We had an informative conversation with Meghann Dryer (MBA ’06) and Lauren Green (a recruiter). Until June of this year, Meghan was in business design at IDEO. She is now Director of New Talent for the bay area (Palo Alto/SF offices).
How it’s structured
Imagine a fan, where the center is the “design community”– Business Design, Communications Design, Interactive Design, Engineers, Architects, etc. The spokes are their three practices: Consumer Experience, Health and Wellness, and Systems@Scale.
MBAs
This summer Monica Lewis, Min Liu, and Eric Lopez interned at IDEO. According to Meghann and Lauren, there are 2 entry points: in their business design group (which is their top priority for both offices), or in their business development group for the three practices. For the business design group, projects run the gamut: developing revenue models, go-to-market strategies, organizational structures, hiring needs. They plan to continue to recruit for summer interns and base on yield and needs will do just in time full time hiring as well.
Ideal background of candidates
We tried to get some clarity on what they would consider ideal, but there were no real specifics. The themes were:
- Evidence of creativity/craft, inventing
- Entrepreneurial, evidence of getting things done
- Diverse jobs (eg, you’ve been in a range of different jobs that may not necessarily relate to one another)
It seemed as though they really like variety and some quirkiness in a candidate’s background. It also seemed as though engineering and design experience were themes (based on the examples of backgrounds they gave us), but when we pressed them on this they denied it.
What’s not a fit: “mega-analysis”, “someone who’s only done investment banking their entire career”.
Ever interviewed with a Product Design firm? Tell us about it.