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| How to get a graphic design job |
regardless if you don't go ahead and get out there and get some experience so you need to have either freelance on there volunteer jobs even stuff you've done for your family counts as freelance so get those jobs on there and leave off you know a retail job if you can okay next your resume and cover letter it should absolutely be tailored to every job you apply for
get the keywords in there
that is what will flag it as being a good cover letter or a resume for an HR person to actually look at so a lot of the stuff these days it's just
computer-based
and if they don't see certain keywords in your cover letter and in your resume they will just automatically toss it also I want to mention if you're using illustrator or some other vector based program do not outline your fonts because then those computers cannot read those funds save it as a PDF a PDF can keep the fonts and it still looks great but the computers can still read it okay so next let's talk about your portfolio your portfolio should have eight to twelve great pieces of work in it and my pieces I mean like campaigns almost so if you made a logo you need to have that logo in many different applications maybe you can make a website with that logo maybe you can make letterhead business card and all of these different design projects as part of one project so eight to twelve of those so this was a big big undertaking I'm sure you already know it is really hard to create a portfolio but you should already have one at least started if you're coming right out of school and you should have work to show off in that portfolio if you're coming from a different job you should be tailoring your portfolio to the job also I usually have about 15 projects and then based on the job itself I'll take a few projects out and and put in my strongest ones that are tailored to that job I don't actually usually create a specific project for a job but I will make the effort to make it somewhat tailored around the position try to get rid of student work in your portfolio and the reason for that is student work is very very different from client work usually you have a lot more time to get those student pieces done and the interviewer is going to know that so once they see student work they think either a you don't really have a good real-world experience and maybe they think you don't have anything that you're proud of from your work so far so I would try to get rid of student projects unless of
course you're right out of school and they're gonna know that in your
portfolio I would absolutely put only your best work don't fill your portfolio with a bunch of stuff that is just okay definitely have your best work in there and if you decide that your best client work was not the one the client chose put the one that you think is the strongest because we all have clients who you know they want things a certain way and you might notice that the design sometimes is not the greatest after the clients changes so go ahead and put the one in there that you like the best and you know is the strongest art even though that's not the one that got chosen and you can always explain that in an interview okay so let's talk about the application process so if you don't have a job currently you should be spending eight hours a day trying to find a graphic design jobs this should be your job is searching for a job if you do have another job try to apply to at least four jobs a day and I know that is really really hard because if you do it right it's going to take quite a bit of time to actually tailor your resume portfolio and cover letters all to one job so that is probably gonna take 30 or 45 minutes at least so there might be a little bit of a tall order but at least please apply to one job every single day sign up for daily emails from LinkedIn Glassdoor indeed or any other job sites and you can get them to send you only graphic design jobs are only jobs with certain keywords in them and that's a really good way to kind of keep on top of the newest jobs that are out right now anytime a new one shows up you can apply right away that is a big deal when you're looking to be one of the first ones to apply because sometimes they just take the first ones and then they close it right after that when you're filling out online job applications it can get kind of tedious to write
everything that they're asking for but I really recommend you do this because it is not the greatest thing it looks pretty lazy if you just put see resume and every single blank it's okay to copy and paste from your resume into those blanks though make sure to get as many keywords as you can in there
if the situation applies and then finally try not to get hung up on one specific job that you really want don't get your heart set on one because in my experience when I was going through the applying phase I probably got a callback or an interview on one in ten jobs and I think it was actually even less than that it's probably more like one in 15 or something like that try to keep it six skin don't get your feelings hurt if the one that you really want doesn't call you back it happens one last thing about applying feel free to apply to jobs that you think might be a little over your skill level a lot of times companies will call graphic designers by several different things and you might think oh well I can't do that because I don't have that skill set or whatever but it might turn out that that job is something you could very easily do so for example I'm a creative services manager right now that's my job title but actually I'm a graphic designer that's what I do so I don't actually manage people or anything like that so I want to give you some job titles that I think you can apply to now I realize some of these have very different meanings but I want to keep your options open I want you to keep looking at several different things that might just mean graphic designer
so here is a list for you and I also put this in the description of this News so you can check it their production designer art director web developer creative designer marketing designer packaging designer pre-press technician layout designer photo editor and the list does go on I'm not going to tell you all of them but multimedia designer assistant art director those are all things that could mean just graphic designer don't limit yourself okay so let's switch over to the interview when you get an interview with a graphic design company there are a few things you should know you should always absolutely be very well prepared so show up to the interview and very nice clothes I usually bring five resumes printed out because you never know how many people are going to be in your interview are you bringing my print portfolio I also bring a laptop in case someone wants to see some of my web work if you don't have a print portfolio that's okay but you need to be able to show people your portfolio
without having to go to a lot of trouble having to have them go find a laptop somewhere in their company so you can show them your online portfolio you don't want to assume they have a
projector or something in the room so bring a laptop bring an iPad bring a print portfolio but do not come to a graphic design interview without a portfolio I also bring a
professional-looking binder with a notepad in it and some questions I've prepared beforehand because the very last thing they'll say probably is do you have any questions for us and it's always a good idea to have something prepared make sure you do research on the company you need to know exactly who it is you're going to be working for if you get the job and they'll be impressed by your knowledge of the company and then finally try to be yourself when I was hiring I thought two things one can this person do the job and two is this person going to fit in well with the company and get along well with everyone else so if you can amp up your charm and show them that you're really easy to work with and you're a fun person to get along with inject some personality into the interview you have won half the battle right there and then you just have to let them know you can do the job so these are my best tips on how to get a job in 2018 as a graphic designer and if you have any tips yourself please leave them in the comment section below so everyone else can see - thanks