Recently, Drew McLellan, a London-based web developer and member of WSaP, was interviewed by zlog. Towards the end of his interview, he hit upon something that has been on my mind lately. Drew said:
It’s so much tougher starting out today than it was even five years ago. When I started out with the web, we had HTML 2, CGI and Photoshop, and that was about it. No JavaScript, no CSS, no XML or XSL and certainly nothing more complex that a ‘formmail’ perl script on the server side. The barrier for entry — even professionally— was pretty low, and an afternoon’s skim reading of an HTML guide was about all you needed to start building sites. If you were a ‘web master’ you did the design, the markup, and took care of the server.
Most of you know this isn’t the case any longer. Today, we have designers, developers, systems administrators, etc. However, my recent job search has left me wondering if most employers know this. At times, I’m finding absurd qualifications and requirements for open positions. The big design firms are well aware of what’s happened in the industry, but I can’t always say the same for the non-technical company that wants to do things in-house.
Take a look at this list of requirements for a “Graphic Designer/Web Developer”, which I just pulled off monster.com:
They also ramble on about how you need a degree in the visual arts and you must have 5-7 years of graphic design experience in an in-house or agency setting.
Yeah, right.
Seriously…they want you to be a designer, animator, illustrator, programmer, system administrator, and DBA. And what’s more, they’re willing to pay $35,000 - $40,000 a year! Hang on while I do some cartwheels.
Granted, a lot of us can do all of these things. I’ve done my share of systems administration and scripting, and I know plenty of you could pull off most of these requirements as well. But should we? And do we want to?
Personally, my passion is design. I got into this industry as a computer geek, but these days I’m a lot more interested in media, communication, UI, and advertising than I am in programming and administration. I’ll be glad to help out where I can with the super technical stuff, but I can’t pretend to be an expert in every possible area.
I find a similar phenomenon with my friends and family. I meet someone, and they ask me what I do. I say, “oh, I’m a graphic and web designer.” They get all giddy and say, “Great! Then you can fix my computer!” Or, “Oh, my company is looking for a network administrator — you should apply!”
It’s not their fault they don’t get it — they shouldn’t be expected to. But a company looking for an employee is a different situation entirely. They should know that most people are specialists these days. They should understand that no one person can possibly have the skills, time, and energy to do the work of five different positions.
In the zlog interview, Drew goes on to say, “Today, web professionals tend to be specialists. The medium has expanded so much that very few can be expert at all those tasks. However, you do still need a working knowledge of all sides of the job and need to know exactly where the boundaries lie between you and the people you’re working with.”
This is very true. I feel that one of my strengths is that I do have some experience with and a basic understanding of almost everything on that ridiculously long list up top. That being said, I’m an expert in only a handful of them.
So as a potential candidate for this position, the posting leaves me with a million questions: Do I qualify for this position? How can I tell? Does the company even know what they’re really looking for? Do they realize that this should be a job for four or five people, not one? Are they just trying to cover all the bases? If I get the job, am I going to be overloaded and end up hating it?
I just wonder if most employers understand that the industry has changed, that’s all.
001 // Keith // 06.24.2004 // 6:12 PM
While I don’t think these unrealistic job descriptions are anything new, I know what you’re feeling.
At my job I’m constantly asked to work with things like .net and IIS. Our IT group is high on this stuff and I seem to feel quite often that I’m being pushed to “delve into server administration or C#.”
Sure, I live in Seattle, and everyone here is an MS lovin’, over-engineer, but for crying out loud, as if I don’t do enough in my regular job.
I’m not going to take time out to learn .net — I’m a Web designer! ;)
You simply can’t keep up with everything that makes a good designer and keep up with things like DBA, sys admin, and backend code behind stuff. At some point you’re skills will suffer for being spread so thin.
For myself I chose a while back (4-5 years ago) to let go of the server side, sys admin stuff (I used to know CF, JSP, and more pretty well) and concentrate on things that relate to what I do. Now I focus on IA, Usability, Web standards — you know client side.
I don’t think many people can do both well. Unfortunately, I’m not one of the people hiring Web designers now… ;)
002 // Jim // 06.24.2004 // 6:36 PM
Unfortunately I don’t think they do. I’ve seen a lot of those jobs at monster.com, all with requirements that are way exagerrated and for salaries that are frankly too low. You hit the nail on the head when you say these employers shouldn’t be as ingorant of what we do as the common folk. I don’t understand how they can be any good at business if they don’t even know how to hire the right professional.
003 // Brian Ford // 06.24.2004 // 9:51 PM
Well, as a long out of (professional) work designer, I can tell you what the problem is. There is currently an over-saturated market in design AND administration, due in large part to the shitty economy. What this means is that a lot of corporations have discovered that they can hire a ridiculous amount of talent for very little pay because people desperately need jobs right now.
Unfortunately it means one or two things… GOOD designers are getting bad or NO jobs, because administrators (despite the lack of education) can “pick up” design. Which in turn means that the quality of design work at these corporations is bound to suffer.
Sadly, I know I’m never going to be able to “pick up” system administration, nor do i have any desire to. There are signs that the economy and job market are improving, but it’s pretty slow.
Of course, in an ideal situation, I’d work in a firm where I’d be in close contact with the 4 other people necessary to get the job done correctly, and we’d all know each others role and how to stay out of each others and create a solid end product. Realistically, firms that are posting on Monster.com are hiring individuals, finding they’re not able to cope and firing them and starting over. It’s becoming a sad tendency in KC especially to expect designers to work crazy long hours, dedicate personal time to, and live life FOR work. Locally, Virtumundo is the worst of these corporations. The horror stories of this ONE asshole who owns what boils down to a SPAM corporation are endless.
And then there are some companies who allow their HR department type up the job description, and some corporate shill busts out the “tech speak” job description list and they put everything that sounds “important” in the ad. I’d say just apply for jobs that you don’t think you qualify for, because in many cases you probably do. At worst, you’ll find out during an interview that they DO have insane expectations and you can roll your eyes and learn from the interview.
And, somewhat unrelated but…. you’re not going to find “great” jobs on Monster.com anyway. Most really good design firms and advertising agencies aren’t going to look for help in this way. It opens the field up to WAY too many hopefuls without experience. A referal at a firm from networking is still the best way to go.
What -I- miss is the absence of “entry level” from just about every agency around. Gone are the days of hiring potential and raising loyalty through solid pay and a great learning experience that results in a long-term partnership. The trend is now hire experience, and then dump them when you’re through. I find that I can’t really get a job bercause I haven’t ever HAD a real job. It’s the ol’ catch 22. You can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. I really regret that I didn’t get any sort of internship during school when I could have concievably afforded to do so.
004 // France // 06.25.2004 // 2:07 AM
Much like you, I had that creative/technical vibe in me that steered me in this direction. Early in my college education I knew a Graphic Design degree was a good fit since it gave me (and my parents) the security of knowing there were many different forks in the road I could take - print design, photography, advertising, print management, prepress, multimedia, journalism, pressman, screenprinting… and then just 2 years before graduation the light was clear - web design.
But that didn’t make the skill development any easier; rather, I then had to accept the realization I should have been a double major all along - bringing Computer Sciences into the mix. Instead, I did what we all did and mastered as many Monster keywords as time allowed.
So now I no longer spend as much time developing my skillset specifically to acquire non-front-end acronyms, though I maintain familarity with them.
Here’s what I do now: I don’t describe myself with as many of those keywords above (not to say we should trash that list); rather, I list the discplines that describe what I do and am passionate about - Visual Design, Presentation Layer Code, Usability, and Information Architecture. The trick then becomes to define those discplines very succinctly and still tie them to the keywords so Suzy HR Workerbee #876 doesn’t pass your resume by. Not an easy task, I know.
005 // Mike P. // 06.25.2004 // 3:09 AM
Heh - more cartwheels are in store when you do get that job and then you aren’t given enough time to do any of them properly.
Wait, that’s what it feels like on your own too. Huh… ;-]
006 // Brian Ford // 06.25.2004 // 7:39 AM
I should mention also that the whole point in networking is to find a way to get your resumé PAST HR. I would estimate ones chances of making it to the interview stage improve 50% or more just by starting a resumé with the creative director. This person is far more likely to go with a solid skill set as opposed to someone who is good at “padding” their credentials. Calling around and asking to meet with Creative Directors at firms you admire is a good idea. This way you get to TALK with people, and might impress them and they just MIGHT give you a lead if they can’t currently hire you.
007 // jake // 06.28.2004 // 12:02 PM
Wow, so they basically just looked up a list of web technologies and printed the whole entire thing? I can’t imagine an organizatino using, PERL, Coldfusion, ASP, PHP and JSP. At least they’re only using 1 database technology. ;) I think the only explanation besides the whole HR wrote it up idea previously presented is that they have a lot of problems in their IT department. :)
As others have said, I know a few things really well and most others I have a basic structure of knowledge. It’s served me well so far.
And what’s the deal with that salary?!?
008 // Adam Hopkins // 06.28.2004 // 1:46 PM
That salary is about standard for design jobs found on monster.com. I have all but given up hope to find a new job using that site. Web designers should band together, form one company and dominate the industry. I know, there are many things wrong with this idea, but in a perfect world it would work.
009 // Neil // 07.01.2004 // 6:11 PM
From my experience, the vast majority of these job descriptions are created by HR folks who know absolutely nothing about the position they’re hiring for.
So, they go off and look at other ads, and other postings with the same job title, and then create their own ad as a Frankensteinian mishmash of the ads they looked at.
When I was working full-time (before I switched to freelancing) I would apply for these anyway. More often than not the actual job description was much more realistic.
010 // Helen // 07.21.2004 // 2:33 PM
Well, I believe they don’t really know what they are looking for… in fact, your reasoning concerning specialists and experts is right. But what I want to say is that a good web designer (a design expert) MUST possess basic knowledge of the requtrements from the list. And for an employer it is really difficult to find such an employee, because he can’t check everything.