Most people around the world has done this more than once, job seeking. As designers, specially new designers from University/College this can get pretty difficult because we usually lack the one thing most employers are looking for… EXPERIENCE. If you are one of the lucky ones that got a job straight out of your place of study, GREAT! However eventually you may have to do this again.
As I am a fairly new designer as well I thought I would share some of the few things I learned while job seeking. Please note the tips below are just based on my own research and experience.
1. CLEAN AND SIMPLE:
I know we all get the urge to get creative with the CV we submit and prove our skills are worth the time. What we forget is that usually the people looking for an employer are usually CEOs or HR who do not know anything about design and don’t have much time trying to figure out how to read or understand the creative way you arranged your CV, what they are looking for is the information. So keep it simple and clean. Show of your skills by making it easier to read, if you are going to get creative use graphs, symbols, etc at least these would help your information quicker to go through.
2. PROVIDE THE RIGHT INFO:
Not all jobs you apply for will be have the same criteria when looking for an employee. Make sure your read the advertised position thoroughly before applying. If needed make necessary adjustments to your CV to make the skills they value more that you have more prominent. When I was applying I had 4 different CV’s.
3. DOUBLE CHECK THE DOUBLE CHECK:
Everyone who is applying for a job obviously checks the information in their CV, but it doesn’t hurt to double check. You would really suck to send 20 CVs out there and realise later that your forgot a letter in your email or you typed in the wrong number. The other thing is if you have a website make sure your site is working properly check all functions, last thing you want is someone to go to your site and cant navigate.
4. ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH:
When I was job seeking, I always use to wonder why some people get contacted for an interview only after a week looking for a job. I always assumed some people are just lucky in job hunting and I wasn’t, this bummed me out. Then when I was really desperate for a job I realise you can overcome this luck by sheer numbers. Keep applying, I applied for more than 20 jobs a week for 1 month straight and during those times I got shortlisted 1-2 times a week.
5. NEVER DOUBT:
When job seeking you will probably get rejected alot but never ever doubt your skills. Doubting your skills will just make you more stressed and lessen the motivation. Boost yourself by creating you new designs in your downtime and add it to your portfolio. If you dont know what to design join competitions this will give you practice on briefs. The one I found is talenthouse.com which holds competitions .
Anyway that’s all I have in regards to this matter, as I said I’m still new at this. Please note that the tips above are again based on my experiences so please if there is anything that you don’t agree with sorry or feel free to add it in a comment.