Since demand for this work isn't consistent, it makes sense to hire them on an hourly basis, rather than paying a full time salary.

What about design?

It’s typical to hire a designer full time. While there are advantages to this, many recruiters don’t give design consultants the consideration they deserve.

We are a design consulting studio, so if I were to tell you that this article is a 100% scientifically unbiased analysis with Einstein’s seal of approval, I’d be a little full of myself.

I do believe there is an advantage to hiring consultants over in house, but this opinion is formed from experience. I have seen consultants save entrepreneurs time, money, and headaches. I will do my best to focus on the experience component for this article.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I am delighted to present to you the most honest opinion I can provide on whether you should hire in-house, or use a design consulting firm.

Consulting: Learn from others' mistakes

I worked for a little over one year full time for a startup. In one year, I learned from one company. In my two years working as a consultant, I learned from about eighteen different companies. Consulting puts you in many different people's shoes really quickly, and forces you to adapt to different styles of work. You learn what works and what doesn't, and with each adaptation you improve as a professional. I remember difference in mental work was stunning. The best part is that when you find a solution for one client, your expertise is upgraded for the rest of them. Imagine this expertise applied to your own product.

In House: On Demand Access

If you have an employee, you can call on them every minute of every work day. As a consulting firm, we are dealing with multiple people and projects simultaneously. This is good and bad, but it means that there will be times where we have to prioritize someone else, and we can’t immediately put down what we’re doing. Of course, we are prompt, eager to help, and do our best to manage expectations, but if you need the full workday with on demand access to your designer, it’s best to hire in house.

Consulting: Launch fast

Since consultants help many clients with the same problem, they see patterns and develop processes. An in-house designer adapts to your process uniquely, but this takes time and iterations to figure out. We have refined our process of design across many different clients with different needs, and are quick to get up and running with new clients.

In House: Cultural Control

You have your principles, your history, your process, etc. We have ours. We seek to delight our clients, and work with them to create a better world, but our designers will always be trained by the culture and standards of Attunement. In the end, those standards and culture just might not be yours, and that's okay! When a company has cultural synchronicity, magic happens, and with an in house designer, you can sculpt that to a tee.

Consulting: Only Pay for What You Need

I remember the awkward moments in my full time position when I would get our designs a month ahead of development, and we proceeded to do work that didn’t even need to be done just to fill up time. Of course there is always a good use of time, but filling time should not be the reason to pay for work. With consultants, you bill by the hour, so you can put them down whenever you have a complex feature that requires developer focus, and pick them up, and even scale to multiple people when there is a sizable need for design and research. 

Conclusion

In the end, you know your company best, and you are the best indicator for how you should hire. We hope we have done our best at helping you make your decision. Feel free to set up a free consultation if you are interested in more details on how we can help.