IT IS HORRIBLE OUT There! I graduated in 04 and I can’t even find a place to intern!!! course it doesnt help when a school dosent prepare you for the work force (CSULB) I had to shell out money out of my own pocket to learn Solidworks, something my school SHOULD HAVE HAD!!! there are HIGH SCHOOLS here in san diego who TEACH SOLIDWORKS for christ sakes WHAT THE FUC!? but im not bitter…
EGG and MMjohn are so right. We need to appreciate the fact that we have some opportunity to develope our passion. I graduated two years ago and of the 17 who graduated 7 people got fulltime ID jobs 5 others have gotten freelance work. It seams to me that the people who had passion and drive in school are the ones who got fulltime gigs at high level design companies. Others who just went through the motions and got a degree are the ones who are struggling. Things have a way of working them selves out. A lot of my friends who studied other field did not follow through as there career.
EGG and MMjohn, I agree with you guys as well. Nevertheless, we are smart enough to get through times like these. For being such a creative bunch, I think we sometimes sell ourselves short on credit. Passion is definitely a driver of this.
When I was a freshman, my teachers would come in and with a rather sober glare, look at us and say, “if you are not sure why you are here, then you should probably leave now.” They would repeat these ominous declarations every now and then. They wanted us to understand that if there was any doubt about if we wanted to be designers or not, then we should consider alternatives.
I had no idea if I wanted to be in ID or not because I had not idea what ID was at the time. I had no idea if I had the passion necessary to make it through. Well, I have learned since then that it is more a principle of faith instead of passion. I am optimistic that I can make some small contribution to the world. I don’t know if I am passionate about a certain design problem, but I am sure that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Thinking about how to make the world a better place.
I think there will always be obstacles to our profession both from within and without. I guess our passion helps us in the day to day, but in the end it is more of our faith that we can incrementally make a difference for the greater good.
To borrow a phrase, “No one said it would be easy, but that it would be worth it.”
Hmm I feel relieved to have studied footwear design - in this case there aren’t enough courses in the world (you can count them on your hands) and theres a shortage IMO.
Everyone I work with complains theres not enough techically skilled shoe designers coming to the trade.
I’ts unlikely the jobs will end up in China as you need to be close to marketplace to understand fashion trends in those markets.
When I gradutated (14 years ago) there were more graduate job offers than actual students in my year!
But there are far too many fashion courses and not enough jobs. I remember a tutor years ago telling me not to specialize too early. How thankful I am that I did!
This is the rant that never ends! The problem is that no one is honest with themselves, and the schools are too interested in money to let the instructors weed out the under achievers and just plain untalented designers.
mmjohns said companies are looking for the supper designer, well not really out of the 6 designers only one knew CAD, and all are average sketchers. It is the raw talent, passion for eternal learning, probelm solving, and design, and most importantly the personality to work seamlessly with (and gain the respect of) PHDs in bimechamics, global marketing, anthopology, psycology, sociology, etc. They also have to have to exibit the professionalism and managment skills to initiate and manage a multidiciplinary development team, and present it to the CEOs of our fourtune 100 clients around the world.
By the way, 3 of the 6 were recent grads, all from lesser known schools too. Perhapse some of the larger art and design schools need an ego check to see that they are training drones not developing designers.
I studied in England. Yes, I agree that schools don’t seem to care too much about talent and teaching the necessary skills. I also know that it is a lot about what we make out of our time at university/colleges. Schools do manage to somehow kill the passion that students have when they start, though. During my studies I very often missed enthusiastic and conctructive support from my tutors. Maybe it’s too much to ask for when they have to deal with so many untalented students who they know will not end up doing design work.
Of course it’s always the same when it comes to choosing schools: one is always wiser afterwards. My school wasn’t that bad by all means but in the end it was all about money. At least that what it seemed like. Even one of my tutors seemed to be rather annoyed by the fact that it was all about how the school was perceived by prospective students and their parents (mostly Asian and other non-european students as they paid the full tuition fees).
Even at the end of my 3rd year (it’s a 3 years course in England) it came down to money. During that time of year most students hardly had any funds left to pay for an expensive model that could be shown at one of graduation shows. I was also surprised by just how many colleges and universities have started Product/Industrial Design courses during the last decade and just how many students were out there doing their graduation shows in London hoping that the industry would come to pick them or at least give constructive critiques.
When I visited one of the biggest shows in London (New Designers) I felt like visiting a meat market. (One of my tutors actually did call it the “cattle market” as, ironically enough, the hall this show is being held at every year used to be a meat market hall.) After seeing all these students presenting their work with some lokking very much alike, one really can loose their passion and drive that is to important in order to survive or make it in this tough business.
I was lucky to get a job after graduation but only because I had the contact. Now I realized this is not what I want to do. After almost 5 years of studying I seem to have lost my passion and I’m struggling to figure out what exactly it is that I want to do.
I have the possibilty to start over or try out something new by moving to Sweden. I know it will be tough there as well and I’m not that naive to believe that the grass is greener on the other side. For the moment I’m concerned about not finding work as my portfolio is very versatile and not so much specialized on one particular field. Although I know that I can do (almost) anything if only I can convince future employers.
Im getting ready to start as a fresman in 2006 and im wondering now if im making the right choice of where to take my education/career. Is it safe to assume that many students in ID programs are in it for the hype? Now that there is so much competition only the strong make it to the surface after school? It seems that there are alot of grad’s that are struggling to get by? This makes me wonder if they had any skills before school that could help them live comfortably.
Are most of the ID’ers struggling to find work people who went to school fresh out of High School??? Whats the age range of those who are having difficulty finding their “dream job”?
Just like any other industry or aspect of society, there are only a handfull that stand out from the crowd. Ive got some ideas that i think will take specific industries in a new direction that hasnt been traveled yet. Is that what will make the difference in getting a good job when i plan to graduate several years from now? Should i have any doubts about my decision to become an ID, or reasons to reconsider before i pay the big bux for tuition?
I’ve been self employed since i was out of HS and I’m doing the best i ever have financially so im not worried about paying my bills later. I just hope it’ll be easier to take my work to the higher level. Can anyone say that with my situation i have a chance to be where i want 10-20 years from now? It doesnt seem like a lot of grads have the persistance to focus on the long term investment of doing what you love and loving what you do.
Can someone prove or disprove that it’s worse than it was?
I’m skeptical–it seems like everyone I know is having trouble appropriately staffing their teams, and the classified ads in the back of “Design Perspectives” suddenly occupy pages, not just columns.
Coroflot has 155 Industrial Jobs posted right now, and 308 design-related jobs posted in total.
ID has certainly fragmented over the past few decades, might part of the problem be that schools are lagging behind on this trend and misplacing their grads in the marketplace?
It seems like most of the jobs are for upper level, but it’s mostly new grads / juniors that aren’t getting work. Nobody’s taking in the inexperienced / new grads. Most seniors / experienced already work, so places looking for them are just swapping the same talent pool back + forth. But not many places are taking in enough inexperienced designers to enable them to learn what they need to in order to get into the more highly sought after senior positions. They either go off and switch focus or do their own thing, which after being their own boss, would have trouble then working under anybody else. There’s a lopsided gap between what’s available, like: 10 senior postions available, only 2 seniors looking…while at the same time, 5 junior positions available - 50 juniors looking. What people want and what’s available don’t match up.
I’d say companies should bring in more inexperienced designers and mold them so that there will be a pool of new talent to choose from. Most places I’ve been in, there will only be 1 intern in the dept. for every 5-6 seniors. So only 1 gets to learn what they need to be successful while the other 10 they beat out are mcjobbing. Then when all those seniors leave to do other things, there’s only 1 or 2 younger guys ready to fill in and then theres a shortage and trouble finding upper level talent.
Schools are graduating way to many under qualified students. And more design departments opening all the time. The talent pool is being diluted so the competition in school is also declining. My guess is that the top 25% will continue as working professionals.
My undergraduate degree was in dance- something that I was really passionate about. But, what you see on stage is only 10% of the life of a dancer - most is hard work; pain, fatigue and injury; eating disorders; low wages and short careers; spotty employment, etc, etc. In the arts, not everyone is, or can be the star. You just have to decide how much crap you want to put up with vs. how well you can survive without doing something you truly love. I, too, found in my graduate program that it was difficult to find some support from the faculty (who were very much involved with their research.) By the end of my program, I was very jaded by the amount of energy that seemed to go into recruiting students vs turning out quality, focused students, able to get jobs easily. I think some job searching does depend on your own initiative, though. When I studied dance I really took charge finding auditions and making connections whenever I could, and because I was so passionate about it that I enjoyed doing it. I think whenever you (in the universal sense) find your true passion, jobs will come easier because you’ll be so tenacious about your field. It’s just a musing - I could be wrong…
I’d agree with skinny that the large majority of the jobs are aimed at people with at least 3+ years of experience and they are all located on the coasts where the cost of living is high and the pay is just enough to get a closet sized studio apartment and a case of ramen noodles.
Things in the midwest are terrible right now. Every time I turn around another manufacturer is closing and at least two or more seasoned designers are given the boot out the door. The jobs that are available around here aren’t that great. I checked out one recently in the St. Louis area and it turned out the company made outdoor trash cans. I’ll be damned if I take that job and have a portfolio full of trashcans and other things that will guarantee me not to get a good job down the road.
Motorola recently posted some jobs in Chicago but they opened them to international candidates as well as local. You can guarantee that if you applied for that job you resume and portfolio is currently buried under 500 resumes from slovakia and bangladesh. I won’t hold me breath waiting for a call anytime soon, I know how long it takes to wade through a mess of resumes that deep. I had the honor at my last corporate job.
Yeah that’s been one thing that has ocurred to me at my current job, and my last job - there just doesn’t seem to be that much design work - I had a corporate job and was stuck doing paperwork for the last 10 months of it, with no new projects to design, and now at my current job I’ve had to do some cad work to stay busy - I’m sure things are slow in the summer, but it seems sometimes like there just isn’t that much design work in the world, at least not enough to keep me and my co workers busy - I’m sure when we get busy that story will change - but it did make me think about the feasibility of this career.
Hey there,
What are the good and the bad about Industrial design in terms of jobs out there in the industry…
So what if manufactures in the midwest are closeing, this is a global economy. I am located in the Midwest and have had a 60% increase in clients over the past two years, with the average size of the programs moving from 30k to 100+k by focussing on a larger aray of clients. In the last two years I have had clients from all across America and Canada, India, Hong Kong, and even China. The work is there, and the pay is there if you have the ability to see and grab the oppertunities, and the confidence to sell your services.
I do freelance and its true that there are some midwestern companies doing well and expanding, but they aren’t expanding to the point that they can hire more designers. The most successful company that I work with recently let some designers go and is now relying on freelancers to do work as needed.
Another company that I once worked with had all the designers walk out because of the poor working conditions, pay, projects, and general environment and now that company outsources to foreign designers and some locals who are willing to do the work for cheap. They have pretty much exhausted the local talent pool and nobody will work for them or recommend that people go there.
Oh god. The stories keep getting worse. Is there any hope for new grads who may not be super designers?
I’m currently working on a website for a friend who is in the job recruiting industry (non-design), and I caught part of a webinar that he was watching on the state of the job market in the country. While this may not apply to designers on all fronts, a main point in the presentation was that companies are now looking for super-employees who are able to multitask and take on multiple job areas within the office, ie only people with significant experience.
They see lack of experience as a major hurdle in getting people in the door because they are only finding inexperienced people and can’t place them in jobs (no fees for them). Even though the job market in the US is going to open up in the future as the boomers retire, the majority of the jobs that open will be experienced positions and they already know that their won’t be enough people to fill them. Its going to be a real catch-22 for people as they can’t get a job without significant experience and can’t get experience without a job.
Personally I think there has to be a breaking point somewhere down the road as employers search and search without finding someone so that they have to take on entry level people.
On the other hand I know of one Midwest firm who is on the brink of tripling their design department in just the last 10 months. They are now in the double digits and still looking.
Mmjohns is correct thought they are looking for designers who bring a unique viewpoint to the team, from extensive retail/marketing, journalism, medical, biometrics, fashion, management, prototyping, materials/technologies, or like myself an almost unnatural ability to connect with and enter the thought process of a potential consumer (psychology dual major). Most with 1-3 years design experience, and all worked 20-40 hours a week jobs during school, as well as extensive volunteer and social activities.
PDM…?
u KM?