Entry Level Designer Wanted, 3-5 Years Experience Necessary
A few days ago Greg Storey wrote a little something discussing the lack of available talent in the web design/development industry. To summarize, agencies and freelancers alike are swamped to the point of being “slightly crippled“, and there’s just not enough workers to go around.
Going by the reaction in the comments, and from some of my own friends in the web design world around Cleveland, this does seems to be the case. Overflow work abounds and it seems to be a good time to be an experienced web developer. But what if you’re not?
The sad truth is that more students than not are graduating with no understanding whatsoever of modern web design. Tables and WYSIWYG generated code are still the rule, and marketers who “also do web design“ are waving their copies of FrontPage ’98 and undercutting everyone with cheap prices, buzzwords and laughably bad websites.
The current career track for our profession seems to be to grind it out for one of these suits for a few years, and freelance your nights and weekends away until you build up a decent enough portfolio to go it alone. Or get bumped up the chain to a management or sales role.
That is of course, if you can get hired.
Speaking From Experience
I can only speak from my own personal experiences here in cold Cleveland, Ohio, but when I first graduated and moved back here I couldn’t pay someone to hire me.
Ignoring for a second the very real and obvious possibility that I’m just nowhere near as good as I think I am, after moving back here I sent out resumes to just about every company I could find in the Greater Cleveland Area. First I scouted the job boards and classifieds. Failing that I put every variation of “Cleveland Web Design“ I could think of into Google and started firing away.
The majority of the few that responded thanked me for the interest, but they were just looking for someone with a bit more experience. One of two reactions happened with the very few that actually had “entry level“ openings:
“It’s all well and good that you know HTML and have portfolio pieces outside of just classwork (more on that in a minute) and have a degree, but we want Flash“
or…
“You’ve got all the tools/skills, but we’re looking for someone who has a bit more experience.“
More experience.
For. An. Entry. Level. Job. (happened twice)
(And regarding Flash, at the time I had a solid grasp of the basics, as in could build a functioning website, but was by no means the ActionScript wizard they were looking for)
Maybe it’s Something in the Water
(here’s where I bitch a bit, scroll on down to the next heading)
In school, I thought I was on the right path. Skill-wise, I was always near the front of the pack in my classes. I had a decent paying job/internship in the BGSU Library working on their websites. And I had a steady stream of mercenary work (meaning I couldn’t put my name on it) from a few agencies.
A semester away from graduation, I was offered a job in Nevada for more money than I actually make right now. I turned it down to finish my degree (in what’s turned out to be my biggest career mistake to date).
Upon graduation, I had solid opportunities in New York, San Francisco, and Texas. For reasons I can’t get into, I had to come back to Cleveland. But no worries, if other places have openings, Cleveland surely will right?
Yea, so I was wrong. But at least it looks like I’m not the only one.
You Can Stop Scrolling Now, We’re Back on Topic
If you read through the comments in Greg’s (can I call you Greg?) article, Matt Claypotch wrote:
I’m having a problem right now finding a way to break into web design. I’m not at a stage financially where I can go it alone, or spec my way into a job. Finding a firm that does real web design is next to impossible. There is a job gap that makes getting entry-level positions in current techniques next to impossible without packing up and panhandling in Palo Alto. This is preventing people with the chops but not the experience from moving up, and adding value to established firms. #
The key in Matt’s comment is the part about finding “a firm that does real web design is next to impossible.”
By “real“ I assume he means modern, accessible standards-based development. And therein lies the rub.
The small, shoestring firms doing the cutting edge work don’t have the resources to train a promising prospect with no experience, who they suspect is going to move on to bigger and better anyway. The big firms doing the hiring (where you get the experience) got big through catchy buzzwords and unrealistic promises of the moon.
I’ve ranted about this before. So have others much better than me.
Most of the larger firms who are in the position to hire on an entry-level designer are site mills mired in the table-based bad practices of yesteryear, and/or have no idea what to look for in a candidate.
Which Brings Us Back to the Title
The problem that seems glaring to me (because I continue to run into it) is the unrealistic expectations of firms looking to hire. If you scan through the job listings on any given day, you’ll more likely than not be overrun with companies looking for “expert level“ knowledge of every acronym under the sun. And of course, “this is entry level (but a great opportunity!), we can only afford to offer you….“
The people doing the hiring either have no clue as to what they really need or haven’t bothered to try and improve their knowledge of web design in the past 5 years. And worse, they will just continue to hire the WYSIWYG Warriors (can I copyright that?) and perpetuate the cycle.
To get the experience, you need to get a job. To get a job, you need to have the experience.
So What Can You Do?
I wish I knew.
Agencies successfully selling crap websites for $XX,XXX (or worse, the bottom-feeders undercutting at $XXX) will continue to sell them for as long as people with buy them. Only when clients start demanding modern websites will these hack firms be forced to change or die. Easier said than done, I know.
If we’re lucky, maybe a few damaging lawsuits will help them on their way.
Not that I’m holding my breath.
I agree with every point you make, and I have some great examples for each as well. Keep your head up though your now in a position (or will be soon) where your one of the guys getting that excess work.
→ Brad C · 04/01/08 07:03 AM · #
@Brad C: Yea, like I posted before, I seem to get a fair amount of job offers nowadays, this was a few years ago when I was first out of college.
I seem to be on the right track so far :)
★ brendan · 04/01/08 07:04 AM · #
I have a theory about this myself, stemming from my own experiences moving back here after college and spending years struggling to find a satisfying job.
More experience in Cleveland actually means less experience. That’s right. Let’s face it, there’s only a couple places in Cleveland at the “front” of web design, and by front I mean they actually know what they’re doing and don’t have print designers at the reigns slapping Flash sites out of their web designers.
Everyone else is basically a print agency that also does web, the last thing they want is someone who actually knows what they’re doing and builds standards based sites. This is because their bread and butter clientele don’t want a good site, they want a site that looks like it came from 1997, or is all Flash.
Any designer with ethics is not going to work well in those conditions. So when they tell you they want someone with “more experience” for an entry level job, what they’re really saying is they want someone who will do whatever they tell them, good web design practices be damned.
That said, I felt like I graduated college with a strong portfolio and would be able to find a job right away. Yet my first few post-college jobs were nowhere near the mark as far as where I wanted to be. I blame that on the economy of the city, because only in the midwest could web designers be paid less than retail management. I think the agencies want inexperienced web developers here because they can continue to pay them crap and the designer won’t make waves about it because they have no intention of moving upward in their career. It wasn’t until I had a “name” in my work history on my resume that I started getting calls and interest. This is pretty sad, because everything you’re told is that a good portfolio is what counts. But it isn’t, because in Cleveland most of the employers don’t know what good web design is.
→ beth · 04/01/08 07:19 AM · #
Great article, Brendan. Every point you made rang true. At least for me.
Hopefully the tide will be turning for Cleveland with the combined efforts of the professional community, notably Refresh Cleveland and our own Cleveland Web Standards Association.
Time will tell.
→ Brad Dielman · 04/01/08 10:38 AM · #
@beth: I took out a few parts of this because it got a bit long, one of them was in regards to the “more experience“ bit.
While yes, showing the people who run these companies that they’re blatantly lying to and ripping off they’re customers is the best way to not get a job/fired, I believe they seriously want someone who says their an expert in XHTML/HTML/CSS/JS/SEO/SQL/PHP/ASP/.net/DHTML/etc.
But the key word there is “says”. I happen to know for a fact that I would have gotten 2 of the jobs I interviewed for if I had just gone in and lied my ass off. I know this, because I know the people who got the job over me and what they knew at the time (and that they went in, smiled, and said they absolutely have advanced knowledge of all the fancy buzzwords).
Also, when I graduated (August, 2004) it seemed there were a lot of people looking for work in the field. And who would you hire, especially if all you know about web design is that Dreamweaver is where you put your Photoshop slices:
1) The kid who says he does a few things extremely well but still has quite a bit to learn in other areas or
2) The kid who tells you everything you want to hear, and claims he can do it all at an advanced level?
It’s the second kid, everytime, because that’s exactly what the sales team is telling the clients. “Yes, of course our system can do X, it’s the only advanced enterprise solution that can.“
★ brendan · 04/01/08 10:44 AM · #
Great article. I (fortunately it would seem) don’t have any experience whatsoever with web design agencies. I had no idea that the situation was so incredibly bleak. I’ve always felt lucky to be in the position I am, and now I feel incredibly lucky.
For me, the web design came as a small, tiny part of my job. However, it has grown and grown until now it may be my one and only focus. I’m excited about that.
Like Brad D. said, hopefully we can start turning this situation around.
→ Dana Kashubeck · 04/01/08 10:51 AM · #
This was an incredibly great article. I stumbled upon this site while doing a Google search on Cleveland Web Design. I consider myself lucky since I landed a paid internship at a web hosting/development company doing server admin/support work.
I took on the position in hopes that I would be able to dip my hands into some design work but that has not quite happened. Instead of design work I find myself troubleshooting wild DNS and other misc server issues. That is not a bad thing to have under your belt but considering that I love design and have been involved in several outside projects, I find myself thinking that I may need to move on if my current job doesn’t realize that I’m an asset.
I have always been curious to see what is available here in Cleveland and since I will be finishing school this semester the race is on for OPPORTUNITIES.
You had very valid points and yeah I do see the entry level job ads that ask the world for peanuts. Northeast Ohio is certainly not the hot bed for tech stuff but I do feel that things are turning around a bit. I feel that this is a great time for someone like yourself to create and agency that capitalizes on the weaknesses of the other agencies.
→ Kevin · 12/04/08 02:31 PM · #
You’re right on. I’m not in web design myself but looking for work. I can’t get over the “entry level jobs with 3-5 years experience” wanted. Thought I was the only one who noticed this.
→ Tom · 15/04/08 05:01 PM · #
Nice article! This is a topic that I discuss with a friend of mine almost daily. I am not a college graduate, nor have I enrolled in any courses for web design, I learned from the school of hard knocks. Selling sites, learning from mistakes, reading modern web techniques on the web, books, ECT…
When I have considered a full time position (in the past) I have been hired over 6 or 7 other people looking for the same job but what these companies are willing to pay “based on national averages” is a joke. Their qualification expectations / requirements go far beyond anything a guy/gal without a portfolio could possibly offer and far beyond what I would be willing to give them for the peanuts they’re offering.
I don’t claim to be a “web guru†but I have tons of real world experience. I guarantee a kid right out of college would know nowhere near enough to get into some of these “entry level†positions. Quite frankly, I would be pi**ed if I spent thousands of dollars for college to end up in a job that not only paid peanuts but required more than I could ever offer them.
This is a sad statement for college practices and sad for the kids spending thousands to get the degree.
→ Denny · 22/06/08 05:12 AM · #
No website at the moment but do know html. When the WYSIWYGs seemed to be taking over made me a bit uneasy. Wondered, “why did I go to the trouble of learning this!” But seems not many wish to go to that trouble anymore just want to take the easy way out.
→ Thomas Murphy · 29/07/09 09:17 AM · #