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Hire designers who sweat the details
through scouts who can spot them

Scouts the design community trusts put forward one handpicked designer at a time. You only meet people worth meeting.

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From our network, hired by

What you get

  • Meet the best designers, not just the ones who applied

    Every portfolio is reviewed by a scout the community already trusts, so the people you meet are chosen for the quality of their work, not the polish of their résumé

    “Everyone who came through was genuinely good at the craft, not just good at interviewing.”

    Marta Lindqvist,Head of Product Design
    Portrait of Marta Lindqvist

  • Go straight to the shortlist

    A small, curated group worth your time, sharpened by your feedback after every round, delivered in Slack and the hiring tools your team already uses

    “We got a private signal on designers who were quietly open to moving, something we could never find ourselves.”

    Elliot Brandt,CEO
    Portrait of Elliot Brandt

  • Introductions that are already warm

    Each intro arrives through a scout the designer respects. You ask to meet, they choose to say yes, so the first conversation starts with real interest on both sides

    “Normally you spend weeks calibrating a recruiter. Here the taste was right from the first shortlist.”

    Clara Duval,Design Director
    Portrait of Clara Duval

  • Beside you until the offer is signed

    We stay close through the final stretch, helping you shape the offer and doing the unglamorous work it takes to reach a yes

    “They were hands-on right to the finish line with our new lead designer. I now recommend them to every founder I know.”

    Jonas Weir,Founder
    Portrait of Jonas Weir

Traditional recruiting stopped working

  • Inbound applications overwhelm

    Hundreds of applicants for one role, a handful worth a conversation. Careers pages create volume and bury the right designer

  • Hiring turns into a second job

    Screening applications, writing DMs and chasing replies eats the time you should be spending on the product

  • The bar keeps rising

    The distance between good and exceptional keeps growing, and the usual filters were never built to judge designers who also build

The Kerning way

A shortlist built by people with taste, not by filters

See how it works

  1. Step 01: Tell us who you need

    A short call about the role, the team and the kind of craft you value. No job spec required.

  2. Step 02: Scouts put people forward

    Designers the community respects review portfolios and hand-pick who is right for you.

  3. Step 03: Meet a curated handful

    A small shortlist lands in Slack. Every designer on it has already said yes to meeting you.

  4. Step 04: We stay until the yes

    We help shape the offer and close the gap, right up to the signature.

Typical wait for a first shortlist, in working days
9 days
Designers on a shortlist, never a pile of CVs
3 to 5
Every designer agrees to meet you before you see them
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Open to work

Designers our scouts rate, quietly looking right now

A few of the people in our scouts' collectives who are open to a move. Ask for an intro and the scout who knows their work makes it personally.

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Questions

What hiring teams ask us first

Something we have not covered? Start an application and ask us on the first call.

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  • Working designers, design leads and educators whose taste the community already trusts. Every scout is vetted by us, and most of them hire or mentor designers as part of their own work.

  • Privately, by a scout they know. The designer sees who the team is and what the role involves, then decides whether to meet you. Nobody is added to a shortlist without saying yes first.

  • Nothing until someone accepts your offer. Then there is a single placement fee, agreed with you up front, and part of it goes to the scout who made the introduction.

  • Most teams get their first shortlist within nine working days of the first call. Each round after that is sharper, because it is shaped by your feedback.

  • Tell us why and we go again with what we learned. If we still cannot find the right person, you have paid nothing and owe nothing.

Let's find your next designer

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