First Job Fear

07032552

Member
Hi guys,

Im a student coming to the end of my course in may and Ive just landed a job as a designer at a medical firm. I start a week monday working my days off then moving full time once I finish my course. Is it normal to be this scared of starting? I havent been taught anything in terms of print, like bleeds etc and Im worried I'll mess up majorly in my first week. Web skills arent that strong either so Im nervous about that too although I think its focusing mainly in print. Any advice to calm me down would be great.

Thanks guys!
 
I think the best thing you can do to calm the nerves is to learn how to create print-ready artwork BEFORE you start the job.

If you make the effort now, it's going to be a big help to you in your first couple of weeks.

When you start the job, it's also worth speaking to your printer to find out how they'd prefer you to send them artwork.
 
sthomas is spot on.

In what little gaps you have in the time left - call in at a couple of printers and see how they work / find out how the work they are producing has been prepared / requirements necessary to be 'print ready'.

Will give you an idea.

The printers you end up working with may have slightly different criteria (which as sthomas said you need to find out) - but will give you a practical checklist of elements to consider / address.

Now... stop worrying, do something practical and look forward to the exciting times ahead!
 
thx minuteman that was quite useful. My teachers barely touched this subject and I don't understand why due to its importance. Our class was very briefly given the what not the why.
 
Fair play to you mate, im in the same situation but without a job as of yet.

Mind me asking how you went about landing the job?
 
Fair play to you mate, im in the same situation but without a job as of yet.

Mind me asking how you went about landing the job?


I heard through a friend mate. Applied for it, interviewed for it and landed it the next day. Other than that I was just googling for design jobs etc
 
Hi guys,

Im a student coming to the end of my course in may and Ive just landed a job as a designer at a medical firm. I start a week monday working my days off then moving full time once I finish my course. Is it normal to be this scared of starting? I havent been taught anything in terms of print, like bleeds etc and Im worried I'll mess up majorly in my first week. Web skills arent that strong either so Im nervous about that too although I think its focusing mainly in print. Any advice to calm me down would be great.

Thanks guys!

The company who you are going to work for will understand that you will not have a lot of this knowledge, you must have been interviewd at the outset and you will have an impression of what they want from you.

It is of course very natural to be a little frightened at the prospect of starting a new job especially when its your first. The one thing you must do above everything else is be honest at the outset if you laqck knowledge about something, if you blag it now you will be cayght out later.
Its right however that you feel you should learn as much as you can about the relevany processes of the company.
Tell the company that you are prepared to have further training on specific aspects if necessary.
You won't go far wrong by searching Wikipedia.
 
Makes me laugh how universities don't teach about print set up.

I had to learn all my knowledge of print set up etc on the job after leaving in 2004.

I would recommend the same as everyone else has put here swat up!
 
For standard layouts, I generally just select press optimization in Acrobat; every print shop I've used seems happy with the results.
 
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