I’ve been scouring the big local job sites for web designers and I must say it’s not a pleasant experience. Here are a few takeaways from this ongoing recruitment nightmare:
The good ones are taken or love pajamas too much
I get about 5 online applications every day and out of the 25 or so resumes I get each week, I end up discarding 22 of those for various reasons, top of which is fugly, uninspired work. The 3 that impress get to go to the “has talent, but not there yet” folder.
I guess applicants themselves are to be blamed: you’re being in IT doesn’t automatically qualify you for a web design job. Would you believe I got an architect (as in BS Architecture) applying for an information architect position!? Some applicants shout HTML, CSS and 5 years experience then when you get to their sample URLs, you ask yourself, “it took him 5 years to get to that level?”
I know I’m aiming high, too high it seems. But that’s the standard I need: a visual monster with a healthy dose of Jakob Nielsen-ish tendencies, a thinking designer if you will. Now the market for that special skill group is incredibly sparse. Factor in the full time requirement and you end up with close to zero hits. To be honest, my search was not entirely a failure, I picked about 5 serious candidates for poaching… all that for a week’s worth of browsing each individual profile in the Philweavers member database.
While there were some poachable talents out there, majority of them prefer working remotely, either as a full time telecommuting employee or as an independent contractor, i.e. freelancer. And I don’t blame them. What could be better than waking up 10 AM to work in your pajamas for 5 hours, with unlimited cigarette, coffee and Xbox 360 breaks in between. I need someone who’s willing to make that daily commute to a real desk and a real office and unfortunately for me, the good ones that don’t shun the corporate world are already taken.
The other thing that ticks me off and I’m sad that I have to be the one to say this as I’m a firm believer in the quality of work Filipino Web professionals can deliver…most designers don’t know how to market themselves effectively. Consider the following:
- web designer without sample URLs (Matisyahu’s King Without a Crown comes to mind)
- web designer with sample URLs, but none of the URLs work (some do, but they’ve been squatted on already by domainers).
- level 2 web designer with 9 years experience (took you 9 years to climb up one level? wow.)
- listing your sample sites in the following order: oldest designs first/newest designs last (ok you probably want me to see the maturing design skills but if you had a fugly site as the first site on the list, that’s asking the recruiter to press ALT+F4)
- Have a good mix of design projects in your portfolio; a full Flash portfolio works for a Flash position but would be sacrilege for an Fortune 500 online retailer.
- If you have a pure adult portfolio, go ahead and post it. I think adult designers get the best training in usability and conversion marketing. Plus you give the recruiter extra eye candy :) having that porn background is not something you should be ashamed of.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a web designer, web developer or SEO. If you’re a web professional who’s intent on making a dent in the corporate world, a healthy dose of commonsense when preparing your application collaterals would go a long, long way.