About the bank
The design team encompassed Interaction Designers, Visual Designers, Content Designers, Researchers, and DesignOps specialists. Their work spanned complex, high-impact products that serve millions of users across Canada and beyond.
As the team matured, they faced a critical challenge: how to scale efficiently, hire consistently across multiple functions, and ensure each new designer met the high bar of quality, collaboration, and innovation expected.
The challenge: scaling with consistency and speed
When we began working with financial institution, their design team was growing. Leadership wanted to streamline hiring, align on evaluation standards, and ultimately expand the team significantly without compromising on talent or team culture.
Our approach: embedded partnership
Over the course of four years, we embedded ourselves directly into the team’s ecosystem.
- Discovery & listening tour: We conducted in-depth workshops and 1:1 conversations with design leaders to uncover hiring pain points and team goals
- Hiring toolkit creation: We developed custom interview guides, scorecards, and candidate briefing materials tailored to each role from UX Research to Design Ops
- Process optimization: We introduced consistent, scalable hiring workflows that created clarity and efficiency across multiple design teams
This foundation enabled hiring managers to make confident, fast, and informed decisions when evaluating candidates.
Results: tripling team size with strategic precision
With our tools and support in place, the team was able to:
- Double in size and then nearly triple over four years
- Accelerate hiring timelines while improving candidate quality
- Standardize interviews across disciplines, improving consistency and equality