Graphic Designer Job Description

Key skills

Responsibilities

• • Design and produce visual assets across digital and print formats to a brief
• • Maintain and evolve brand guidelines, ensuring visual consistency across all channels
• • Create social media graphics, email templates, and digital advertising assets
• • Design pitch decks, reports, and presentation materials for internal and external audiences
• • Collaborate with the marketing and content teams to translate campaign ideas into visual execution
• • Prepare print-ready files including bleed, crop marks, and colour profiles
• • Manage multiple design projects simultaneously, delivering against agreed deadlines
• • Maintain a well-organised asset library accessible to the wider team

Requirements

• • 3+ years of professional graphic design experience with a diverse, published portfolio
• • Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and Figma
• • Strong understanding of brand identity principles and ability to work within established guidelines
• • Experience designing for multiple output formats — digital, social, print, and presentation
• • Ability to interpret briefs accurately and incorporate feedback constructively
• • Reliable delivery against deadlines in a fast-paced marketing environment

Nice to have

• • Experience producing short-form motion graphics or animated social content
• • Basic photography or image retouching skills for asset production flexibility
• • Familiarity with Webflow, Canva, or other no-code design tools for marketing team enablement
• • Experience maintaining and evolving a brand or figma design system that other teams pull assets from
• • Comfort producing accessible assets, including sufficient colour contrast and legible type for varied audiences

What to look for in a great Graphic Designer

Portfolio quality is the primary filter, but probe the thinking behind the work — ask the candidate to walk you through a project from brief to final output. Great designers can articulate why they made specific visual decisions and how those decisions serve the communication goal. Look for range: can they design a clean corporate presentation and an eye-catching social campaign? Also assess how they respond to creative feedback in the interview itself — present one of their portfolio pieces and suggest a change, then observe whether they engage constructively or become defensive.

Where to source Graphic Designer candidates

Behance and Dribbble are the canonical portfolio platforms where active and passive designers present their work — searching these with relevant tags surfaces talent not visible on job boards. Design degree show portfolios from universities with strong programmes can yield strong early-career candidates with fresh perspectives. In-house designers at agencies or brand studios often seek the variety and ownership of in-house brand work. Design communities on Instagram and LinkedIn are increasingly active, and a well-crafted job post shared in the right groups can generate significant quality applications.

Interview questions to ask a Graphic Designer

Start with a portfolio walkthrough: 'Pick one project from your portfolio and walk me through the brief, your process, and the result.' Follow with 'Tell me about a piece of work you had to significantly rework after stakeholder feedback — how did you approach the revision?' Then test brief interpretation by presenting a simple written brief and asking them to describe their initial visual concept and why. Finish with a practical question: 'How do you manage your time when you have three concurrent briefs at different stages of development?' You want organised, articulate, and creatively confident answers.

Reading a Graphic Designer's portfolio critically

The portfolio is the interview, so learn to read past the polish. Look for range and rationale rather than a single beautiful poster: can they hold a brand system together across social, print, and presentation, and can they explain why each choice was made? Ask what the brief was, what constraints they worked within, and what they would change now — a designer who only describes aesthetics has been decorating, not solving. Check whether they can work inside an existing brand as well as create one, because most day-to-day work is applying guidelines consistently, not inventing from scratch. Be wary of portfolios that are entirely speculative concept work with no production files, no feedback rounds, and no evidence of shipping to a real audience under a real deadline.

How an ATS speeds up hiring a Graphic Designer

Design roles attract high application volume, and a portfolio link is essential, so the bottleneck is triage, not sourcing. In Pitch N Hire you can add a required portfolio-URL question to the application, which lets you screen on real work in minutes instead of chasing links by email. Structured scorecards keep reviewers aligned on the competencies that matter — typography, layout, brand consistency, and craft — rather than reacting to whichever piece caught their eye. Because design hiring usually includes a paid or timed exercise, keeping the brief, the submission, and each reviewer's rating attached to one candidate record makes the comparison fair and fast. Posting to design-friendly boards from the same place widens the top of the funnel without adding admin.