Designers: Times have changed!!

Before I start this rant, let me just say that my intentions are not to disrespect or make anyone feel small. This rant spawns from a recent interaction I’ve had in this subreddit and is just to give another perspective that a lot more senior/veteran designers aren’t familiar with.

Since I’ve graduated in May, I have applied to over 1200+ job openings. Majority of said openings were design focused while the minority were simple minimum wage jobs. So far, I’ve gotten hundreds of rejections, hundreds of ignorances, and only 1 verbal job offer that seemed to be in processing hell after constant follow ups for months. I’ve redone my resume so many times, I’ve revised my online portfolio after receiving criticism after criticism from other designers, I’ve tried to network and make connections on LinkedIn through common organizations, I’ve toggled the #openforwork banner so many times my thumbs could burn off. It’s all led to that same phrase littering my mailbox: ‘unfortunately, we’ve decided…’. All this has culminated into one conclusion for me: the job market and design industry is broken.

Recently, I made a post asking whether it was normal for an internship to ask you to complete a spec test before interviewing. Someone then responded by saying that as a postgrad, ‘I shouldn’t be applying to internships’. This is the frustrating part. In an ideal world I would’ve agreed with this person, but when you work in an industry like design that is so obsessed with experience more than training a person with potential, you have no choice but to try and take what you can get. Don’t even get me started on how many firms and companies want ‘rockstar designers’ but they don’t want to give them any support or even a decent paying salary. We must also stomach to learn video editing, complex 3d animation, computer coding, and a plethora of other mediums that are way outside our pay grades and should be their own separate jobs. I’m not against expanding your skill set but I highly believe in the notion that you get what you pay for. What’s even more laughable is these firms will require all these skills and ass sucking just to push out mediocre product after mediocre product. It just shows me that even if they did get the unicorn that they’re all looking for, they wouldn’t even know what to do with them. They just end up burning out truly talented individuals and wonder why they can’t find anyone to appease their anal standards. I can’t count on both hands and feet how many times I’ve seen CDs and higher ups alike post a feel good linkedin story where they took a chance on someone for a jr position and everyone claps at the end but never question why this is the norm. Why do we as an industry accept the fact that juniors get to be treated like shit and subjected to the most unattainable standards that even vets couldn’t even accomplish when they were our age? Let’s face the facts: companies don’t hire designers for their expertise anymore, they hire them to become slaves.

All of these experiences are the reason why I’m highly considering to leave graphic design as profession and go into office administration while moonlighting as a designer. It sucks that I get this feeling before I even got my foot in the door but It’s insane that I have over 800+ rejections, it’s insane that I have to harass people on LinkedIn to get a job that keeps food on my table and avoid homelessness. What’s worse is that I think the design industry is too afraid to challenge this model bc the ‘fuck everyone else as long as I get mines’ mentality is so pervasive. Overall, this is where I’m at with this whole thing. I’m so sick of never feeling good enough as a designer just because I’m a junior but you know what, I am good designer! I may not be perfect but I refuse to have someone diminish my skill set just because I didn’t pull 5 internships simultaneously while doing undergrad full time! I really hope the industry does rid of all these toxic standards once and for all but honestly, I wouldn’t bet money on it.