Who’s hiring?

A few times a year I find the need to post a job opening, and it’s always an education for me. I found an amazing designer recently on Creative Hotlist (which is free), and I’ve also had luck posting on AIGA’s job board (which is expensive). Below, a list of dos and please don’ts if you’re looking for a job in design (and especially if you’re looking for a job with me).

DO your homework. If you know the name of the company that’s posted the job, look up their web site. If they have one, read it. It’s worth it to take an extra 15 minutes or so. The most impressive cover letters I received referenced work on my site, or something from my bio (I especially liked the work you did for Orion Afield; I’m also a Colby grad). The worst called me Mister and came off like a clear form letter (if you do print design as well…).

DO follow directions. I asked for either JPG or PDF samples to be attached, and a PDF resume. Some people didn’t send attachments, some sent a Word doc as a resume, some did neither, or both. If you won’t follow directions when applying for the job, I’m going to assume that you won’t follow them during the project, either.

DO sound like yourself in your email. Working together is a relationship, and while you don’t have to be my new best friend, I would like to get a sense of you.

DON’T make jokes unless you’re 100% sure they read as funny. “Help is on the way” is OK. “Obviously you really need my help” might not be.

DON’T lowball yourself when it comes to money. It’s usually not about who charges the least, and if you don’t ask for enough money I’ll wonder why you aren’t worth more. Ask for a fair amount of money, commensurate with your experience and expertise. You’re worth it.

DO realize that as a designer, everything you do represents your design aesthetic and capabilities. When I get a PDF resume that’s set in Times New Roman and looks like it was done in Word, I quickly move to the next applicant.

DO end on a good note. The designer I recently hired actually applied to work on another project. She wasn’t a good fit for that one, but I emailed her to tell her that while I wasn’t hiring her at the moment, I thought she was very talented and hoped that we could work on something in the future. She responded warmly, and sent an email checking in with me a month or two later. It paid off, for both of us.

It may all seem like common sense, but at least 50% of the job applications I most recently received said “Write a blog post about this.” Well, they didn’t say that exactly, but three mentions of Mr. Tane and seven resumes set in Arial certainly strongly hinted at it.