“Show me who you are and how you work, not what you’ve done”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

I live in London and I’m looking for a creative job, especially as a junior graphic designer. I studied graphic design in Greece and I did my internship as a junior graphic designer in a design studio a few years ago. I currently work in retail and occasionally I try my best working on my portfolio, and create brands or any freelance work I’ve been asked to do from clients. I have a huge passion for graphic design and especially for branding and social media digital graphics for publishing (mainly on fashion, beauty, food and lifestyle), and I wish one day I can work full-time in an agency, magazine, design studio or anything relevant.

What do you think is best to do, apart from a good portfolio, to get a job without lots of experience?

Katie Cadwell, co-founder of branding studio Lucky Dip and The NDA Podcast:

Something I ask anyone in the job hunt — how much are you engaging with the design industry? Are you going to events, connecting with people on LinkedIn, liking their posts or sharing work you love? You could be writing articles, applying to speaking gigs (events like Design Matters have a spotlight slot for people new to the industry) or building an online following. The truth is, when someone recognises your name, they’ll likely respond to your email. I’ve seen this work so many times over my career. If someone made an effort to introduce themselves after a talk, or engaged with my content online, I was much more likely to recommend them or meet up for a coffee.

There are ways to grab the attention of studios. I’ve heard of big stunts with parachutes or barbershop quartets, and seen clever leave-behinds or beautiful pieces of print (I actually redesigned some KitKats to hand out at a portfolio review once, which landed me a placement with a hungry design director).

If illustration is your passion, could you drop off a print of their studio you’ve drawn? Or if you love copywriting, how about a newspaper with your story? Christmas cards with a smart idea at the heart? Or even simpler, starting a blog reviewing agencies’ projects. The one thing we all have in common is that we love to read nice things about our work. Think about how you could be on their desk or screen in a more engaging way. Steer clear of gimmicks that don’t relate to you in some way though.

Finally, there is this notion that your portfolio needs to be this polished deck, with end-to-end projects and case studies filled with animations or 3D mockups. Let me say, that’s not the case. When I’m looking at portfolios, I want to see your thinking. Not your craft. I want to see your passions, not finished projects. Show me sketches, tell me the brief and where you started your research, or insights that might’ve opened up new places to explore. Show me who you are and how you work, not what you’ve done.

Best of luck.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

For this week’s question, we collaborated with our sister company, Creative Lives in Progress – an inclusive creative careers resource, on a mission to transform the way emerging talent access, understand and connect with the industry.

If You Could is the jobs board from It’s Nice That, the place to find jobs in the creative industries.

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