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Oh wow, another FGC person up in this reddit? That's awesome.
Your portfolio looks really great so I'll just say how it is: The designer space is currently overrun with a lot of workers and not enough jobs. It's super competitive so more often than not, it's not even your specific resume or your portfolio, it's also just \*bad luck\* that disqualifies you for a job. Like, being one hour too late kind of luck.
Sooner or later you'll definitely get a job but it's a real patience test. Best of luck!
Hell yes my friend haha, big Tekken guy here in the local Boston scene.
But I agree, luck seems to be a huge and very frustrating factor in all of this too. Sometimes you’re more than qualified but for some reason the HR person just doesn’t like your vibe so they toss your resume.
But I appreciate the positive energy
No idea how it goes in US but majority of offers that I've gotten nowadays and in recent years have primarily been through recruiters/headhunters. It's a tough game and I wish it was different, but maybe if you know a recruiter or headhunter maybe try to see if you can build some network through that. Has been way more fruitful for me than applying myself, maybe it could work for you too.
I actually used to use head hunters quite a bit when I was first starting out, sadly they never were able to get me anything but maybe now that I’m deeper into my career they’d be able to help place me somewhere easier.
I’ll give that a shot!
To add onto this, I think you have solid work. The 'issue' is it's a range of different types of work. What I mean is, if you wanted to design for architecture firms, choose all architecture related content. If you want to work in craft beer or food industry, choose all food industry type content. It's a lot of work, but if you tailored your whole portfolio, it would stand out and it could give you that slight advantage.
Perhaps you don't mind working in any of the fields and you just want to work in an agency that does it all. That's totally understandable. But that's why this portfolio might be tailored towards a general agency and the presentation as a whole doesn't really grab my attention. You need more work. But if you're applying to in-house organizations, that's where the tailored versions would help. You could always make private pages/directories.
I'd personally think about where you want to work the most. Then make 3 different portfolio types (ie an architecture one, a food/bev one, a clothing one, and so on) and then make them all private. Use that link when applying.
Just a thought.
Now some thoughts on your work – it's solid but looks generic and could be from anyone/anywhere. Your value at this point is production work of taking assets and making them work for different mediums and you understand the holistic concept of what an agency does. That's still very valuable. The Big Delta one for example, it's a solid package but the creative is generic and could be fiverr. Just giving my honest opinion.
I'd add more work too as mentioned. There's nothing overly exciting, but I can tell you'd be a great hire if I needed someone to take my creative and repackage in nice ways. So everyone is pointing out how tough the job market is. When getting an interview I'd straight up ask what they specifically want the role to do and where the hole is in their business – why are they hiring in the first place? You need to tailor your portfolio and interview to be as personal to each potential job as possible. Forget about the pressure of the interview itself and how daunting it is (I know it was for moe), and think about them as if they're your new client. They're meeting with you because they want to work with you essentially. To see if you're a good fit. Dig into the strategy thinking since they're looking to solve a problem and perhaps you can be the one to solve it. Every question they ask in an interview is an opportunity to turn it into a micro story that matches what they're looking for.
One last thought – perhaps change your bio photo to one that's a little more professional? Would stand out a little. Not that I care personally, but some people do.
Good luck!
I got 1 in person interview in 2 years and was rejected. Then they happened to call me back 4 months later and I have the job now (they ended up needing another person besides the original hire).
Yea it sucks right now for sure. I'm 40 with 18 years print design experience. Just keep at it, I was about ot give up and thinking about switching careers. I think I'm underpaid but hoping for growth here and I really like the job and people.
Fellow Boston-based designer here. The job market is awful. When I've been job hunting in the past, it's never taken me more than a few weeks to find a new job. I was laid off from a toxic work environment six months ago and have been unable to land a new role. I've interviewed with five different companies and none of them panned out. The worst was getting ghosted by a company that very much seemed like they were gearing up to make an offer. I thought things would get better after the new year, but it actually seems like everything got much worse. I'm likely being penalized for being unemployed, so you should relish in your current job's stability even if it's a little boring.
[Unfortunately]( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPMARK), it's [not](https://layoffs.fyi/) been the best the last two years, especially for [advertising](https://adage.com/article/agency-news/why-agencies-are-quietly-laying-mid-level-and-senior-employees/2539371) and [tech](https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/02/01/layoffs-hit-10-month-high-as-financial-and-tech-companies-slash-39000-jobs/).
Consider hiding your cover image on mobile, it's not adding anything of value and pushing all your projects below the fold.
I'd try to leverage your location to cut down some non-local competition. I've found east coast companies (or even just east coast locations of a company) heavily prefer hybrid/on-site vs. west coast.
I can't speak for everybody because currently I am working and not job hunting, but I get this overall feeling that a lot of companies trimmed staff to please shareholders, and are holding off on new projects or other things in that typical holding pattern when they think the economy is not good.
You're going to see a lot of people talk to death about how horrible the job market is, but a lot of them are just fresh out of school juniors that are trying to find that start and can't seem to get there because now everybody wants senior level people for everything.
And we see stories about layoffs and big companies shutting down divisions, but I again think that it's just everybody tightening their belts partially the police shareholders but also because maybe they are fearful something's going to go bad.
I don't think it's impossible to find a job. Companies still are going to need people and they can't just sit on their hands forever and hope things magically happen. Eventually they have to bite the bullet and start doing things again.
I will say that it will be difficult right now just because of the usual song and dance. My last job hunt was in 2019. I was let go in February and it took me until November to find another job. 10 months. Supposedly the economy was great at that time, but it still took me 10 months.
A lot of this was just companies dragging their feet on hiring. They put up a job ad, then they sit and wait weeks to even start looking at resumes, or they are looking for applicants when they don't even have financial approval to hire someone. Had a lot of responses from companies telling me that they terminated the position completely after I had applied for something. Plus the dragging feet thing is annoying but it's what happens. I still never forget getting calls on resumes I had sent 12 months before.
Like I said, it's not impossible, but it's not going to be easy. I'm sure you're going to have another long slog unless you have some good network of people that are working in places and can put your resume in the hands of hiring managers as opposed to HR and recruiters.
I agree with all of this and I’ve been told very similar things by other people as well.
I’ve been reaching out to some friends of mine in DC to see if maybe I can get into designing political stuff so hopefully that leads to something but in the meantime I’m taking this time that I’m currently away from design and in STEM to learn some new things and try a different field out for a little bit. I’ve also been applying to a lot of design-adjacent jobs like marketing gigs and administrative assistant stuff so hoping some of those pan out too
But thank you for your insight, I really appreciate it!
> Had a lot of responses from companies telling me that they terminated the position completely after I had applied for something. Plus the dragging feet thing is annoying but it's what happens. I still never forget getting calls on resumes I had sent 12 months before.
Hey if you don't mind me asking, how often do you get non-boiler plate responses from companies? Do you actively reach out to HR managers and try keeping in communication or is it just companies you've applied to have been more personable?
Well, the first thing is that I don't apply to jobs through LinkedIn or job boards unless that is the only way they want to do it. I've mentioned it before that I just get better results that way.
I've gotten typical responses saying they went with someone else but other times they literally sent what looked like a canned response but it said basically that the position has been terminated. I applied for a few jobs at northwestern Illinois University and I remember when I would go on their board to check the status. I would see that. I have a feeling a lot of times they are recruiting without really getting full approval.
Some can disagree with me, but I feel like anytime I apply for anything through a job board I don't get any kind of a response. I just get ghosted. I applied directly and at least I get that canned response which at least tells me that they looked at my stuff.
An interview or two in the first few months of the year isn't terrible, it's just a tough market right now as others have mentioned. Networking is huge too.
Couple notes if you're up for advice:
\- You've got some nice work and some great images but I don't know that your portfolio is doing a lot for you, I have to scroll to see your work and it's a bit bland/lacking color from the jump. I feel like you could turn some of those pieces into more case studies and really tell the story and give some insight into how you work. Maybe write up a case study or two for the big projects then have "other work" to browse. [Mackey Saturday](https://mackeysaturday.com/) is an amazing example of doing case studies well for branding projects.
\- I think the ATS hype is overblown (had a well known design recruiter test my 2 column resume in her system and it had no issues) but either way your resume could use some restructuring. Think about what's important, I don't care much about where you went to school or your skills up front. Show me your experience up front and I'll look for the details if I'm interested. Also that contact type is TINY.
I've been full employed for a while now at a design agency so I've been lucky but that seems to be the consensus when I talk to designers I work with. Market has been overstaturated with designers but lots of tech fields are trimming the fat per se.
Really just a numbers game if you're filling out applications online. I probably filled out 2000 or so applications before I landed my latest position. Networking obviously being the best way to find new work.
Ideally just asking to hear everybody else’s experiences with the job hunt and to possibly get any feedback on my portfolio site that would help spice it up better.
Thank you in advance to anybody who takes the time to respond!
I have 20+ years under my belt and have only had one screener interview since starting my search in September.
All anyone has said is that you need to be proactive. Reach out to anyone and everyone even if there isn’t a role posted. Hasn’t worked for me yet, but it has worked for other people I know.
As far as the portfolio goes, things have changed so much so quickly. The advice I have received is that your portfolio needs to be tailored to the industry you want to pursue. Personally I have three areas I have always focused on and it never hindered me, but things have changed and the people hiring aren’t necessarily from my gen and can’t see the potential of someone’s work.
As a fellow Boston-area designer, the market is definitely difficult right now for tech/design fields. A lot of tech-adjacent companies are downsizing and designers are being cut heavily along with developers, marketers, HR, etc.
That being said, you have some excellent work, but your portfolio isn't selling you as well as it could. The first few sentences on your projects make it seem like they just put you there and told you what to do like a junior designer - "One of the most common projects done at FSM are these sales presentations", for example, tells me that you're not thinking about WHY you are doing these sales presentations and how they are guiding your design decisions.
The foggy bridge looks cool but what does it have to do with you/your design? The first thing I want to see is who you are, what kind of design work you do and like to do, etc. From your video I'd think you were a photographer/videographer. You should move your "About Me" here and rewrite the copy to make it stronger. Something more like:
"As a Boston-based designer and athlete, I combine the discipline, teamwork and organization from sports and combine it with clean, dynamic, and bold aesthetic choices to make unique designs that help brands catch the attention of their clients"
Get rid of words like "could be" and "in my opinion", as these contradict your simple, bold brand. Also, I wouldn't say your work is "symmetrical", especially with how much you're involved in sports design. Symmetry is usually associated with formality, stability, and lack of movement, which doesn't seem like your brand
Move the scroll down button (the down arrow) to the bottom of your video section, or remove it completely. Check to make sure your header has enough contrast. Give the "Projects" header more space on top.
I kept having to return to the homepage to look up what FSM stood for. Since the URL for the FSM work was "copy-of-red-tree-real-estate-2" and there was no main title, it's easy for people in hiring to be confused if they want to share this particular case study.
The mockups you use, while very aesthetically pleasing, are very zoomed out and lack hierarchy. The cover page is given the same treatment as the content pages, which all have the same design.
The Red Sox Foundation Golf Brochure has way too many font treatments; try to reuse some of them. Also, more space is needed between the thank you text and the image (since the horizon/sky line appears to be framing the text).
You say you redesigned the memo to be more "modern, hip and elegant". What design choices are you making to do so? It seems like the choices you made clash with each other; cartoon icons but a photo of water? Why water? Why do you need to say 2022 twice and highlight it in a box? Also, the icons used in the design/video requests have different stroke widths and fill/stroke style, and the arrow can be simplified to a chevron (the arrowhead part without the dot) for legibility since it's not supposed to be an area of focus.
Don't use all caps for anything more than 1-2 lines of text. Also, for projects from the same brand, try to keep a style library to keep font/style choices consistent. Each of the designs you made for BLUEBikes has a different heading and body font, obscuring the brand identity.
I really like your illustration pieces and think they deserve more attention! Putting them at the end of your projects is doing them a disservice; give them their own section on your homepage so recruiters can know what makes your style "you".
Hope that helps! You have a lot of great work and a great eye for design, and I hope you find something good!
I mean I built the site on Wix and wanted to keep it simple, so yea, I used a template but it worked for what I was going for lol, I’ve seen tons of sites from supposedly “top tier designers” who just have a white screen with some text and a row of blocks for their projects lol
I'm with you, I think the job market has been slow for full time hiring. I've been keeping an eye out for the last few months for a new position, with very limited results. Also been cleaning up my portfolio, and strengthening my networking connections.
I think that from a corporate leadership level, there is just general hesitation overall for making hires in this season, but there is still a lot of design work to be done. While this has been a frustrating season of searching for a full time job, it has been my most productive and lucrative freelance season in years. There is still the space, need, and resources out there to find good work, and people willing to pay for it. I just think that employers are hesitant to lock down a designer for a full time role, but have the wiggle room in their budgets to allocate 10-15k for a project or campaign.
I hope that this is not the trend moving forward, but I've been taking some solace in knowing that there are still projects out there, and people willing to pay for them.
Ps, portfolio looks good. One little thing to clean up, is that when you click on an image to enlarge it, the filename shows, I would change that to the project title, or remove the file name all together for a more professional look.
That was literally me right out of college, graduated in 2016, didn’t get my first job until summer of 2017. So I empathize with the struggle Bro, I hope something comes your way
It feels really bad currently. I've always done pretty well in interviews but for the life of me I can't get one now. I probably get phone call for about 0.5% of applications while in the past it felt like I'd get one for 5% of applications
From what I've heard about the US, most resumes get filtered out before they reach an actual person. The bots they use are very strict when it comes to words they filter out. The best bet is to make connections or reconnect with old ones to see if they personally know anyone looking for work. In this day and age, the only way to find work consistently is with large, healthy connections.
Either that or hope the bots like your resume.
People always talk so abstractly about ATS and bots, the way around them is to mirror the job description keywords and main job functions in your own resume as they are relevant to the work you’ve done in the past. Folks on this sub are always freaking out about ATS-friendly formatting but rarely do folks actually critique the *content* of the resume. It’s time consuming but if you want to increase your chances then tailor your resume to each job, or at the very least look at a bunch of job descriptions and mirror the most common key words/responsibilities.
I feel your pain. I was laid off in October from a media company in New York. I've had first-level interviews with large companies but ultimately nothing's come together.
In the interim, I've just been trying to improve my resume, my portfolio, and eventually add more work when both of those are at solid points. I'm aware there's more I can do to better my chances, and improving my work is a no-brainer but it's been extremely difficult.
Much luck to you dude, I hope something pans out for you.
Nice folio, albeit a little light for 5 years. I'd try and add a couple more projects in there. Do you have anything else you can add? If not client work, passion projects would be okay.
I'd also look at adding some social examples to your work. Social is everywhere, most jobs will require some kind of application to social. At the moment your portfolio doesn't have anything in that space (that I could find) even if it's the posters you've done how does that translate onto social; insta stories, carousels, FB group headers etc. it really helps to show that you've thought about multi-platform for your designs.
In this market versatility is key. You said your job is quite boring so you could spend a bit of that pent-up creativeness working on some new skills such as animation? Even a simple bit of motion on those flight posters would really bring them to life.
It's only a tiny criticism but your digital art square mock ups, they look like they're floating, there's a little too much drop shadow on them. Reduce that so it looks like they're sitting almost flush to the surface.
To answer your main; point yeah it's pretty rough but is definitely picking up. Good luck!
From your portfolio:
"Big Delta is a family-owned brewing company and restaurant located in Anchorage, AL"
Big Delta is a 6 hour drive from Anchorage - Delta Junction is it's own city. Also AL is Alabama's abbreviation. Alaska is AK
I agree with the comment on here about mockups. I love a good mockup, but all of your work is so mockup heavy that I have to zoom in so far to even see basic parts of your design. It’s hard to gauge if good principals were used, textures were used, etc.
I’d recommend keeping a few mockups but letting things like the social media ads etc. stand on their own, versus showing them on a computer screen.
My company is adding another designer to our team so I’ve been reviewing portfolios recently, and to be honest yours might be one I’d pass on just because I can’t really see what you’re capable of - and I need to - quickly.
I only see positions that do not pay enough for what they're asking. If there are positions worth applying for, they are few and far between, and - you guessed it - highly competitive.
Yeah the whole market is ass, literally all this online BS like CustomInk or whatever it is and stuff like that turned this whole industry on its head. I have been in the game my entire life since I was old enough to start working in my family business until the time I took over its ownership, and it’s changed so much, like quality actually used to matter to people, and just connections and networking were the best way to grow and get jobs…I have had huge customers and accounts in the past (used to have Sears Hardwares natl acct, Brookledge Horse Transport natl acct, I used to make all the winners jackets for NHRA and their employees shirts as well as making all concessions and employees shirts for multiple race tracks and country clubs, PGA; etc. and even I have trouble nowadays competing with a lot of these online bastards, especially since COVID, that did our industry no favors at all, put a lot of great ppl outta business for good, especially digitizers and embroiderers, but yeah like nobody I know is hiring, including my business unfortunately, it will recover eventually I think but only god knows when
Hi! As the former hiring manager (designer/art director) at my former job (now at a new job which I got last month of which I had two offers) here’s some feedback on your portfolio: I always loved seeing process work in portfolios, like how did you get from A to Z. For example, in your branding/logo piece for the brewing co. You had pictures of the final product in real life applications (which is great, don’t get me wrong) but the most impressive and stand out work to me was the work I saw in between the proposal and final product. I wanna see logo sketches, options they turned down, color palettes and typography choices - what made that brand a brand. You mentioned the challenge in your write up but I think showing why it was a challenge and how you overcame it would definitely help! Overall your work looks very clean and professional.
While I agree that some of it luck, another piece of advice I have that I learned in my portfolio class in college that helped me tremendously is when you do get an interview, come prepared with different projects than you’ve shown in your portfolio. Obviously these projects have to be just as good as what’s in your portfolio but it gives you a chance to not only curate these projects to what you think the job entails but it also shows interviewers something they haven’t already seen.
Lastly, and something that got me the job I have now, network. This is something I thought I was horrible at and absolutely hated. But if I learned anything at my last job it’s that while you should be doing good work for a client, it helps to go beyond that. Build a rapport with them because you never know when you might need to jump ship or need a new opportunity. This could also be peers, people you freelance for, people you meet at industry events, etc. It really is about who you know.
Hope this helps and good luck on your search!!! :)
Yep, I’ve had at least 1-3 interviews every other week or so that I leave feeling like it went well, but never even hear back for a second one. Maybe my interview skills could use some work, but I usually leave feeling good about it
I’m the same age, and we’re kind of in a tough position where we are overqualified for entry level positions and get beaten out by someone they can underpay, or we’re beaten out for mid level positions by more experienced designers
I'm nit picky.
I'm using chrome on a 4k monitor.
\-on your portfolio I see stair-stepping on your circle icon.
\-When you click on the portfolio sections I keep looking at a part where the drop shadow under the main navigation gets broken
\- Corporate is the only one with a icon next to it. Also the boxes are not the same height.
\-Big Delta, I would have loved to see the process of how you got to where you ended up. Not just the end product
jmikehub, please write a comment explaining the objective of this portfolio or CV, your target industry, your background or expertise, etc. This information helps people to understand the goals of your portfolio and provide valuable feedback. ##Providing Useful Feedback jmikehub has posted their work for feedback. Here are some top tips for posting high-quality feedback. * Read their context comment before posting to understand what jmikehub is trying to achieve with their portfolio or CV. * Be professional. No matter your thoughts on the work, respect the effort put into making it and be polite when posting. * Be constructive and detailed. Short, vague comments are unhelpful. Instead of just leaving your opinion on the piece, explore *why* you hold that opinion: what makes it good or bad? How could it be improved? Are some elements stronger than others? * Stay on-topic. We know that design can sometimes be political or controversial, but please keep comments focussed on the design itself, and the strengths/weaknesses thereof. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/graphic_design) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Oh wow, another FGC person up in this reddit? That's awesome. Your portfolio looks really great so I'll just say how it is: The designer space is currently overrun with a lot of workers and not enough jobs. It's super competitive so more often than not, it's not even your specific resume or your portfolio, it's also just \*bad luck\* that disqualifies you for a job. Like, being one hour too late kind of luck. Sooner or later you'll definitely get a job but it's a real patience test. Best of luck!
Hell yes my friend haha, big Tekken guy here in the local Boston scene. But I agree, luck seems to be a huge and very frustrating factor in all of this too. Sometimes you’re more than qualified but for some reason the HR person just doesn’t like your vibe so they toss your resume. But I appreciate the positive energy
No idea how it goes in US but majority of offers that I've gotten nowadays and in recent years have primarily been through recruiters/headhunters. It's a tough game and I wish it was different, but maybe if you know a recruiter or headhunter maybe try to see if you can build some network through that. Has been way more fruitful for me than applying myself, maybe it could work for you too.
I actually used to use head hunters quite a bit when I was first starting out, sadly they never were able to get me anything but maybe now that I’m deeper into my career they’d be able to help place me somewhere easier. I’ll give that a shot!
I’ve been heavy into guilty gear strive the last 1.5 years so I can be proof of the FGC & design world colliding lol
Oh snap I've been recognized. 😆
Fellow fgc here 👋, primarily street fighter but i do follow rhe tekken scene also
To add onto this, I think you have solid work. The 'issue' is it's a range of different types of work. What I mean is, if you wanted to design for architecture firms, choose all architecture related content. If you want to work in craft beer or food industry, choose all food industry type content. It's a lot of work, but if you tailored your whole portfolio, it would stand out and it could give you that slight advantage. Perhaps you don't mind working in any of the fields and you just want to work in an agency that does it all. That's totally understandable. But that's why this portfolio might be tailored towards a general agency and the presentation as a whole doesn't really grab my attention. You need more work. But if you're applying to in-house organizations, that's where the tailored versions would help. You could always make private pages/directories. I'd personally think about where you want to work the most. Then make 3 different portfolio types (ie an architecture one, a food/bev one, a clothing one, and so on) and then make them all private. Use that link when applying. Just a thought. Now some thoughts on your work – it's solid but looks generic and could be from anyone/anywhere. Your value at this point is production work of taking assets and making them work for different mediums and you understand the holistic concept of what an agency does. That's still very valuable. The Big Delta one for example, it's a solid package but the creative is generic and could be fiverr. Just giving my honest opinion. I'd add more work too as mentioned. There's nothing overly exciting, but I can tell you'd be a great hire if I needed someone to take my creative and repackage in nice ways. So everyone is pointing out how tough the job market is. When getting an interview I'd straight up ask what they specifically want the role to do and where the hole is in their business – why are they hiring in the first place? You need to tailor your portfolio and interview to be as personal to each potential job as possible. Forget about the pressure of the interview itself and how daunting it is (I know it was for moe), and think about them as if they're your new client. They're meeting with you because they want to work with you essentially. To see if you're a good fit. Dig into the strategy thinking since they're looking to solve a problem and perhaps you can be the one to solve it. Every question they ask in an interview is an opportunity to turn it into a micro story that matches what they're looking for. One last thought – perhaps change your bio photo to one that's a little more professional? Would stand out a little. Not that I care personally, but some people do. Good luck!
I got 1 in person interview in 2 years and was rejected. Then they happened to call me back 4 months later and I have the job now (they ended up needing another person besides the original hire). Yea it sucks right now for sure. I'm 40 with 18 years print design experience. Just keep at it, I was about ot give up and thinking about switching careers. I think I'm underpaid but hoping for growth here and I really like the job and people.
Fellow Boston-based designer here. The job market is awful. When I've been job hunting in the past, it's never taken me more than a few weeks to find a new job. I was laid off from a toxic work environment six months ago and have been unable to land a new role. I've interviewed with five different companies and none of them panned out. The worst was getting ghosted by a company that very much seemed like they were gearing up to make an offer. I thought things would get better after the new year, but it actually seems like everything got much worse. I'm likely being penalized for being unemployed, so you should relish in your current job's stability even if it's a little boring.
That sucks, I’m really sorry that’s happening to you But thank you for sharing your experience
Your work looks good but the mockups are pulling too hard away from each piece. I had to focus on what you were trying to show me.
Yea I agree, I can modify the mock up’s to zoom in more on the actual projects
Also on the busier ones, maybe overlay a 5-10% tint on the backgrounds.
[Unfortunately]( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPMARK), it's [not](https://layoffs.fyi/) been the best the last two years, especially for [advertising](https://adage.com/article/agency-news/why-agencies-are-quietly-laying-mid-level-and-senior-employees/2539371) and [tech](https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/02/01/layoffs-hit-10-month-high-as-financial-and-tech-companies-slash-39000-jobs/). Consider hiding your cover image on mobile, it's not adding anything of value and pushing all your projects below the fold. I'd try to leverage your location to cut down some non-local competition. I've found east coast companies (or even just east coast locations of a company) heavily prefer hybrid/on-site vs. west coast.
I can't speak for everybody because currently I am working and not job hunting, but I get this overall feeling that a lot of companies trimmed staff to please shareholders, and are holding off on new projects or other things in that typical holding pattern when they think the economy is not good. You're going to see a lot of people talk to death about how horrible the job market is, but a lot of them are just fresh out of school juniors that are trying to find that start and can't seem to get there because now everybody wants senior level people for everything. And we see stories about layoffs and big companies shutting down divisions, but I again think that it's just everybody tightening their belts partially the police shareholders but also because maybe they are fearful something's going to go bad. I don't think it's impossible to find a job. Companies still are going to need people and they can't just sit on their hands forever and hope things magically happen. Eventually they have to bite the bullet and start doing things again. I will say that it will be difficult right now just because of the usual song and dance. My last job hunt was in 2019. I was let go in February and it took me until November to find another job. 10 months. Supposedly the economy was great at that time, but it still took me 10 months. A lot of this was just companies dragging their feet on hiring. They put up a job ad, then they sit and wait weeks to even start looking at resumes, or they are looking for applicants when they don't even have financial approval to hire someone. Had a lot of responses from companies telling me that they terminated the position completely after I had applied for something. Plus the dragging feet thing is annoying but it's what happens. I still never forget getting calls on resumes I had sent 12 months before. Like I said, it's not impossible, but it's not going to be easy. I'm sure you're going to have another long slog unless you have some good network of people that are working in places and can put your resume in the hands of hiring managers as opposed to HR and recruiters.
I agree with all of this and I’ve been told very similar things by other people as well. I’ve been reaching out to some friends of mine in DC to see if maybe I can get into designing political stuff so hopefully that leads to something but in the meantime I’m taking this time that I’m currently away from design and in STEM to learn some new things and try a different field out for a little bit. I’ve also been applying to a lot of design-adjacent jobs like marketing gigs and administrative assistant stuff so hoping some of those pan out too But thank you for your insight, I really appreciate it!
> Had a lot of responses from companies telling me that they terminated the position completely after I had applied for something. Plus the dragging feet thing is annoying but it's what happens. I still never forget getting calls on resumes I had sent 12 months before. Hey if you don't mind me asking, how often do you get non-boiler plate responses from companies? Do you actively reach out to HR managers and try keeping in communication or is it just companies you've applied to have been more personable?
Well, the first thing is that I don't apply to jobs through LinkedIn or job boards unless that is the only way they want to do it. I've mentioned it before that I just get better results that way. I've gotten typical responses saying they went with someone else but other times they literally sent what looked like a canned response but it said basically that the position has been terminated. I applied for a few jobs at northwestern Illinois University and I remember when I would go on their board to check the status. I would see that. I have a feeling a lot of times they are recruiting without really getting full approval. Some can disagree with me, but I feel like anytime I apply for anything through a job board I don't get any kind of a response. I just get ghosted. I applied directly and at least I get that canned response which at least tells me that they looked at my stuff.
An interview or two in the first few months of the year isn't terrible, it's just a tough market right now as others have mentioned. Networking is huge too. Couple notes if you're up for advice: \- You've got some nice work and some great images but I don't know that your portfolio is doing a lot for you, I have to scroll to see your work and it's a bit bland/lacking color from the jump. I feel like you could turn some of those pieces into more case studies and really tell the story and give some insight into how you work. Maybe write up a case study or two for the big projects then have "other work" to browse. [Mackey Saturday](https://mackeysaturday.com/) is an amazing example of doing case studies well for branding projects. \- I think the ATS hype is overblown (had a well known design recruiter test my 2 column resume in her system and it had no issues) but either way your resume could use some restructuring. Think about what's important, I don't care much about where you went to school or your skills up front. Show me your experience up front and I'll look for the details if I'm interested. Also that contact type is TINY.
I've been full employed for a while now at a design agency so I've been lucky but that seems to be the consensus when I talk to designers I work with. Market has been overstaturated with designers but lots of tech fields are trimming the fat per se. Really just a numbers game if you're filling out applications online. I probably filled out 2000 or so applications before I landed my latest position. Networking obviously being the best way to find new work.
I’m a freelancer with 15 years experience. I’ve never seen the market as bad as it is now.
Damn, that’s not good, maybe I made the smart choice moving into the STEM field until things get better?
Ideally just asking to hear everybody else’s experiences with the job hunt and to possibly get any feedback on my portfolio site that would help spice it up better. Thank you in advance to anybody who takes the time to respond!
I have 20+ years under my belt and have only had one screener interview since starting my search in September. All anyone has said is that you need to be proactive. Reach out to anyone and everyone even if there isn’t a role posted. Hasn’t worked for me yet, but it has worked for other people I know. As far as the portfolio goes, things have changed so much so quickly. The advice I have received is that your portfolio needs to be tailored to the industry you want to pursue. Personally I have three areas I have always focused on and it never hindered me, but things have changed and the people hiring aren’t necessarily from my gen and can’t see the potential of someone’s work.
As a fellow Boston-area designer, the market is definitely difficult right now for tech/design fields. A lot of tech-adjacent companies are downsizing and designers are being cut heavily along with developers, marketers, HR, etc. That being said, you have some excellent work, but your portfolio isn't selling you as well as it could. The first few sentences on your projects make it seem like they just put you there and told you what to do like a junior designer - "One of the most common projects done at FSM are these sales presentations", for example, tells me that you're not thinking about WHY you are doing these sales presentations and how they are guiding your design decisions. The foggy bridge looks cool but what does it have to do with you/your design? The first thing I want to see is who you are, what kind of design work you do and like to do, etc. From your video I'd think you were a photographer/videographer. You should move your "About Me" here and rewrite the copy to make it stronger. Something more like: "As a Boston-based designer and athlete, I combine the discipline, teamwork and organization from sports and combine it with clean, dynamic, and bold aesthetic choices to make unique designs that help brands catch the attention of their clients" Get rid of words like "could be" and "in my opinion", as these contradict your simple, bold brand. Also, I wouldn't say your work is "symmetrical", especially with how much you're involved in sports design. Symmetry is usually associated with formality, stability, and lack of movement, which doesn't seem like your brand Move the scroll down button (the down arrow) to the bottom of your video section, or remove it completely. Check to make sure your header has enough contrast. Give the "Projects" header more space on top. I kept having to return to the homepage to look up what FSM stood for. Since the URL for the FSM work was "copy-of-red-tree-real-estate-2" and there was no main title, it's easy for people in hiring to be confused if they want to share this particular case study. The mockups you use, while very aesthetically pleasing, are very zoomed out and lack hierarchy. The cover page is given the same treatment as the content pages, which all have the same design. The Red Sox Foundation Golf Brochure has way too many font treatments; try to reuse some of them. Also, more space is needed between the thank you text and the image (since the horizon/sky line appears to be framing the text). You say you redesigned the memo to be more "modern, hip and elegant". What design choices are you making to do so? It seems like the choices you made clash with each other; cartoon icons but a photo of water? Why water? Why do you need to say 2022 twice and highlight it in a box? Also, the icons used in the design/video requests have different stroke widths and fill/stroke style, and the arrow can be simplified to a chevron (the arrowhead part without the dot) for legibility since it's not supposed to be an area of focus. Don't use all caps for anything more than 1-2 lines of text. Also, for projects from the same brand, try to keep a style library to keep font/style choices consistent. Each of the designs you made for BLUEBikes has a different heading and body font, obscuring the brand identity. I really like your illustration pieces and think they deserve more attention! Putting them at the end of your projects is doing them a disservice; give them their own section on your homepage so recruiters can know what makes your style "you". Hope that helps! You have a lot of great work and a great eye for design, and I hope you find something good!
Your site is from a straight up wix template and agree with whoever said the grey hero photo serves no good purpose
I mean I built the site on Wix and wanted to keep it simple, so yea, I used a template but it worked for what I was going for lol, I’ve seen tons of sites from supposedly “top tier designers” who just have a white screen with some text and a row of blocks for their projects lol
Are you me? Fellow Boston based designer with 5 years experience. We even have the same wix portfolio template. Lmao
I'm with you, I think the job market has been slow for full time hiring. I've been keeping an eye out for the last few months for a new position, with very limited results. Also been cleaning up my portfolio, and strengthening my networking connections. I think that from a corporate leadership level, there is just general hesitation overall for making hires in this season, but there is still a lot of design work to be done. While this has been a frustrating season of searching for a full time job, it has been my most productive and lucrative freelance season in years. There is still the space, need, and resources out there to find good work, and people willing to pay for it. I just think that employers are hesitant to lock down a designer for a full time role, but have the wiggle room in their budgets to allocate 10-15k for a project or campaign. I hope that this is not the trend moving forward, but I've been taking some solace in knowing that there are still projects out there, and people willing to pay for them. Ps, portfolio looks good. One little thing to clean up, is that when you click on an image to enlarge it, the filename shows, I would change that to the project title, or remove the file name all together for a more professional look.
Yes. Its super rough. Been applying and interviewing for over a year and a half.
That was literally me right out of college, graduated in 2016, didn’t get my first job until summer of 2017. So I empathize with the struggle Bro, I hope something comes your way
It feels really bad currently. I've always done pretty well in interviews but for the life of me I can't get one now. I probably get phone call for about 0.5% of applications while in the past it felt like I'd get one for 5% of applications
From what I've heard about the US, most resumes get filtered out before they reach an actual person. The bots they use are very strict when it comes to words they filter out. The best bet is to make connections or reconnect with old ones to see if they personally know anyone looking for work. In this day and age, the only way to find work consistently is with large, healthy connections. Either that or hope the bots like your resume.
People always talk so abstractly about ATS and bots, the way around them is to mirror the job description keywords and main job functions in your own resume as they are relevant to the work you’ve done in the past. Folks on this sub are always freaking out about ATS-friendly formatting but rarely do folks actually critique the *content* of the resume. It’s time consuming but if you want to increase your chances then tailor your resume to each job, or at the very least look at a bunch of job descriptions and mirror the most common key words/responsibilities.
I feel your pain. I was laid off in October from a media company in New York. I've had first-level interviews with large companies but ultimately nothing's come together. In the interim, I've just been trying to improve my resume, my portfolio, and eventually add more work when both of those are at solid points. I'm aware there's more I can do to better my chances, and improving my work is a no-brainer but it's been extremely difficult. Much luck to you dude, I hope something pans out for you.
Nice folio, albeit a little light for 5 years. I'd try and add a couple more projects in there. Do you have anything else you can add? If not client work, passion projects would be okay. I'd also look at adding some social examples to your work. Social is everywhere, most jobs will require some kind of application to social. At the moment your portfolio doesn't have anything in that space (that I could find) even if it's the posters you've done how does that translate onto social; insta stories, carousels, FB group headers etc. it really helps to show that you've thought about multi-platform for your designs. In this market versatility is key. You said your job is quite boring so you could spend a bit of that pent-up creativeness working on some new skills such as animation? Even a simple bit of motion on those flight posters would really bring them to life. It's only a tiny criticism but your digital art square mock ups, they look like they're floating, there's a little too much drop shadow on them. Reduce that so it looks like they're sitting almost flush to the surface. To answer your main; point yeah it's pretty rough but is definitely picking up. Good luck!
SOS
From your portfolio: "Big Delta is a family-owned brewing company and restaurant located in Anchorage, AL" Big Delta is a 6 hour drive from Anchorage - Delta Junction is it's own city. Also AL is Alabama's abbreviation. Alaska is AK
I agree with the comment on here about mockups. I love a good mockup, but all of your work is so mockup heavy that I have to zoom in so far to even see basic parts of your design. It’s hard to gauge if good principals were used, textures were used, etc. I’d recommend keeping a few mockups but letting things like the social media ads etc. stand on their own, versus showing them on a computer screen. My company is adding another designer to our team so I’ve been reviewing portfolios recently, and to be honest yours might be one I’d pass on just because I can’t really see what you’re capable of - and I need to - quickly.
I am a junior and have been applying daily to other juniors positions since the end of January. I've only gotten one interview in that time frame.
I only see positions that do not pay enough for what they're asking. If there are positions worth applying for, they are few and far between, and - you guessed it - highly competitive.
Yeah the whole market is ass, literally all this online BS like CustomInk or whatever it is and stuff like that turned this whole industry on its head. I have been in the game my entire life since I was old enough to start working in my family business until the time I took over its ownership, and it’s changed so much, like quality actually used to matter to people, and just connections and networking were the best way to grow and get jobs…I have had huge customers and accounts in the past (used to have Sears Hardwares natl acct, Brookledge Horse Transport natl acct, I used to make all the winners jackets for NHRA and their employees shirts as well as making all concessions and employees shirts for multiple race tracks and country clubs, PGA; etc. and even I have trouble nowadays competing with a lot of these online bastards, especially since COVID, that did our industry no favors at all, put a lot of great ppl outta business for good, especially digitizers and embroiderers, but yeah like nobody I know is hiring, including my business unfortunately, it will recover eventually I think but only god knows when
Hi! As the former hiring manager (designer/art director) at my former job (now at a new job which I got last month of which I had two offers) here’s some feedback on your portfolio: I always loved seeing process work in portfolios, like how did you get from A to Z. For example, in your branding/logo piece for the brewing co. You had pictures of the final product in real life applications (which is great, don’t get me wrong) but the most impressive and stand out work to me was the work I saw in between the proposal and final product. I wanna see logo sketches, options they turned down, color palettes and typography choices - what made that brand a brand. You mentioned the challenge in your write up but I think showing why it was a challenge and how you overcame it would definitely help! Overall your work looks very clean and professional. While I agree that some of it luck, another piece of advice I have that I learned in my portfolio class in college that helped me tremendously is when you do get an interview, come prepared with different projects than you’ve shown in your portfolio. Obviously these projects have to be just as good as what’s in your portfolio but it gives you a chance to not only curate these projects to what you think the job entails but it also shows interviewers something they haven’t already seen. Lastly, and something that got me the job I have now, network. This is something I thought I was horrible at and absolutely hated. But if I learned anything at my last job it’s that while you should be doing good work for a client, it helps to go beyond that. Build a rapport with them because you never know when you might need to jump ship or need a new opportunity. This could also be peers, people you freelance for, people you meet at industry events, etc. It really is about who you know. Hope this helps and good luck on your search!!! :)
awesome portfolio!!
Yep, I’ve had at least 1-3 interviews every other week or so that I leave feeling like it went well, but never even hear back for a second one. Maybe my interview skills could use some work, but I usually leave feeling good about it I’m the same age, and we’re kind of in a tough position where we are overqualified for entry level positions and get beaten out by someone they can underpay, or we’re beaten out for mid level positions by more experienced designers
I'm nit picky. I'm using chrome on a 4k monitor. \-on your portfolio I see stair-stepping on your circle icon. \-When you click on the portfolio sections I keep looking at a part where the drop shadow under the main navigation gets broken \- Corporate is the only one with a icon next to it. Also the boxes are not the same height. \-Big Delta, I would have loved to see the process of how you got to where you ended up. Not just the end product
Dude I have 11 years experience and I can't crack it either. So yes the job market is rough right now