Preserved Topic: jobs, life and it =( (Page 1 of 1)

what are your veiws on where the it/web/design sector is going? i'd be really interested in your thoughts becasue coming into the feild as a 17year old with no "onpaper" qualifications (droped outa year ten, droped outa year 12) but with a few years of mucking around in photoshop and a bit of coding(ok so i'm not as good as doc, but i know a bit of photoshop) there are NO jobs...like seriously there are none in canberra, melboure or sydny.. sydney is the worset if your not in the design circles or australiainfront then you are a nobody ...doesnt matter what you know, noone cares. its who you know, and if you dont have the contacts you cant go anywhere. i know that webdesign etc is in a bit of a low at the moment, but is it going to stay like this ? or will it get better soon? i'm wondering if i should give up and more into another area... or stik it out and wait for it to get better....someone help this teen in a career crisis damn it! .... i dont know what to do! what kinda jobs do you guys and girls have? ...plus any tips on finding work or getting some contacts would be really help full,....thanks....

Yeah, tell me, i have 24, experience and nobody gives me job because i come from Venezuela.....


.-rotate script by Mr.Max

Maruman, I'm pretty much in the same boat you are, with some minor exceptions. I am a young designer who has no "on paper" experience either, and definitely isn't anywhere near as good as Doc. However, no one down here in Florida, USA knows that. There is plenty of business down here. Enough that I started my own independent company. But the clients aren't coming to me. I have to go to them. I have to send out ads, flyers, business cards, etc. Get myself advertised. In your case, if there really aren't any people who need web sites, then I suggest you expand your home base. Advertise online. That would definitely be harder, but at least you'll get some business. Check out elance.com. There are also many other places to post your services. Check those out. I hope that can help somewhat.

Maruman, you've got plenty of time. But, you should probably look into learning some back-end programming. Why, 3 years ago I was in your position. Could use some Gfx apps, code HTML and some JS and well, that was about it. I tried looking for work, no one hired me of course. By I now know why, there were about 200 other people in Brisbane alone doing exactly what I was doing.

But sadly, your right about it being hard when you don't know anybody in the business. If my friend matt (e-commerce programmer) still lived in Canberra than I might have been able to get you some work through him, bat alas, he doesn?t.

But, seeing I was in the same position you seem to be in now I'll tell you how I got my foot in the door.

Seeing that having skills in PS, HTML and Javascript aren't gonna cut it I decided to choose a back-end language and learn that. I picked Perl, mainly because I know far to many Unix geeks, but as long as you choose a popular one you'll be fine. Hell, most people here don't like ASP but Brisbane's a Microsoft City down to the knuckle so there's always work for ASP programmers here.
Anyhow, having Prel programming on my resume actually seemed to make the IT employment agencies listen to what I had to say for a change.

I also did some work experience for a couple of different big-name design companies, this was fun and I learn quite a lot from the experience. It also gives you some more URL?s to throw on your resume .

I mentioned in another post getting your resume into a PDF format, this also seemed to impress people. As well as an on-line portfolio. Hell, some Of the jobs I've applied for all they gave was a phone number. When I called that only wanted the URL for my on-line portfolio, lucky I had one, still didn't get that job though...

On the other hand you could try further education. You can apply to do the stat test through QTAC in Queensland so I?ll assume it's called CTAC down there. You can sit the test and get a Rank from it, then you can use that to enter TAFE or Uni. It's not that hard, I sat it back in 97/98 and managed to get in the top 6% of Australia. Trust me, I'm stupid. That gave me an OP of about 7, not great but better than what it was, that's for dam sure. There are also several other ways of gaining entry to University courses without applying through CTAC, like going to see the Dean of the course and sucking as far up his ass as you possibly can. In short, convince him/her you really want to do the course and they ~might~ reserve a spot for you. It's happened before.


It took me ages to land a job though. It wasn't until I had URL?s that proved I could do some Back-end work and had good graphics skills that someone actually hired me. And even that It was only a 2 month contract which I had to stay in Bundaberg for. But after that things got a lot easier. However, I still haven?t managed to land a decent Full-Time position.

So, that's my 2 c

Hopefully someone will come along and actually add something useful though...

everybody needs a swamp bear

[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 06-29-2001).]

Whay about all those free home page builders and automatic site template thingys.....that removes the web designer from his own habitat.........everyone is building them.

I started out 3 years ago to get into digital, I got so hooked on the imaging software i started moving more of my business to internet related content...........well......its been fun. But i dont know how the new guys are going to fit in......If i had to get up and work in this sector id be worried.

seems everyone is a web designer selling work for half what your charging...............the only real winners here will be those who take this art form to a new level...........the automatic front door builders will have the rest.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree.

If you're losing business (read: money) to "web developers" out there that work out of their garage and wouldn't know a <td> from a <tr>, then it's because of several key issues--none of which is that "the business can't make money."

In the web development community at large, the greater extent of business that is lost is done so because people don't quite recognize the professionalism of being a developer. The context of the 15 year old nephew that "can do the same things you developers do," is based off of this concept: We don't act professional, so we lose.

With that in mind, it's important that even though we're in a field that has to shrink away from using the phrase "web development" in a conversation with a potential client, we must keep in mind our own standards of living. If we are, indeed, losing business to the free front-page developers, then we're not actually losing business--we're not taking a client project that would've, quite clearly, not made us any money anyway. More than that, the "client" did the web thing because it was the "In" thing to do. Well, that pretext isn't something that I would particularly like to work on.

I base my money off of this concept, instead: I build websites that run companies. Most of the time, my actions are in the graphic design realm, but I do get my feet wet in the database development and integration, and I am whiz when it comes to information architecture and navigational elements. So, I add value to a company and their site by making their products/services available and easy to access.

So, my client base hasn't dwindled at all in the IT sector. AT ALL

That being all said, anyone that continues to lose business to 15 year old garage-designers or free-pages like Geocities is doing so because of this important issue that no one ever wants to look at: perhaps you're in the wrong field.

DocCyber, I don't want to start a fight, but you're no in the IT field, so you might want to keep your self-centric commentary to yourself and leave this to the professionals.

Maruman youre right. Sometimes no one gets the jobs they want. Ive been doing Photoshop for about one year. And Ive been doing html for about 6 months. Yet, my job, I watch little kids and make sure they dont get hurt on a playground. I play card games with them to pass 4.5 hours a day by. I think I should be making web site. I think I should be designing graphics for a big promoter scene in California....but Im not. I guess starting off as nothing is where everyone begins. Choosing your fate is up to you.

Note to Self : stop listening to so many self-esteem cassette tapes hehe

<--self portrait

bah!! ....must not get depressed....mustnot giveup..must keep working... fight...fight...damn the people who have jobs...must get revenge....must fight ... >

with that i think i'll take drac's advice and go and learn some back end....acttually would it be worth doing a short tafe course in backend? or would i learn more myself? ..hhmm tafe is stupid...most teachers dont know shit . >

Well, if your having money problems than I'd suggest TAFE as the government pays you money to study , but not much , unless you get the supplement loan , but you have to bay that back in hex (h.e.c.k.s. actually..) , but you don't have to pay you hex fees untill you have a decent job , but that makes your decent job not so decent .

I feel like I'm writing a Simpson?s episode...

But, I'd at least look into the possibilities. Go browse through all of your local institute's web sites and have a look at what they offer. Learning from a book is good but you have to make yourself learn. TAFE's probably easier, and if you decide to do a certificate level course rather than a diploma you don't need to apply through CTAC. However, If you do want to do a Diploma and don't think you'll be able to get in by applying through CTAC then I'm fairly certain you can apply directly to the TAFE for part-time study, but not full-time. But the Government won't pay you to study part-time .

So, there are a lot of options and I think you should explore them all before you commit yourself to a design. Calling the different TAFE's and getting them to mail you info brochures is also a good idea. You may even be able to make an appointment with like a TAFE guidance councillor whom you can discuss your options with, after all their trained to help people having trouble finding their career path and they'd know more 'backdoors' into the education system that I would.

And no, TAFE isn't stupid and the teachers do know shit. Most of them have at least a relevant University degree, a teaching qualification of some kind and have worked in the industry of their degree for at least 5 years, so they know their shit well. Most TAFE teachers I know are much better 'teachers' than University lecturers. As lecturers do just that, they don't teach, and they don't even have to have a teaching qualification, then just stand in front of you and ramble off their knowledge and you have to learn it.

But on the other hand, It's going to be dam near impossible to find a TAFE course that'll just teach you X programming language. You'll have to sit through (and learn) other stuff as well, which may or may not be relevant to your final career goal.

Ultimately, no one can really make this decision for you, I suggest you research as many possible options as you can and this alone should help you make up your mind.


everybody needs a swamp bear

I didn't ahve problems making money but I did have problems landing big clients. They all seemed to want some slickly marketed corporation to design their sites. I didn't know flash or how to work with quicktime and they found those bigger companies who did.

If you decide on TAFE, be sure you have your finances together.. A friend of mine wasn't able to keep his together, then couldn't find a job for several months and is now in the navy - communications - for the next 6 years. He loves programming, but won't be doing any in his new 'job'

Yeah, you have to be a little careful there. Make sure you have a health care card as that'll cut the fees in half . And be wary of some of the IT courses, I've come across some Multimedia diploma's ( 1 year compressed Diploma ) that cost about $5,000 in fees! Simply cause the TAFE's too skimpy to get their own SGI's so they have to rent out the studio's from local Design houses. But I found the exact same course offered at another institute for about $600?? What gives? Stupid education system!

But, for the IT courses you need to watch you wallet when it comes to textbooks. They?ll usually cost you around $250 to $400 per semester. With yearly fees of about $800 ($400 with a health care card) you could be looking at around $1200 for the year and you only get about $8,000 a year on Austudy!

The thing that really pisses me off about this is that you get about $10,000 on un-employment benefits and you don't have to pay fees or purchase textbooks. Fucking Liberal Government! bah, they?ll be out soon, Labor's giving than a good ass kicking this election period! Then maybe they?ll shift the independence age down from 25 to 18 like it was when they were last in power. The question I really want to know is why the fuck did Australians elect a PM who lived with his parents until he was 25, got married then decided to move out with his wife when he was 26! What a fucking looser! He's also but ugly and looks like a worm! What must other countries think of Australia when their world leader stutters all the freaking time and can't ever memorise a 45 second speech!

Oh, I got a little side tracked again didn't i... ok.. I'll go now..


everybody needs a swamp bear

threep laughs at drac's last post and says:
"yeah drac, i've got no idea why our PM is so damned ugly - how the heck did he survive the swimsuit competition? oh yeah, he was against kim beasley! "
jokes aside, threep directs his attention to the princess of the universe:
"maruman, the only advice i can think of at the moment other than what has already been dispensed is that one good way of trying to get the job you want is to pick a company that has such a department, get ANY full-time position there, and try and slowly wander round to that department by proving your worth in whatever jobyou start with.
I was thrown right into the web dev/design area of my work, but my employee made it clear that if i wanted to develop in the notes admin / notes dev / java / net admin / DB design area, all i had to do is voice my interest, and she would see what she could do for me - she wanted me to be in whatever position i would feel that i could be most productive for the company. more to the point, if im not happy in my current dept, then she would rather i work somewhere else for THIS comany, then for another one.
I'm sure this isn't an isolated case. i hope so anyway.
I have no idea what the ACT situation is like, but i hope you manage ok for yourself.
...of course there is the OTHER option, which i am quite opposed to - get a 'day job', and try to do some web dev 'on the side', until you can muster all your entrepreneurial powers to venture out on your own as a 'freelance web designer'. ick. i'm more of a 'less pay, less risk' kinda person... probably cause ive seen, um, had a lot to do with companies that go DOWN big time. and i never wanna be behind the wheel of one of them buggers."
hoping maruman can keep his love of webdesign, no matter what the industrial outlook, threep decides he should try and preserve his own job by doing some work.

lol! you guys know why ACT has the bigest porn industry in australia dont you ? :P heh of course i could make porn sites..heh..but nah not my style... however a few weeks bad there was a job ad wanting a webdesigner *working with mature content way in AZ though so i didnt apply... have any of you ever worked on an "adult " site?

heh yeah drac your right.. any of you heard of the computer graphic college its up in sydney and the fees are huge! 3rdperson trust me i've tryed.. i've emailed ever design company in canberra and nuda =(

yeah i could get a checkout chiq job...but fuck it :P i'm to lazy! or.. i'd preffer to sit at home and learn PHP!

i know its not worth relocating to sydney or melboure.. but what about SA or WA.. hrmm on second thoughts i dont really wanna live in WA