Get Your First Design Job After Graduation

What's life like after graduation? As you enter the marketplace, what're your expectations when seeking employment? What's it like in today's climate, finding your first job?

Today we discuss this topic with Diane Gibbs, and Futur Pro Members Melinda and Rahul.

3:00 - What are some expectations after school
14:00 - What do they need to need to know
26:00 - Give an example of what you're good at
29:00 - The dm should be as simple as possible, don't waste their time
30:00 - Is it better to wait to find a good fit or take the first thing you can get right out of school
36:00 - You need to have a failure quota
48:00 - How you going to differentiate yourself from anyone else at Pixar (story ideas)
56:00 - Show Summary
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Host– Chris Do
Content Director– Matthew Encina
Cinematography– Aaron Szekely, Mark Contreras, Ricky Lucas
Live Editor– Jona Garcia
Editor– Stewart Schuster, Mark Contreras, Aaron Szekely, Ricky Lucas, Jona Garcia
Social Team: Elle Money, Alex Burlui
Typefaces: Futura, DIN, Helvetica Neue, Calibre
Futur theme song— Adam Sanborne

[karlycaylor]

This is all so true! I accepted my first job offer outside school because I needed the money. But during that time I built up my portfolio and made connections in my new city, and now I got a job offer for my first agency job! And it all started by sending a DM to the director, having connections in common, being open and honest about my experience (I didn't want to waste her time if she was looking for someone with agency experience), and showed my passion for content. And I had a portfolio prepared. This was for copywriting, not graphic design but I think all this advice applies for any creative career.

[killianmerdrignac]

Great insights, thank you for this conversation! I think we have to be ready for these small failures and put aside our ego to get where we want to go

[reficulgr]

The "fail list" Diane suggests is one of the most brilliant tricks. It really works

[marioronci]

Rahul is boss, more directness needs be taught in the design industry, call that person or potential prospect, walk into the office ask for the director. and yes failure is inevitable but those experiences create a much tougher shell and allows you to gain momentum to success.

[KingTorres]

How could someone dislike this gem. Keep the amazing work, guys.

[NGH]

Diane was wonderful, and brought more great chemistry to an already great lineup. Please have her on as a regular.

[docreed]

Love the scared straight program. I had the same thinking you (Chris) described. I had no idea how to do cold calling and networking.

[Omnipherant]

serving as a waiter does boost confidence and help a person if they are into design, it has helped me with client meetings and haggling prices lol

[Bladeclaw]

I feel that inclusitivity of your work and yourself is magnified for this industry. You may have amazing work, and great relationships. But your skills or character, or style is not an appropriate fit for your clients. And because you are not inclusive to your community, you are overlooked and not hired for the roles you want. The graphic design industry is extremely competitive. Just being good or having a good relationship or experience isn't enough. And at the end only a few are chosen while majority are left getting scrap jobs, poor offers, or no jobs at all. Only hopeful hobbies. I feel there awesome many skills to learn about becoming inclusive to your industry and society. If your not included, your an outsider to them. Working of your character, charisma, soft skills, communication, frame of mind, while also impressive work that your clients may be inspired by are great ways to keep improving. It's all a competitive attention grabbing, trust seeking, applicable skilled based game to become included in a job market. Not many can do this. The more players, the more challengers ypu have to face.

[sarah]

Good place to come when feeling like quitting .

[heynibras]

Video request if possible <3 Could you do a video on the 80/20 rule (Pareto's principle) applied to graphic design? What the essential 20% of skills to perfect are for the strongest foundation. Thank you for the amazing content as always

[docreed]

Can't wait for the Diane and Chris tag-team on reworking how we do school.

[MrGraphite]

It's always going to be a constant grind to get where you want to be.

[imperialmedia]

And here I am learning to live in a world without social media. Feels amazing.

[mrkangx]

I'm going to the Creative So excited to see Chris Do and other designers there! Yeahhhh!

[christophhutter]

Chris, if there is anything you'd like to know or need while in Vienna, I'd be happy to help.

[shanemoran]

Fair play to Raul (great story), Thanks Futur people.

[jagodabrie]

Rahul reminds me of Matthew a lot. Similar tone of voice and pace of talking (only slightly faster), and even awareness within the topic. Also the facial features from under the beard!
I suspect there is some biological experiments going on in the futur.

[FilipChurchill]

A relationship goes beyond just knowing of you. We all know of many people yet we have no relationship with them. We also have a list of people we don't know (we have not met them before) yet we feel we have a relationship with them. So for me, someone who emigrated to the US in the midst of a career change, the question is what do I need to do to accelerate the relationship building and how can I leverage technology in this effort.

[stephan.]

didn’t get the live notification, for sure everything is on notifications on thefutur just fyi