Head of Brand Design/Creative Director
We are thrilled to announce Handshake’s $200M Series F funding round. At Handshake, we believe that a career opportunity shouldn’t be determined by who you know or what you’ve done. It’s about what you can - and will - do. Your future, not your past. Our Series F fundraise and new valuation of $3.5B will fuel our next phase of growth and propel our mission to help more people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.
Handshake is the #1 place to launch a career with no connections, experience, or luck required. Handshake’s community includes 20 million students and young alumni around the world from 1,400 educational institutions, including four-year colleges, community colleges, boot camps, and 290+ minority-serving institutions. The platform connects up-and-coming talent with 650,000+ employers - from Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike, and Target to thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, nonprofits, and even sports teams like the LA Dodgers. Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver, New York, and London and teammates working globally.
Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.
If you are not sure that you’re 100% qualified, but up for the challenge – we want you to apply. We believe skills are transferable and passion for our mission goes a long way.
Design at Handshake
We're looking for great product and brand designers to help us create opportunity for all students and recent graduates to have equal access to meaningful jobs and internships. We take a student-first approach to how we design and build products, and we strive to deeply understand our users and their true goals. We believe that great products and experiences are made great by the combination of how they work and how they look. One without the other is not enough, and while we're not perfect, we strive to excel in both and are committed to going the extra mile.
Great products are built by teams — and teams are built by people who communicate and collaborate well. A culture of openness, honesty, and the ability to provide and receive constructive feedback is important to us.
We also believe that great teams are inclusive in their composition. Being surrounded by diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives bring out the best in everyone, and leads to higher quality products and experiences.
Your Impact:
Handshake is hiring a Creative Director/Head of Brand Design, reporting to Chief Design Officer Malthe Sigurdsson. In your role you will build, scale, and manage the Brand Design team, and be responsible for the creative direction and execution of the Handshake Brand Identity across all channels, media, and audiences.
You’ll take the lead in developing the Handshake Brand into a modern and thoughtful brand that resonates with our core audience of students, and can flex to work for our Employer and Education audiences as well. You’ll work closely with the Head of Student Content and Brand Marketing in bringing the brand to life with innovation executions and activations, and you’ll work with senior leadership across Marketing, Design, and the company to plot the course for the brand’s direction.
You’ll take on people management responsibilities for the existing brand designers, and you will thoughtfully grow the team, creating a world-class team with the skills and experience to make the Handshake brand (and Design at Handshake) truly stand out.
Your Role:
- Evolve an existing brand to up-level relevance and execution strength
- Make even tactical asset execution on brand and exciting
- Develop the skills, talents, and careers of the designers on your team by finding the right opportunity at the right time and coaching them to success and impact
- Manage designers' work loads
- Participate in strategic decision making and planning for brand development
- Be a strong advocate for design thinking as we grow and evolve
- Prioritize scarce design and creative time among many potential projects, and know when and how to say No (and Yes)
- Source, onboard, and achieve great impact from select contractors and agencies
- Hold a high quality bar for all work and set the standard for the company (while empowering and expecting the rest of the company to do their part, too)
- Work with Product Design team to appropriately incorporate brand design language into the product
Your Experience:
- Successfully completed large-scale rebrand or brand evolution projects
- Worked as designer and design leader on a wide variety of types of projects, from web to swag, to video, presentations, demand, and identity… and everything in between
- Have a portfolio of your teams’ work that demonstrates the ability to create work that is both beautiful, effective, and strategic
- Experience in similar roles at one or more product companies
- Proven ability to effectively manage people, including developing talent on your teams and recruiting a diverse team that reflect the audience
- Ability to spot promising design talent
- Developed a high-performing team that are also great colleagues and collaborators with the rest of the company
- Developed brand design systems and asset management strategies
- Understanding and appreciation for the correct application of data and metrics in brand and asset development
- Outstanding communication skills, written and verbal
- Experience from top tier agencies is a welcome plus
- Video production skills and experience are also a welcome plus
Compensation Range:
$198,000 - $220,000
- Stock: Ownership in a fast-growing company.
- 401k: We care about your ability to save for your future.
- Hub-based Remote Work: Handshakers can enjoy the flexibility of remote work, whilst ensuring collaboration and team experiences in a shared space remains possible.
- Time Off: Flexible vacation policy to encourage people to get out and see the world.
- Healthcare: World-class medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage.
- Family Focus: Parental leave and flexibility for families.
- Mental Health Assistance: You’ve got a lot on your mind, which can lead to less attention on your mental health. We’re here to help and support you every step of the way.
- Financial Management with Origin: We provide you with a professional financial planner via so that you can gain a better understanding of making the most of your compensation, equity, benefits, 401k and perks.
- Goodies: Whatever hardware and software you need to get the job done.
- Team Fun: Regularly scheduled virtual events, happy hours, and book clubs! Once it’s safe, we’ll provide meaningful connection points throughout the year for Handshakers to build community and meet teammates in-person.
- Learning: Learning & Development opportunities and an annual $2,000 stipend for you to grow your skills and career.
- Great team: Working with fun, hardworking, nice people who are committed to making a difference!
- ...And much more! Explore our comprehensive benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.
Benefits above apply to employees in full-time positions.
Interested in what Handshake’s San Francisco HQ is like when we’re together? Check out this video: Just browsing or not ready to apply? Keep in touch with us!