Finding a Job

For starters, it doesn’t help that the market is completely oversaturated with graphic designers and marketing people. Couple that with the fact that London is a prime destination for anyone in the EU so you’re not only competing with some bloke from London, but one that’s come from Berlin, Paris, Milan, Stockholm, etc., etc. and you realize you’re up against some serious competition.

An employer can ask for a graphic designer with10 years experience in the Christmas tree industry who can also juggle 3 swords while riding a unicycle and there will be 20 people applying for the job with those exact same skills. So forget it if you’re missing one component of the laundry list. For that reason it’s virtually impossible to switch the industry you’re working in as well. Ninety percent of the job ads posted are posted through recruiting agencies who work for the employer, not the employee. They spend about 3 seconds looking at your resume (or “CV” as it’s referred to here) and all they’re really concerned about is whom you’ve worked for and what your title was. It doesn’t matter if you can do all the relevant tasks, if you haven’t done those tasks for the right employer, or within the right industry, forget it. I responded to a job ad for a graphic designer at a financial firm, for example, and when I called to follow up with the recruiter he flat out told me I wouldn’t be considered, regardless of how good of a designer I may be because I hadn’t worked in a financial services firm before. When I asked him what difference that made he said, “none, but I’ve got loads of other CVs here of graphic designers who have worked in finance before and that’s what the employer prefers.”

If job hunting in London taught me nothing else, it certainly taught me persistence. If you don’t call to follow up on a resume you sent, you’ll never get a response. The only successful “hits” I had were those that I called to later harass.

Even finding office temp work was nearly impossible. One day I walked around to 5 different temp agencies with resume in hand and not one of them would even take my resume. Temp agencies want young little 20-somethings with little experience… not disgruntled, gray-haired over 30s like myself.

Eventually I managed to get on with a freelance graphic design agency which was a great experience for me! It’s really tough hopping in to the fast-paced advertising agency environment and trying to figure your way around their system and files but I really enjoyed the exposure to the agency world. Most of the time I was doing pretty basic monkey-work, but some of the time I was doing real design work and getting paid roughly $36/hr. to do it. I couldn’t believe that life can be so good! The downside, however, was that the work was not consistent, just a day or two here and there. But at least I can say, even if for just a very short time, I did actually work in a London advertising agency.

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