If you’re looking for a new interior designer job, you know it’s tough. So many interior designers, so few interior designer job opportunities. Worse still, seemingly all job adverts demand decades of experience for even the most junior roles.
Despite the fact it all seems stacked against you, there are things that you can do to make a difference. That leaves the hiring manager with a great impression of you.
And in this article, we focus on the 3 key things you must do to make an impact when looking for a new interior designer job:
- You need to stand out.
- Avoid making your application about you. Don’t worry! I will explain this.
- How to communicate your skills and attributes. Without wasting the hiring manager’s time.
4 Ways You Can Stand Out to Get a New Interior Designer Job
To get that elusive interior designer job, you need to stand out. And to do this, adopt the fundamentals of marketing. Namely, specialise. Because if you specialise, you present yourself as an expert. That is, compared to other interior designers applying for the same job.
And there are many ways to stand out, come across as an expert, when seeking an interior design job. Including:
- Focus on particular types of firm.
- Direct your attention to certain sectors of the interiors industry.
- Seek out firms whose brand values and company ethos resonate with you.
- Target distinct parts of the design process.
It’s so important that you stand out. As it forms the foundation upon which you can create an impact
If You Want a New Interior Designer Job, Make Your Application About Them
In the context of getting a new interior designer job, ‘them’ is your potential employer. Why? Because in marketing, we know people primarily think about themselves. We strive to satisfy our own needs. Our own wants. Struggle to solve our own problems.
In that respect, applying for a new interior designer job is no different to marketing a product to consumers.
As such, a hiring manager reading your CV doesn’t think about your creative talents going to waste in the local supermarket.
They think about what you offer the interior design studio. The problems you can solve for them!
Put another way, what is the outcome the studio gets when they employ you? Identify that. And tell the hiring manager in your application!
How Many Job Applications Waste the Hiring Manager’s Time
By not getting to the point. Something that recent graduates struggle with most is getting to the point. As a result, present to potential employers a 40-page design portfolio covered with teeny-tiny text.
Universities want the detail such a presentation offers. By virtue of their support of your journey to become a qualified interior designer. Which means they need to assess your progress. To do that, they need to know the process you followed when you created your designs. To use another phrase, how you created your design.
Outside academia, the interiors industry is notorious for tight margins and even tighter deadlines. People in the industry are unlikely to have the time, or patience, to rigorously evaluate lots of big portfolio presentations.
So, you need to completely change the way you present your creativity. Instead of describing the ‘How‘ in fine detail, consider you’re presenting to people who place much less emphasis on your design journey. If they even care at all. Rather, they want to know about the outcome. Therefore, What you did. More than that, what the outcome can give them. To give this a different phrase, the ‘So What‘.
But don’t worry, you can rise to this new challenge.
Convince your potential employer that you will solve their problems.
Satisfy their needs and wants.
And to do this, you simply need to get to the point.
Detailed Example of How to Get to the Point in Your Job Application
Get to the point, and land that new interior designer job. Let’s start with the number of slides in your portfolio. Ten or less. Yep, ten:
- One introductory slide. Something like “Alison Bliss, Interior Architecture and Designer, seeking a retail interior designer role”. As you need to stand out, be specific about the role you’re looking for. And briefly describe anything that helps make you stand out. For instance, awards won or shortlisted for.
- One or two slides for your CV. Use concise wording. And scrub out anything that isn’t relevant. Highlighting hobbies on your CV is controversial. My view, if your hobbies make you stand out, include them. Otherwise, leave them off. Run-of-the-mill pastimes, such as sport, reading, going out, films, and so on, won’t make you stand out.
- Four to six slides to represent 2 projects. Of course, you want to show off your best work. On the other hand, remember it’s about what you can do for them. A commercial project is unlikely to strike a chord with a firm that services private resi clients.
- Finally, one contact slide. Repeat your introductory text. And add a call-to-action. Something like ‘If my portfolio resonates with you, then I’d love to be considered for a role at [firm name].’ Provide your contact details. Add links to any professional social media accounts and / or website at the bottom.
Similarly, interior designers tend to use far too many words when applying for a new interior designer job. To illustrate, using a real-life example. Although to protect the interior designer’s identity, I’ve changed the brand and advertising campaign. The first image is where we began:
Our start point was to identify what’s important to a potential employer. What’s likely to interest them. Furthermore, not interest them:
To make sense, it needs rewording:
Already with this approach you used half as many words. However, using the ‘So What, What, How, How’ method will achieve you even more. I alluded to this method in ‘Can You Get to the Point?’ above. To explain further:
- So What: what you achieved means for the person receiving the service.
- What: what you achieved.
- How x 2: the process you followed to accomplish the ‘So What’ and ‘What’.
The order is important. That’s to say, a potential employer will likely care much more about the ‘So What’ (Red) and ‘What’ (Green) than the ‘How’ (Blue). Using this approach, we get:
Not only is it less words again, it’s also punchier. More importantly, it shows a potential employer what they get when they employ you. And that’s a happy client of their own.
Yes, a portfolio presentation is more images than text. But the same principle applies to visual presentation. One image for ‘So What’ – the final design, or a visual of it. One or two for the ‘How’. Such as work in progress photos or representations of what inspired your design.
In contrast, adding images to your introductory and contact slide is great. Our’s is a visual industry after all!
3 Key Things To Do To Make an Impact When Seeking a New Interior Designer Job
So, the key things you must do to make an impact when looking for a new interior designer job:
- Stand out. To do this, specialise to present yourself as an expert compared to other interior designers.
- Avoid making it about you. Instead, it’s all about your potential employer. And what your employment will give them.
- Get to the point. Limit your portfolio presentation to a maximum of 10 slides. Communicate effectively using the ‘So What’, ‘What’ and ‘How x 2’ method.
And there’s even more you can do to improve your chances. Because YourCoachApproach can give you the tools you need to increase your chances of finding a new interior designer job.