A title paraphrased from this brilliant post by Alex DS: What to expect (when you’re graduating). A must read for any grad, but in my opinion, almost as worth while for anyone that’s well into their professional practice.

Like this advice in point 2…

…focus on finding an opportunity to do some of the work you want to do in your first 5 years which might turn into doing mostly that work and eventually only that work. But that can take 20 years.

Those 5, 10 and 20 year milestones need consideration beyond graduation. When did you (dear professional designer reader) last focus that lens on what you’re doing in your current role? When did you last see your current position as a step rather than your destination? When did you last use this perspective to help yourself through a tricky or boring project, by taking time to really consider what you want to be doing more of?

In point 3…

…you have to sell yourself, your approach, your personality over your skills. Start a blog, start vlogging about the things you’re passionate about, make some noise!

When people land jobs, their tendency is to think that the personal development and self promotion is over. It’s not. Yes, you’re now part of something bigger than yourself, and it’s admirable and ideal to merge your identity with that company culture, but don’t lose sight of the fact that it won’t be your identity forever. Remember, it’s a commercial relationship that will end, and you need to think about your own long term brand. The company will be thinking of theirs.

In point 4. Practice public speaking…

If you’re too shy to talk about your work to strangers, how are you going to convince anyone that you are ready to talk to a potential client about difficult design decisions that aren’t going to make them happy?

This reminds me again of my conversation with a design manager, and their experienced team member – a professional designer with years under their belt – who said they didn’t do sales when asked to present their work at a show and tell 🤯.

To quote myself now: “Design is totally about selling. It’s the act of coming up with new ideas, that are almost always going to be challenging for some stakeholders to accept, and so we have to consider how it’s sold in.” Practicing public speaking is 100% advice not just for grads.

I could keep quoting points from Alex’s graduates post and giving my professional spins, but really, you should read the whole thing and interpret for yourself.

What in the 8 point list makes you question yourself? What makes you feel uncomfortable? What do you know you should be doing but keep putting off?

One last big take away from this post for me…

‘you get the work you do’

Something about this phrasing hits me really hard. Thank you Alex for sharing this from Jack.