Job Surge or What?
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- mrbee2828
Is it me or is there just a massive job surge going on right now? I don't know if it's these portal sites pushing the listings for revenue now or if there really are just more right now. Is are industry totally on the upswing right now or what? I'm not complaining but I was just wonder what everyone thought. Is there a greater demand for designers and developers right now or are there just less to go around?
- Geith0
Seems so.
- joyride0
good lord yes!!! Feast or famine i guess.
- Mimio0
They just fired and/or drove everyone away and rehired others at a lower salary level.
- turosatano0
people are changing jobs a lot, the shuffling about contributes to that impression.
- Mimio0
It's not a good thing.
- tkmeister0
everyone's hirng. but don't be fooled by the money they offer you.
- ldww0
its the country and industry picking back up after 9/11.
i have heard people call it the real internet boom. meaning the previous boom was just people throwing money around like mad trying to be the next big thing, and mostly failing. now people know how to manage technology better and the internet is growing in a much healthier way.
- Geith0
'boom' is a four-letter word. careful with that.
- mrbee28280
lol.. yeah the term boom reminds me of harder times. i think there is a real growth right now. more people are going freelance right now because of the demand.
- visualplane0
I remember moving to NYC a month before 9/11 and there was jack sh*t
- mrbee28280
I just remember getting laid off like oh... 4 times before 9/11 and there wasn't jack sh@t. :)
- MLP0
job surge? i need one now! (nyc please)
- ********0
It is quite simple.
1. There are very few decent people out there that can design at a higher level for the web. Schools out there are teaching students print still which isnt a bad thing but then they tell their students to take a web class which is an HTML class or something.
Us out here hiring want Designers to design and coders to code. Not both. So these colleges really need to take a page out of Hyperislands book because they are doing it right.
2. Clients have increased their ad revenue for the web by leaps and bounds. Instead of putting 5% or less of their marketing budget into the web, it is growing higher and higher... 30% even.
3. All these clients want sites like shaveeverywhere.com or just high qualit sites in general and compelling banner ads. They are not satisfied with just throwing up a website. They want to see return now days. Mini sites and very well done sites are working well so they want that now. Recently one of our clients that ussually spent 25-50k at the most for a site just let us pitch for 400k worth of sites. Why? because they can see return. Traditional media is much harder to see return. yes it builds brand loyalty and presance, but the web is proving to not only do the same, but show real number results.
4. So in closing, because of the above, companies are hiring jr. designers in hope they can grow to do well in a year, but these interactive designers are few and far between. We are taking chances with traditional students who design well. The good interactive designers out there are hard to get because they have jobs. the only way you can get them is to steal them from another agency or pray hard.
You may think that the 80k salaries are high, but when clients are spending 200k-1million for some of these sites, and we are getting multiple ones of these,, 80k and up is well worth it to agencies to get a quality idea and site for the client from a good deisgner/art director.
- MLP0
i'm finding a lot of places want solid experience in site coding and fluency in actionscript/flash for jr designers... is this the direction things are going?
i've worked with people coding the back end and doing my design in the past, but the more i look for positions, they want someone that can do everything, not just the design.
- ********0
MLP
Most all agencies specialize.
The smaller companies and inhouse agencies might want multi talent. This is because they want 2 for the price of 1. Some agencies welcome dual talent .. coding and Design... but most dont require it. Infact, I would rather hire my employees to be focused on design or coding. I have found when you design then code you get burnt out faster, mainly because after you spend 1 to 2 months designing a site etc, and are sick of it by that time, and then you have to turn around and code the thing.. this can really put an unwelcome stress on a person and really stiffle the creativity of a person.
- ********0
where is yoru Portfolio MLP
- piers0
Thanks same, that was an interesting read.
Time for me to bust out a new site to show my last years work.
- turosatano0
a very interesting view indeed. same: what exactly is the lesson to be learnt from hyperisland students, that they're believable designer-coder hybrids right out of school?
- skelly0
I agree about interactivity vs. print and schools being a little behind the times. I see a lot more job offers requiring knowledge of Flash. I'm more interested in digital and most of my portfolio (school work) is print, so I'd have to constantly tell potential employers that I want to design for web/screen.
The few places I spoke to, no one required the ability to code and design but it was definitely a plus. Not so you could actually do both, but just so you could be designing for a medium you are familiar with all aspects of.
Also, it seems to be a big plus if you can handle video, or at least be interested in it. The web is integrating video pretty fast. There's broadcast designers but not so much interactive types who can do video. I could see a demand coming for people who specialize in that.
- joyride0
Note: You don't need to be able to code as a designer, but you need to understand the restraints of coding. And vice Versa. You can't just make it pretty and hand it off to the developers or it will go very slowly. But I find that just being a designer is a handicap. Agencies & large Co's tend to be less efficient so they do hire seperate people for each job. But they are also cutting staff and oursourcing work to smaller companies.
And flash is very unique, it's got the graphic side and the coding side. Tougher to have 2 people do 1 job IMO. But I'll take it because I can do both