Your Full-Time Job While Job Hunting
Ways to stay the upmost productive for creatives to stay creative while job searching.
It’s been a little scary going back into the job market, I know some of you designers can understand.
A little bit about me, I have always had a job — whether that be an internship, sales associate at a clothing store, or a concierge at a hotel. My number one fear is waking up in the morning and not having something productive to do.
After contemplating applying for a part-time job (still contemplating) while undergoing the competitive job application process, I have decided to take it upon myself to follow a schedule (yes, I know, I’m Type A).
I wanted to share for those of you in the process — there are so many activities you could be doing while writing those vigorous cover letters and applying on Indeed and Monster (ew).
9am: Get up in the morning at a normal hour. Take a shower (best way to wake up), fix your self a cup of coffee and a half an hour later you should be on your computer beginning to take charge of the day.
9:30am: Keep up with trends! It’s exciting to find new and exciting things that are happening in the space right now. This is the time where people actually care about design and user experience, it is all about the user (finally!). Some of my favorites are: UX Collective, UX in Motion, Prototypr, UX Planet, and of course, NYC Design. All of those collections are just on Medium. Some others include: Mashable — UX , Techcrunch.com, Designzzz, Inside Design by Invision, Adobe Blog, and Smashing Magazine. (If you have more suggestions, let me know!)
11:00am: Okay, now it’s time to job search. I have compiled a list of different job boards (including the boring ones — but it’s vital) that I use to find myself a job.*Tip: create an excel document that allows you to log in the employer, position, link, and date that you applied — after 2 weeks it’s safe to say it’s not going to happen. Also, try to apply to at least 5 jobs a day.
Glassdoor.com: Lists plenty of jobs, pretty good when searching key words.
Indeed.com: most known job board — plenty of job posts.
LinkedIn.com: sometimes these jobs aren’t up-to-date.
Angel.co: really great for start-up businesses (i.e. any company from 1–5 employees to Glossier and GlamSquad). Another thing to note, when applying, sometimes the company’s website (that you’re applying to), are not available or have a careers section, definitely apply directly on the website if you can. For Angel.co, there is a great and easy process to apply, the user is given a 1000 character max, a “cover letter,” which makes the process super swift. Another cool aspect of Angel.co, they tell you how many applicants have applied, just to gage competition (don’t let that stop you).
CreativeCircle.com: I love Creative Circle, Creative Circle always sends me at least 3 e-mails a day for job opportunities that specifically resonate with my objective and expected pay. Creative Circle also gives their “employees” benefits if you work for a certain amount of time. The idea is that CC pulls hundrends of different design talent and essentially poses themselves as a freelance agency. They provide opportunities from 2 weeks to full-time. They are kind of big, working with Forbes 500 companies like Google. Promising, I know.
Aquent.com: Same goes for Aquent. For Creative Circle, you have to go into the office and go through an application process. For Aquent, you merely sign-up and they send you e-mails with job descriptions.
Builtinnyc.com: Probably my favorite job site right now, it is a very cool site, they don’t hide e-mails or websites, they direct you the application directly on the company’s site. (Which is what I always try to do.) The website also features new startups, events, news, and a blog. Truly, my go-to.
Hired.com: You have to be fancy shmancy to get into Hired. They are a site where companies match with your profile, and they reach out to you. It’s the Bumble of the job process.
Google.com/jobs: Another easy go-to, they share multiple links where you can apply (which is nice), they also let you filter…a lot. I typically filter by location, title, and Past 7 days (when the job was posted).
Design Jobs: Pretty cool site, only issue is that they only show jobs that were posted int the last few days. They aggregate content from my next two beauties: Behance and Dribbble.
Dribbble & Behance: Please, go on Dribbble and Behance every day. It is a great way to keep up to trend, get inspired, and best of all, look for JOBS! Both amazing sites with the option of showcasing your projects and creativity. Another way digital agencies and other companies scour for talent.
1:00pm: Fine, take a lunch break. (Finish that last job application…)
2:00pm: Enhance your skillset. There are so many wonderful FREE tools to update your skills and add another one of those softwares to your LinkedIn. Especially for a UX designer, you could be learning Sketch, Axure, Principle, Adobe XD, Invision, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, HTML, CSS, Flash, Java, JavaScript, Flinto, Atomic.co, etc. I could keep going… If you are interested in learning through videos, some of the websites (Adobe) have tutorials available. I like to watch, Danksy *not Banksy.* He’s amazing. Danksy is super instructive without being super slow, he produces and explains wireframes, prototypes, designs etc. Another great education system, is the Interaction Design Foundation. It is only $12.99 to subscribe with unlimited classes on UX. Lastly, Skillshare.com, a platform where educators and instructors upload tutorial videos and teach viewers how to use any tool. You could sign up and receive a free trial, there are hundreds of videos from design, tech, gaming, photography, and many more.
4:00pm: Now that you learned a little something, go back on Dribbble & Behance, and Github. Update your profiles, get inspiration, and follow some great agencies and designers.
5:00pm: I’m tapped out. I’m going to my 5:30pm Hot Yoga class. I’ll catch you all tomorrow — hope this was helpful!
- Note to self: get a freaking job.
