Dear (none)Designer,

Welcome back to the twenty-seventh Design at Scale™ Newsletter – focusing on innovation and how design drives change in a large organisation or an agency.

The Google Meet call has started; I'm waiting. The girl who joined has been searching for the role for over seven months now. After a short introduction and reflection on the portfolio and the CV, she breaks down into tears, "Why me? Why can't I find a job?"

She's not the only one. The millions of designers who have believed the dream dictated by the media, that after a three-week design course, they will land a job in a well-renowned company, let alone a successful start-up, and secure a high-paid product design career for the millions of customers.

The reality is quite different, actually. Despite the pandemic's impact, the change all designers are facing has been brought about by the specialisation and commodification of our skills. In the early 2000s, we lacked sufficient designers and experienced professionals. In 2020, the oversaturated market had reduced itself by 17%, resulting in more than 1,500 designers out of a job, just for Spotify. One would ask why you need 1500 designers for one player?

To reflect the industry changes and impact, I have sat down with my design colleagues that has lost their jobs through the pandemic and are suffering the fact that even experienced professionals with 15-20 years of practice cannot find a job. The stories I was hearing were the same as the girl above "I've been applying for six months with zero response" – Design Director from Leeds, "I've been applying for nine months with zero response" – Head of UX Birmingham, "Recruiters do not talk to me; they never reply" – SVP DesignOps – Portsmoth. "I have changed my CV over a thousand times, and I still haven't got an interview" – Solution Design Architect, Bristol. An inexperienced recruiter is asking me to complete a practical test, specifically to create a wireframe, despite my 20 years of industry experience. I'm even applying for junior roles just to feed my kids.

What happened to recruitment? Clearly, they have all the data they can analyse and bring to the benefit of all companies that are looking for talent. More importantly, they can be more transparent about what companies are hiring and what chances there are to succeed. If you follow the same path and constantly reverse the CV over the three months, with roughly 3 to 5 applications a day, you will eventually reach 300 applications and approximately a thousand emails to review.

What you do not hit is the response.

This gives us almost 450 hours that designers can use to design the future. Instead of rewriting the CV and joining a collective course and mental-support session that no one is gonna see, we can redesign our approach to hiring.

Step one

Every designer understands that in order ot run a successful marketing campaign, you need to have a message for a product or service. To reach the masses and direct them to a funnel, we need to target the right companies. Therefore, we need ot follow designers from companies we want to work for. While connecting with them, we create connections that matter, and instead of waiting for the recruiters who were responsive, only very few designers approach their own recruitment in the same way. By connecting designers from appropriate businesses, some of my mentees reached 3-5k design followers and reduced the number of recruiters from 600-300 and later to 30. Instead of building an exiety by waiting for an email from a renowned recruiter, they have 100-1000 meaningful connections in design communities.

Step two

Bring your campaign to life, with a brand, name, a simple portfolio, aa nd funndesigned to capture the attention of your future prospects. This way, you collect real people with real needs, not recruiters who are constantly catching up on something (but not you). The message alone attracts the organisations and their design departments directly. Designers link with designers.

Step three

Utilise automated tools for social marketing and ensure that your message resonates throughout the year, creating consistency, not only in your work but also in your learning curve. This way, you'll become your own celebrity and start building your own brand. No flatter here of red carpets – after three months you will see the difference of 450 hours chaging CV's with no response and 450 post in across LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter (X), by having a very stable consistent and traceable record of your own profile that it's far more impactful than 300 different CV's on your local hard drive.

Step four

When you have the presence, start approaching companies directly that you are interested in without the recruiters. This way, you are building the direct connection. In case you still don't have an answer, start connecting with people who are designers within these businesses and ask them to review your portfolio.

Step five

I will be surprised if you do not have at least 3 to 5 solid leads for your future placement. If that's all, build connections and even more, build other connections and connect all the designers together. This way, you gain the authority, and you will be seen as a connector instead of just a CV. Your LinkedIn will be full of posts, your Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok will be full of your work ideas, and everybody knows that you are the one who deserves the role that you're shooting for. If there is no online presence or nothing that you have created, what value can you bring to the business?

It's very hard to judge the CV that can be generated by the AI in less than three seconds. The value of CV is zero; it's all about the experience. Show your experience to others and connect them with your experience, and you will increase your opportunities to secure a job or a contract.

Where does this leave recruitment? It remains vital in more regulated companies to utilise it as a bridge for top candidates; however, research from Reed, LinkedIn, and other job-specific platforms indicates that personal branding is far more impactful than crafting a traditional CV.

You are the designer, right?
Then redesign yourself!

For more information, please visit Designa at Scale™ – GRID Magazine, where you can find additional relevant articles that explore high-performing teams, self-organising teams of 001, teams of 010, and teams of 100 that deliver the value proposition within a product-led environment.