What is a Good Graphic Design Job?

Should you look for a high salary? Creative Freedom? High-profile brands?

What are the most important attributes of an organization to look for when you’re searching for a new Graphic Design Job? It seems obvious that you’d like to work for a place that produces excellent work and is excited about moving forward with design trends. You might even be enticed by bring-your-dog-to-work days, in-house massages, walks in the park, or any number of trendy benefits that companies, both big and small, are offering to their employees lately.

But how do you see through these offerings and make decisions that will positively affect your design career? Is there a correlation between Google-like company perks and personal development during your tenure? Let’s take a look at the characteristics of an organization that will help you advance in your career as a designer and how to identify them as you’re searching for a job.

The cornerstone for any job that’s worth your time and energy is good communication throughout the organization. Without communication, you’ll spend almost every day in the office feeling frustrated, defeated, and unmotivated. When people with an organization communicate effectively, they foster harmony and productivity.

It might be a bit hard to see as you’re skimming through a job posting, but you’ll begin to learn very quickly how well the members of an organization communicate as you go through the application process. Even through email, you can start to search for tell-tale signs of good, or bad, communication. Here are two things you can look for as you evaluate communication in a potential new job:

Pay close attention to communication as you apply to and interview for a job. You should be receptive to new information and willing to learn, but you should be wary when the same courtesy is not offered to you. Remember, you’re developing a relationship that will affect your life from nine to five, five days per week.

Consistency is key, as they say. In the world of business, consistency is something of a double-edged sword. A company that consistently underperforms is likely to be entrenched in bad habits and will require significant work to move on to a path toward success. On the other edge of our sword, however, a business that consistently innovates, evaluates itself, and learns from its past (and its competition) is likely to be destined for success if it’s not there already.

So when you’re evaluating an organization for consistency, look for common threads throughout the resources that are available to you. Read through their website in detail, follow social media streams, and become familiar with their products or services. Do they create new content that pushes the boundaries and develops their brand, or do they rely on two or three heavy-hitters that they’ve presented from every possible angle across their content?

Also, try to figure out how long the organization has been operating. If it’s a startup, where did the founding members come from and what is their background?

The goal here is to gauge whether or not you will be part of a team that has developed a forward-thinking culture and consistently pushes themselves to become better.

You’ll be able to determine whether an organization’s consistency serves them well or not by taking a look at their results, which we’ll move on to now.

Always, always, always ask to see results. If your new employer can’t clearly define the results that their products or services provide to their customers, hit the road. You don’t want to work for anyone who can’t explicitly tell you how they provide value to their customers. As you’re looking for common threads throughout an organization’s products, services, and content, pay close attention to how they present their results.

Every organization has their differentiating factor — the thing that sets them apart from the competition. For you, those factors might include benefits packages, flexible hours, a cool office, etc. Be sure not to forget that results should be at the top of that list. In addition to how they serve their clients, ask about their results with employees. How long is the average tenure in their company? Do they promote from within?

If you find that an organization’s employees are achieving the career goals that you’ve set for yourself, put everything you’ve got into getting that job. If, on the other hand, you begin to learn that their communication is ineffective, their work is inconsistent, and their results are lacking, it may be time to look elsewhere.

When you’re evaluating a new employer for follow-through, you’re asking whether they finish what they start. It might be hard to gauge this based solely on the information available to you online because they’re going to put their best foot forward through their website and social media.

Instead, view this as a synthesis of their communication, consistency, and results. If it seems like everything is coming together and this really is a top-quality establishment, the follow-through test will either confirm what you’ve learned so far or show their true colors. Here’s what you should look for:

Don’t forget that throughout this process, your new employer will be looking for the same attributes in their new employee as you’re looking for in a good job. When you combine professional communication, consistency, a results-oriented mindset, and follow-through, you’ll position yourself as an ideal candidate and align yourself with the expectations that executives and hiring managers bring to the table when they’re looking for good employees.

Now you can define an excellent graphic design, and you know what to expect from employers who will treat you well. The next step is to update your resume and portfolio to show potential employers that you’re a results-oriented designer. Designed Academy offers a free course, 3 Steps to a Powerful Portfolio that will get you well on your way. Learn what it’s all about here.

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