I have been thinking over the last few days about how a designer can improve his or her chances of being accepted for a job interview. One of the key things I think that is important, apart from the Portfolio, is the Cover Letter.
“Of course,” I hear you chanting by the thousands, but I was thinking more about the content of the cover letter.
I think that graduates concentrate more on proving themselves as a designer, rather than how they can benifit a particular company because they are a designer. You see, a company wants to make money and so no matter how good the employees, if they don’t know squat about profitability, selling their product and making it market worthy then is it really worth employing them?
We’re all passionate about design, we’re all fast learners and brimming with those fantastic ideas you see in the glossy pages but how many graduates actually come out of university and know where to start to create a line of power tools, for example. Well, my answer, probably not as many as should be able to.
I think the role of a designer is a hard one. You have to have the open mind in order to think outside the box, you need the innovation to stay ahead of the game, you need business skills to understand how you can make your product profitable, you need marketing skills to understand branding and communication into the marketplace and you need sales experience to sell yourself and your ideas to the world. Above all of this, i believe that you need a high degree of confidence.
The artistic types are well known for their bumpy rides within the confines of self-confidence. It can go sky high just as quickly as it can lead into depression. Not that every artist, designer or creative mind will get depressed, it’s easy to see why.
So I think that selling yourself in a cover letter is pretty important, and the way that you sell yourself is also important. Selecting the subjects you cover within your cover letter could make the difference in who you appeal to and what your suspected level of experience is. Calling upon past experience to relate to possible future projects could help the employer to see something they really want within their company, and possibly show up some specialist areas.
Direction within a cover letter can show up just as much information as the actual information you put into a cover letter. Of course, don’t forget to tell them why you’re perfect for the job too!
