Looking for advice/ opinion / your experience

[Broken]

hi

I am a Middle Aged woman trying to get employment following redundancy 6 months ago.

I am struggling to find jobs that I can apply for because of these reasons:

- I only want part time work (3 days per wk)
- I don’t have a degree
- I only have in-house experience
- I am looking for a salary that supports my existing financial commitments! (ie not a junior salary)

Basically I have over 10 years experience artworking / graphic design but I am finding that jobs that meet my experience are only offered at a junior level salary. I am a senior (in my 40s) and thus require a salary that supports this, yet they only seem to be offered for much senior positions, ones that I don’t have the experience for. Don’t get me wrong, I know that this is a highly competitive industry and the salary I am looking for merely respresents my last employment, I am not asking the earth. Yet employers are certainly put off when they find out how much £ I’m after. It seems they only want to employee young, cheap 20 somethings. My last employer did exactly this. Slowly as people left the team, they were replaced with younger, cheaper staff.

Does anyone have advice on how I can achieve this? Any similar experiences? I also feel that I have the fact that I work part time goes against me. I have applied for full time work in sheer desperation but have had no luck. I am now worried that as time goes on and I am longer ‘out of the game’ that I will loose all my knowledge, and am becoming increasingly unemployable.

 

[Wardy]

It sounds like you need to have a go at freelancing, do you have any connections you could contact?

 

[Paul Murray]

Freelancing in-house is an option but risky. Workload is up and down, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to get the 3 days per week that you're available and some studios can take up to 3 months to pay an invoice (I'm still waiting on a payment from work I completed mid-August). I wouldn't recommend taking the leap completely, but certainly look out for freelance opportunities whilst you look for job openings.

The part-time thing probably does go against you a little – an employer is losing a staff member 2 days a week, it makes sense for them to hire someone younger with similar overall pay when you factor in the additional 2 days they work. I'd wager your artworking experience is probably a better skill to push. There's hundreds of designers out there but only a handful that know how to artwork correctly. If I were you I'd probably be looking for freelance artworker opportunities. Events companies might be a good bet since there's often a hell of a lot of print required that one staff member won't be able to handle alone.

 

[scotty]

It sounds like freelancing may be your solution.

If you can get by on a part time income then it's a lot less risky and you've nothing to lose.
You could pick your own hours and not leave the safety of your own house which will annoy your enemies.
You'd just need to set up a website which is cheap and easy if you use Wordpress and get word out.

If you have art-working skills then approach local design agencies and printers.
Maybe you could offer an art-working service?
I used to work at a printers and you'd be surprised at the state of some of the artwork files I used to get from apparent "top agencies".
Missing fonts and images. no crops, bleed or registration.

Good art-workers are a real asset as many 'Designers' don't have the skills/experience or think they're above doing it.
Very few young Designers are taught this at college or uni either.

Yes, it can be a bit slow to get going and there are peaks and troughs but again , you've nothing to lose by trying.
Plus, it LOADS better than working for the man.

Do a search in your local area to see what the completion is and what they're doing.
I did the same recently and I was pretty shocked how few designers there were around me and most of them looked liked they needed to hire a designer themselves.

 

[Katedesign]

I would try contacting design agencies, magazine publishers and printers. The more people you contact (out of the blue) with a decent CV and portfolio - stressing your skills (which do seem to be lacking in many young designers) the more chance you have of getting suitable work.

Alternatively, are you able to set up and work from home? Could you become self-employed and get your own work? It would take a while to build up but you may be able to combine freelance and self-employment.