Getting Your First Junior Creative Job After Graduating

Its that time of year where the market gets a huge influx of fresh creative talent from the newly qualified graduates.

However, once the celebrations have finished the cold reality of the real world starts to sink in. Unfortunately, from my observations, what most of the creative courses out there seem to be lacking in is probably one of the most difficult challenges a graduate will have - getting a job!

It’s a competitive world out there so we thought we would write a few pointers that may need help getting on the first rung of the ladder:

1. Decide what you want to do! Sounds crazy but this a really hard thing to do – especially if you have never worked in the industry before. Sometimes a “suck it and see” approach is all you can do but watch out because there is so much competition about it is very easy to be pigeon holed. The best advice I can give you is to do what you love doing – if you like being creative then become a designer, if you love the detailed technical aspects then you prefer to be an artworker etc.
2. Make a great CV. Ok so you don’t have a great deal of experience – neither do the other thousands of Graduates joining the job market every year. If you don’t have any work experience then go and get some. Volunteer to work for places for free, design for yourself / friends / business associates. Get involved with organisations, schools, competitions etc. It all goes down to experience and can come under the guise of freelance experience of necessary. It is this initiative which will separate the wheat from the chaff.
3. Portfolio – Every creative candidate should have one and the best CVs have some portfolio samples on them or even better – a link to a website that holds your samples. This is your lifeblood and will be the difference of you getting an interview or not.
4. Campaign – Getting a job is a job in itself! Of course, we will be there to take away some of the leg work but don’t forget that a lot of clients like to hire their juniors directly. Normally they will use agencies if the role is urgent or the job is more specialist / hard to fill. Graduates don’t normally come under this banner. This means you are going to have to get out their and promote yourself too – use email / e-shots, create some flyers, join all the jobsites and scour the internet.
5. Get in touch – get frustrated that you don’t get contacted very often by agencies / companies. You would be surprised how many candidates are looking to get a job at anyone time – especially graduates / juniors. You need to understand that there is a lot of competition out there and you need to make yourself standout and be remembered. The internet and email is a great method of communication but there is nothing more effective than a phone call.
6. Keep going! Perseverance and common sense will always prevail. Once you are on on the first step of the ladder you will find things get a lot easier. Don’t sell yourself short, have confidence in yourself and work hard and the rest will fall into place…