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HELP!!!!!!!! I’m STUCK!!!!!!
Hello ladies and gentlemen,
I’m having a hard time trying to land a motion graphics designer job at a design company in the greater NYC area. I have worked with previous companies such as CNN, WABC TV, NBA, MSNBC, but the timeframe for the majority of these companies have been 1 month. When I apply for companies they look at my timeframe and throw it in the trash….so I then decided to try and start from the beginning as a junior designer, but I then get the ” why do you want to work as a junior designer when you were a senior designer at your last job?”…. I DID NOT ASK FOR THE TITLE…….I’ll even do an internship but i graduated in 2000 and most companies want students……..so what do I do?
Do I deny that i ever went to school and “go for it” or do I use my resume with the big companies and stay in the same cycle….ANY response would be greatly appreciated. -
1 Reply
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You explain in your cover letter and resume and interviews that you are a freelancer and you point to your portfolio of work. Nobody expects freelancers to have a long one-company work history. You tell them you’re a freelancer looking to settle down and be full-time in one place, because you had a stint like that once and liked it. Though in your case you might actually do better business wise trying to get on retainer and working between a handful of freelance clients from home, as needed. The company finds this attractive because they don’t have to pay a lot of benefits, just your fee, and that, only for the actual work you do, the rest of the time you are dead to them. YOU save out the benefits out of the fee you charge, so charge adequately to cover your expenses. Establish your basic rate and bill hourly, with a deposit up front to reserve your time, and the rest on approval/delivery.
For these kinds of jobs, the resume is a distant second to the references and the portfolio/demo reel. The reel is prime; without it you’re sunk. Concentrate on a killer reel and web site demos, keep samples on your cell phone or ipod as well, just in case you get a surprise contact out of the blue. And network using all the folks you’ve ever done things for.
And don’t send the demo to HR; send it to the promotions director, the head of programming, the sales deprtment, any place in the company but the HR department. HR people don’t understand what you do. They understand hiring accountants and janitors and CEO’s. Better that someone else in the organization calls you in and then hands you off to them, pre-qualified. Or skip HR altogether, except in cases where they process your invoice.
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