We’re quieter, but we also have the same amount of time in a day as everybody else on earth. 

Time is fair game, and it’s important to know where you’re spending all your hours. 

Okay, you’ve graduated. Now what?

19 years of schooling. Now what? 

With only 5 of those years dedicated to learning in a design-focused institution, it really goes to show that there is 0% chance that you’d be the best designer you could be at age 22, with close to 0 years of industry experience, and one single thesis project. 

More ways to become a better designer in 2020: 

Be prone to learning—about everything. 

When the world has so much to offer, when other people have so much to give, it’s so easy to walk around with your mind wide open as curiosity helps us learn so much.

Yet, sometimes we do the exact opposite. As we grow older and have answered more of our own questions, we build up opinions that provide more structure for ourselves. 

A wall is a wall (and that’s that). 

The question we could be asking is: What else can a wall be? 

Total chaos unleashes when we reframe our perspectives.

Amplify this: It’s not who you know, but how many you know

A case of quantity over quality. When your jobs and income depends on the amount of clients you’re able to get, you need to know more people from the places you need to be associated with. 

Attend unlikely networking events. If you’re the only graphic designer in a room full of healthcare marketing folks, you’ve got business.

These are my personal 2 steps I’m going to be taking for my time to come in the upcoming months. If you have any you’d like to share, I’d love to read them.

To get the answer off the table real fast, you don’t. You don’t know whether or not the hiring manager will pick you amongst hundreds, if not thousands, of other applicants who are better than you at what you do. 

Then how will we get a job after graduation in May? 

I’m tired of hearing my talented friends and colleagues being unable to land dream jobs after graduation. 

It’s in a designer’s strength to deploy empathy to this kind of situation:

During the next few months, when will your favourite company be opening up positions? 

During the next few months, what are the loudest ways you could get yourself heard to the other side (to the hiring manager)? 

Of those methods, which one are you willing to choose to act upon? 

In a people-based hiring world, it doesn’t matter what kind of tools you use, the program know-how you have, or how many pieces you have in your portfolio. 

If the company doesn’t know you exist, how are you supposed to join them?

Akin to making friends, how do they know they want to be buddies with you if you don’t let them know you’re here? 

Allow yourself to be seen and heard. Let them know you’re here.