I'm looking for a web design job

JustHalf

It turns out that going freelance doesn't have immediate financial returns; at least not at the level I need to get a flat in Dublin. So, I'm looking for a web design job.



Frankly, I think I'm a steal at that rate, but is it realistic? It's been a while since I was looking for a job; and I've never looked for one at my current level of skill.

I'm finishing up two projects, and working on a portfolio at the moment... I'll send a CV to anyone who's interested.

hostyle

Good luck. You shouldn't have much problems. Theres plenty of web jobs going in Dublin ATM. I'm looking for a job aswell, but don't wish to move to Dublin, so my options have been very limited. Check the papers on Thursdays, and check out the jobsdesk on creativeireland. Try eolas.ie also.

RicardoSmith

Theres a few design jobs on Recruit Ireland at the moment.

Freelance is very tough in Ireland. Its like you wear a sign "I'm a Designer rip me off".

JustHalf

Ha!

The problem is that I could see my company making decent money within two years or so, but I couldn't afford to go without cash long enough to work on attracting investors (which I only realised was necessary all of two months ago).

The past year has definitely thought me a lot about design. I'm orders of magnitude more skilled than I was before I started.

edit: I've changed the salary range in the picture to something less retarded.

RicardoSmith

One of the surveys I read suggested that senior designers earn anywhere from 16 to 60k. But 28-35 even 40 would be resonable for someone with a lot of experience and is simply very good. However getting an Irish company to pay that isn't easy.

The Corinthian

Employers can only justify higher salaries based upon the rate that the individual can be hired out at, and while experienced designers or information architects can be charged out at € 500+ per day, most simply can’t. Designs are almost thrown into a deal with a client for free (printers and publishers will regularly do this, for example).

Ultimately you have to justify that you’re worth the money. Compliance to design standards is nice, but it’s not like you have an accredited qualification that can be waved at a client when explaining that this is why you cost an extra € 50 per hour. TBH, most clients are not too bothered with standards as they are with budgets.

As for Perl programming... For the love of God, put something down that has actually been in popular use during this millennium - ASP, PHP, JSP or even (if desperate) Cold Fusion. Programming skills are one of the things that will push up both your employability and prospective salary, and Perl just won’t cut it.

Don’t be afraid to advertise any other related skill too, such as project management or business / requirements analysis - after all, salary levels for these have faired better than those of either programmers or designers, given that you can’t really farm out that work to India.

Finally don’t sell yourself short. With three years experience under your belt, don’t be afraid to politely terminate an interview if they offer you € 25k. How you sell yourself along with having a pair of colgioni can easily add a further € 10k to any salary.

And good luck in the job hunt.

LoLth

While webmaster / flash oriented I still think this belongs on the work board.

Left it here for a while, now time to get moved

good luck.

JustHalf

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Employers can only justify higher salaries based upon the rate that the individual can be hired out at, and while experienced designers or information architects can be charged out at € 500+ per day, most simply can’t. Designs are almost thrown into a deal with a client for free (printers and publishers will regularly do this, for example).

Ultimately you have to justify that you’re worth the money. Compliance to design standards is nice, but it’s not like you have an accredited qualification that can be waved at a client when explaining that this is why you cost an extra € 50 per hour. TBH, most clients are not too bothered with standards as they are with budgets.

I have some nice arguments in favour of web standards, and here's a great argument with numbers to back it up from D. Keith Robinson:

http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archives/web_standards_roi.php

Originally posted by The Corinthian
As for Perl programming... For the love of God, put something down that has actually been in popular use during this millennium - ASP, PHP, JSP or even (if desperate) Cold Fusion. Programming skills are one of the things that will push up both your employability and prospective salary, and Perl just won’t cut it.

Perl's been used on a lot of big sites, but I get your point; a lot of jobs I've looked at referred to PHP. I might try learning it, it's quite similar to Perl.

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Don’t be afraid to advertise any other related skill too, such as project management or business / requirements analysis - after all, salary levels for these have faired better than those of either programmers or designers, given that you can’t really farm out that work to India.

Good point. The image here was just a joke, but I'll be sure to point out my other relevant skills in my CV.

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Finally don’t sell yourself short. With three years experience under your belt, don’t be afraid to politely terminate an interview if they offer you € 25k. How you sell yourself along with having a pair of colgioni can easily add a further € 10k to any salary.

I'll bear it in mind. I think I've grown a pair over the last year, so hey

Originally posted by The Corinthian
And good luck in the job hunt.

Thanks.

jank

Whats the best way to get clients and to design sites for them freelance.

Thinking of doing the same myself to build up some experience down here in Cork.

RicardoSmith

Networking.

Standards thing is fine if theres the budget. Most smaller clients can't be bothered with the extra cost for an extra what 5%?

JustHalf

Coding with standards can dramatically slash your development time. Check that link I posted.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by JustHalf
Coding with standards can dramatically slash your development time. Check that link I posted.

Sorry dang the speed treading, I though you were just taking about browser compliance. Yeah web standards is the way to go. But it pretty much de facto now isn't it?

JustHalf

Unfortunately not

minority

Web designers are 2 a penny these days.
We can get very good web designers for very little money. When the .com bubble burst the market was flooded with web designers. In fact web design companies were culled in the slump.
The market in that area has yet to settle.
As the man said you need asp, jsp, php in that order of importance i would think.
3 years experience is also not much these days in that area.
you need 5 years before you can command the salaries you are looking for. In fact if you get 30K as a web designer you'll be doing really well.
Good luck though.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by JustHalf
I have some nice arguments in favour of web standards, and here's a great argument with numbers to back it up from D. Keith Robinson:

Is that what they call project management nowadays then?

Perl's been used on a lot of big sites, but I get your point; a lot of jobs I've looked at referred to PHP. I might try learning it, it's quite similar to Perl.

Perl’s been used. Past tense. It is essentially a legacy language, and has been for a while, at this stage. Evolve or die.

One of the things that I’m surprised people still do is continue to be Jack-o-Trades. Programming and design are ultimately very different disciplines, and while it’s advisable to have an understanding of both, the reality is that you can’t realistically be master of both. Thus you must decide which field to specialize in and excel in it, at the expense of the other. Otherwise a Jack-o-Trades is all you’ll be.

JustHalf

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Is that what they call project management nowadays then?

Eh?

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Perl’s been used. Past tense. It is essentially a legacy language, and has been for a while, at this stage. Evolve or die.

I don't know, but I'll take your word for it.

Originally posted by The Corinthian
One of the things that I’m surprised people still do is continue to be Jack-o-Trades. Programming and design are ultimately very different disciplines, and while it’s advisable to have an understanding of both, the reality is that you can’t realistically be master of both. Thus you must decide which field to specialize in and excel in it, at the expense of the other. Otherwise a Jack-o-Trades is all you’ll be.

I think that depends on the capabilities of the person involved. You're also getting dangerously close to saying that a given person can only be really good at one particular task, which is bull.

Design is certainly my strength at the moment, but that doesn't mean I'm not skilled in other areas. My short blurb on my (work in progress) site describes me as a polymath, and this isn't without merit.

JustHalf

Originally posted by minority
Web designers are 2 a penny these days.
We can get very good web designers for very little money. When the .com bubble burst the market was flooded with web designers. In fact web design companies were culled in the slump.
The market in that area has yet to settle.
As the man said you need asp, jsp, php in that order of importance i would think.
3 years experience is also not much these days in that area.
you need 5 years before you can command the salaries you are looking for. In fact if you get 30K as a web designer you'll be doing really well.
Good luck though.

There's a lot of "web designers" out there. I don't think I'm one of those.

Working freelance has taught me to wear many hats: designer, programmer, information architect, project manager, copy writer, standards wiz and more. I don't think you'll find many web designers like that.

That said, you haven't seen my CV or portfolio yet, so there's no real way of you knowing if I have the skills I claim.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Is that what they call project management nowadays then?

Perl’s been used. Past tense. It is essentially a legacy language, and has been for a while, at this stage. Evolve or die.

One of the things that I’m surprised people still do is continue to be Jack-o-Trades. Programming and design are ultimately very different disciplines, and while it’s advisable to have an understanding of both, the reality is that you can’t realistically be master of both. Thus you must decide which field to specialize in and excel in it, at the expense of the other. Otherwise a Jack-o-Trades is all you’ll be.

Thats such a cliché. First of not all, not everyone can pick and choose the roles they get. Being able to specialize in one area a luxury you don't have as a freelancer or working in a small company. Secondly theres no reason you can't excel at more than one skillset. A lot of positions available these days demand it. You might as well say people can't use both sides of their brain.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by JustHalf
I think that depends on the capabilities of the person involved. You're also getting dangerously close to saying that a given person can only be really good at one particular task, which is bull.

Concentrate on one discipline and you become better in that discipline than your peer who tries to be a Jack-o-Trades. What you can do is faster and more complex in that field than the Jack-o-Trades, and so what if you’re not great in the other discipline? Your firm can always hire someone specialized in that discipline, with half the time in the business, and so cheaper, than the Jack-o-Trades.

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Thats such a cliché. First of not all, not everyone can pick and choose the roles they get. Being able to specialize in one area a luxury you don't have as a freelancer or working in a small company.

He’s not talking about freelance work, and if a company is so small that they can’t afford separate programmers and designers; then they’re probably not far off being glorified freelancers themselves, TBH - do you really want to be only qualified to work for nothing but one-horse start-ups all your life?

Secondly theres no reason you can't excel at more than one skillset. A lot of positions available these days demand it. You might as well say people can't use both sides of their brain.

There can, but someone else will be able to concentrate on one area so as to excel even more. They’re your competition.

As I’ve already said, grounding in both fields is necessary, but whether you like it or not, specialized programmers or designers command much higher salaries than Jack-o-Trades with comparable times in the business.

JustHalf

Ironically, design is where I'm focusing; I plan to make a career out of design, it has become a passion of mine.

But I believe that my programming experience (and Unix server / Windows client know-how) will increase my worth, as I won't need to waste the time of programmers and sysadmins for basics.

Ultimately I want to head up a team, including designers, programmers and sysadmins. I think my grounding in all three main areas, with specialisation in design, will help me be suitable for this task. I don't expect to enter a company in this position

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Concentrate on one discipline and you become better in that discipline than your peer who tries to be a Jack-o-Trades. What you can do is faster and more complex in that field than the Jack-o-Trades, and so what if you’re not great in the other discipline? Your firm can always hire someone specialized in that discipline, with half the time in the business, and so cheaper, than the Jack-o-Trades.

He’s not talking about freelance work, and if a company is so small that they can’t afford separate programmers and designers; then they’re probably not far off being glorified freelancers themselves, TBH - do you really want to be only qualified to work for nothing but one-horse start-ups all your life?

There can, but someone else will be able to concentrate on one area so as to excel even more. They’re your competition.

As I’ve already said, grounding in both fields is necessary, but whether you like it or not, specialized programmers or designers command much higher salaries than Jack-o-Trades with comparable times in the business.

Since you are making a sweeping generalisation I though it ok to make a sweeping generalisation in response.

You would pay someone more if the were only certified in one skill than someone certified in a number of skills. Does that not then contradict your assertion that they are cheaper than "Jack o Trades".

The Corinthian

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
You would pay someone more if the were only certified in one skill than someone certified in a number of skills. Does that not then contradict your assertion that they are cheaper than "Jack o Trades".

Read what I posted - it is not that they are only certified in one skill but that they are better only qualified in that one skill than someone that has been spreading themselves out as a "Jack o Trades".

RicardoSmith

Does qualified <> certified in the IT world? If not define what you mean by qualified?

Can someone not be qualified in two skills? So you couldn't be a qualified developer and a qualified analyst at the same time, or a qualified manager?

minority

Originally posted by JustHalf
Working freelance has taught me to wear many hats: designer, programmer, information architect, project manager, copy writer, standards wiz and more. I don't think you'll find many web designers like that.

That said, you haven't seen my CV or portfolio yet, so there's no real way of you knowing if I have the skills I claim.

I can tell though that thats a pretty thin spread for 3 years experience. If you have gotten good experience in all of those areas in 3 years you must have been working 24 hours a day.
Be careful how much experience you say you have in a specific time period. It jumps out at the interviewer straight away.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Does qualified <> certified in the IT world? If not define what you mean by qualified?

More knowledgeable and / or better experienced.

Can someone not be qualified in two skills? So you couldn't be a qualified developer and a qualified analyst at the same time, or a qualified manager?

You’re still not reading what I posted.

JustHalf

Originally posted by minority
I can tell though that thats a pretty thin spread for 3 years experience. If you have gotten good experience in all of those areas in 3 years you must have been working 24 hours a day.
Be careful how much experience you say you have in a specific time period. It jumps out at the interviewer straight away.

But I didn't claim I was an expert in all of these areas. Are you also assuming that the 3 years experience I refer to is not industrial experience?

Freelance work demanded that I learn how to make websites competently, paying attention to the design process. As I learned more, I realised that I could not afford to ignore these areas. If I did, my product would only be good.

So I researched. I experimented. I studied hard. I worked to improve the sites I made in these areas; and I can confidently say that the quality of my work has improved dramatically because of it. My work process has also improved greatly.

And if a potential employer thinks this is a bad thing, they are retarded.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by The Corinthian
More knowledgeable and / or better experienced.You’re still not reading what I posted.....
...Your firm can always hire someone specialized in that discipline, with half the time in the business, and so cheaper, than the Jack-o-Trades.

What you saying is a generalisation. So what you are saying that a person who is More knowledgeable and / or better experienced, would be cheaper than than a Jack O Trades. But yet the person with knowledgeable and / or better experienced will comand the higest salaries.

Is that not contradictory?

Its also assumes that some who has experienced in a number of areas is less skilled and experienced than a person who has specialised in one area. My experience is that someone who is very good at something is likely to very good at other things aswell. Not always, as that would be a generalisation. Many people who do the same thing for years are actually stuck in rut and are unable to apply their existing skills to new challenges. But again only in some cases.

In summary, excellence and mutli discipline are not mutually exclusive.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
What you saying is a generalisation. So what you are saying that a person who is More knowledgeable and / or better experienced, would be cheaper than than a Jack O Trades. But yet the person with knowledgeable and / or better experienced will comand the higest salaries.

Is that not contradictory?

No because that’s not what I said.

If someone specializes in a discipline they will reach a certain level of expertise faster than someone who tries to know everything.

One of the principle determinants of salary is experience (i.e. time employed in the industry). As your specialist has needed less time in the industry, then it is more likely that they will demand a lower salary than the Jack-o-trades with more time in the business and comparable skills in the area.

Its also assumes that some who has experienced in a number of areas is less skilled and experienced than a person who has specialised in one area. My experience is that someone who is very good at something is likely to very good at other things aswell. Not always, as that would be a generalisation. Many people who do the same thing for years are actually stuck in rut and are unable to apply their existing skills to new challenges. But again only in some cases.

I don’t disagree with that, but again that’s not what I was saying. Someone who specializes is far more likely to be better in that discipline than someone who, with a comparable time working in the industry, does not.

In summary, excellence and mutli discipline are not mutually exclusive.

Again, I agree that they are not exclusive, but we’re talking about someone wanting to maximize his employment and salary potential, not a theoretical pursuit of academia.

A Jack-o-trade may become a master of them all, but all other things being equal, it’ll take him longer than someone who concentrates on just the one trade or discipline.

RicardoSmith

Well I think we are talking about two different scenerios. I was talking of some one with say 3 years design experience and 3 years programming experience, going for a design role against some one who has 3 yrs design experience only. Whereas you are talking of going against someone who was doing design for 6 or 7 yrs.

Assuming of course that the guy with 3 years isn't an absolute magician, and the guy with 7 years hasn't been coasting for 7 years learning nothing.

At the end of the day its all about the individual.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
At the end of the day its all about the individual.

Indeed. And without the use of something like finger puppets you're still not going to understand what I've said.

Seriously. I spelled it out for you and you're either ignoring it or cant understand it.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Indeed. And without the use of something like finger puppets you're still not going to understand what I've said.

Seriously. I spelled it out for you and you're either ignoring it or cant understand it.

I don't accept your narrow minded and simplistic view no. If you can't be civil why bother.

chump

I understand and I was in the 'special class'... maybe you were in the year below me ricardo?

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by chump
I understand and I was in the 'special class'... maybe you were in the year below me ricardo?

Me no understand. You'll have to use a puppet.