Delusions of Grandeur

Why is it that college has been teaching our youth that they can graduate and immediately earn the huge salaries that the rest of us have to work for forty years to earn (if ever)?

Listen to me, talking about young people like I'm that old...

But seriously. It must have changed sometime after I graduated, because our professors were usually threatening us with fast food resumes. "You people might as well start learning to ask if you want fries with that, because that's the only job you'll ever get!" Hmm...What was that saying again? "Those who can't do, teach?"

I really want to know the answer to my initial question, though. What happened that suddenly deluded people into thinking that graphic design is a high-paying job? I don't think any of us who were serious about the art ever expected to do much more than earn a living. Above the poverty line, yes. Enough more to buy our supplies and equipment, eat, and have some reasonable lives, but not enough to run out and buy a Jaguar, have a butler, and live on some private, thousand-acre seaside villa. Especially not straight out of school.

One of the major design magazines does an annual salary survey. Not once do I remember seeing a $100K a year designer listing. A VP spot in a major corporation may get you that. Owning your own VERY VERY successful, multi-location agency may get you that. Being at the bottom of the totem pole, will not get you that.

What it will get you is a long, hard road of very crappy little jobs. The type of job where you are everyone else's bitch. If you can make it through the tedium of production design work, low-end, uninspired design projects, and every horrible, annoying, impossible client that the senior designers don't want to deal with, then you're cut out for this line of work. If not, it's time to change your major or go back to school, because no one else will hire you.

Why not? Simple. You have NO experience.

It's a vicious cycle. Most places who are still hiring want at least 2-3 years of experience, if not more. Depending on the position, that also may include a pristine portfolio of outstanding, award-winning work. And now for the kicker: if you don't have the experience, they won't even talk to you.

How exactly do you get the experience if no one will hire you? Therein lies the problem.

Some things will get you in the door. A creative resume (that's creatively designed, not creatively padded). An internship at an agency, a print shop, doing pre-press work, anything that's related to the industry (you may not be paid much, if anything, but you get to claim real-world experience). Samples of your work (not your full portfolio, at least not at first). And occasionally, a brilliant cover letter (which is actually how my current designer got his foot in the door for an interview).

But what about my portfolio?? comes the resounding cry. Ya know what? Even the most outstanding, god-like creativity won't do you a bit of good until you get inside and someone actually looks at it. Until then, you're a piece of paper.

I'm not going to go into all the self-help, job-seeking, winning-interview speeches on here. Go to one of the job-search sites if you want that kind of motivational, how-to advice. I'm only here for the dose of reality that neither your teachers nor those oh-so-helpful articles will give you. Don't get mad at me. I've already been through it the hard way.

The most important point is this: whatever you do, don't ask for a senior designer's salary. They'll laugh you right out the door.

Next time: 1001 Ways to P.O. Your Favorite Designer.