Looking for something new.

It's been a while since I've written a blog post but I've been thinking about this one for a while as I've spent the last few months actively looking for new opportunities and reflecting on how my career path has changed. 

In July, I left my job of nearly 2 years. It was an easy decision an environment that I felt to be increasingly toxic. My experience there, however, did give me absolute clarity in knowing what I was looking for in my next role –  collaborative, supportive team, and work that would impact people's everyday lives. In the weeks proceeding, I thought it would be easy to find another job as a senior designer. I was wrong. 

First of all, 3-4 years ago, I would never have met with a recruiter, having a reputation for having unethical practices and too proud to ask for a helping hand. But I was looking for contacts so decided to meet with a few of them. All the ones that I did meet up with were lovely and only put me forward for jobs that were suitable. But even then, the process took longer than expected.

I sent a lot of prospecting emails, met with a lot of recruiters and went for a lot of interviews. In the interim, I took on some freelance work where I met some great teams and clients but the work itself hollow. In the past few years, I also feel that design has become more specialised. App design wasn't even a thing when I was at university. I have been a brand designer, a graphic designer, a web designer, a digital designer, you name it. But I wanted to push myself more in UI design and had some experience in the field but not a whole lot. It became debilitating knowing that I was a good designer with a great work ethic and no job. In the end, what kept me going was not letting myself settle for ANY design job. 

In the end, the best interviews I did where the ones where they saw beyond just the level of experience but could see the enthusiasm and hunger I had for learning and recognised that design skills are transferable across media and device. 

I've since found a role that I'm excited about and the new challenges they present and glad I stuck it out and waited. 

If you have other design job hunting experiences, I would love to hear them.