3 Fantastic Resources for Landing Your First Job in Design
|Competition for jobs is fierce for recent graduates and this is particularly the case in fields like design. Once you’ve studied for years, there’s little as demoralising as having application after application rejected.
But don’t despair. While we might not be able to singlehandedly go and land you your dream design job, we have curated three of our favourite resources online designed to make landing that very role just a little easier.
The Graduate Perspective
There’s no advice quite like that from someone who has been on the journey themselves. And designer, Jade, from Degree53, shared her best tips from that very perspective.
With solid advice around using LinkedIn and what to include in your portfolio, this is a must read. It will take no more than 10 minutes to take it all in and this is a superb starting point for final year design students or graduates looking for that first foot in the door somewhere.
Behance
With a massive online audience, Behance attracts designers and their potential clients month in, month out.
Essentially, it’s a portfolio building tool that allows you to build your portfolio easily and showcase your talents for prospective employers and clients alike. A good Behance profile can be linked to from your CV, LinkedIn profile and various social channels.
Freelancing Websites
It’s a Catch 22 situation – you can’t get a job because you have no professional experience and you can’t get any professional experience because you can’t get a job. It’s a vicious cycle that graduates in a whole host of fields experience when they first qualify.
By signing up to freelancing websites like peopleperhour.com and others, you have an opportunity to start building up some professional experience on a self employed basis. If you’re unsure of whether becoming self employed would suit you, then maybe you should read the WCVED Fund article about what you need to know before you make that decision. If you decide it’s for you, then know that it’s going to be competitive, of course. You might need to compromise on pricing until you’ve built up a portfolio and some feedback.
But by working freelance while you seek to land your first role, you achieve 2 things:
- You get some professional experience that can help you to land a permanent job
- You demonstrate real initiative to prospective employers. Instead of just applying for role after role, you’ve proven that you’ve got the get go to seek out your own opportunities and that can help you stand out in a competitive application process
Good Luck!
It’s not always easy landing that first Graduate role. But take all the advice you can get, build the portfolio, show initiative and demonstrate determination.
Best of luck!