All employers want is simple, coherent applications

I enjoyed Tim Rich’s School of hard-knocks (Private View, DW 3 November) and tend to agree with most of the points he made. But his advice to graduates to make their entire approach to getting a job as innovative and unavoidable as possible, as they ‘need to get up to some chancey shenanigans to get a busy employer’s attention’ is prehistoric.

Isn’t this a bit like asking a comedian to be funny or encouraging an artist, ‘Go on, draw something good’.

Design is about creating visual and literary solutions appropriate to the intended audience. Why should graduates take on board advice suggesting they ‘be wacky’ when it is not necessarily appropriate to the audience? We busy employers don’t want hundreds of zany and conceptual applications. All we want is a simple, coherent application, backed up by excellence shown through the work itself. We want to see how applicants effectively target an audience, not what their latest gizmo is.

I have an interesting bit of advice for all graduates (and experienced designers on the job hunt): read the recruitment ad. After all, the ad is the brief, written to attract recruits on ability, attitude, culture and fit. The scattergun approach to job hunting, securing that crucial foot-in-the-door, any door, will be your undoing in the long run.

Instead, apply for vacancies that are truly appropriate to your personality, skills-set and attitude. When an ad states ‘graphic designer’, product designers need not apply (trust me, this does happen). If an ad states ‘hard working’, then, unless you are a grafter, don’t bother. And if an ad clearly points out that the vacancy is for a senior, then it probably is.

Were all job-hunters to finetune their applications in this way it would put an end to much of the frustration and the many rejections that Rich talks about.

Paul Burgess

Creative director

Wilson Harvey

paulb@wilsonharvey.co.uk