Brian Coult

Taking a trip down memory lane so to speak to when i was looking for a job, I remember vividly how hard it was/is to get noticed or heard. Now i suppose I’m talking pre-internet days so things were handled via snail mail. If you were lucky, you maybe got invited for an interview to show your portfolio and would hope for the best. Anyway fresh out of university with nothing much to show to be honest from the ´real´ world in my portfolio, except for uni work was a hard nut to crack to be honest. Even desktop publishing was in its early days so most of my work consisted of logos and lots of sketches, paintings and technical drawings. Obviously at least now you can come away with more work to show but in most cases this is still not from the REAL world, its from classes, school, college and so on.

You would think it's safe to assume in today's day and age every designer that is looking for a new job has set up a portfolio. From what I've experienced, a big percentage are unfortunately still ignoring this golden rule. It's amazing because it's now so much easier to do so with the internet and the technology available. Think about it for second, you are in charge of a creative agency or new media company and you are looking for a talented designer for your team, be it web, graphic or for that matter print. If its me looking, then I like to see work so I can get an idea about the person and try to determine if they have talent or not. It's mind blowing that so many designers still just use a regular Word document with no styling and worst of all no link to a site or pdf with examples of their work. How can your work be judged or your capabilities assesed if I don't see any work or a sign that some thought went into the document I received.

My personal thoughts

Personally I believe that anyone looking for a designer should at the very least receive a document that was created in Illustrator or InDesign or another creative piece of software. Why i hear you say? Because it tells your future employer that you understand lay-out and typography for starters. Very basic things that a designer should have learned at school. I can't speak for other employers but a line in Word saying that you master all graphic applications doesn't impress me much and could mean some people with great talent are missing out which i think is a shame. I judge on what I see rather than on what impressive studying was done. Of course that plays a role but it's not the MAIN factor that would help me decide upon a candidate. That would be your work and what kind of person you are, eager to learn, love to experiment, a team player, curious how things work etc.

Some people write references available at request because they probably think it will provoke a response. This makes me wonder why you would take away more of the time from the probably already busy person on the receiving end. It all boils down to this very simple rule when you are a designer, your work should do the talking for you!

What I would do online

The first thing you must do when looking for a new job is set up a portfolio. Most people have internet access and some website space. I would design a website using web standards of course. How far you take this is based on personal knowledge. There are so many galleries you can submit your site to to get the word out. If you don't have any real work I would create a fake brand and work out the whole nine yards like logo, business cards, website etc.

It's tempting with your own portfolio to go overboard and showing your strengths. It happens too often that this becomes a fancy Flash or Ajax navigation that takes away the attention from the quality of your work or that it becomes so hard to figure out where to click and you'll miss it completely. Flash isn't bad, in fact it's great for portfolios. Just keep usability in mind when developing it. Also, add some explanation to accompany the work. The challenges you had to overcome and if possible show the process from start to finish as well. Also its good to know for a perspective employer if when working on a large site which parts have you actually been involved with etc.

With your website in place and your CV looking great, go on a search and find the dreamjob you always wanted for yourself! If you ever wonder if your site or CV is doing you more harm than good, put yourself in the shoes of someone receiving it? Ask yourself does it work, would i look past the front page...

I love to see peoples work and there are defintely some talented people out there, its a shame in my eyes that they are being missed out or overlooked, and i hope more people that harbour desires of being a designer succeed!