Hello and welcome to episode 139 of Design Curious podcast.
I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
Today on the podcast, I'm talking to those people who are
second career interior designers or looking to change out of
their career into interior design and you're not wanting to
go back to school necessarily for a four year degree or maybe
even don't even have the time to go for a two year degree.
How can we get you into design firms and use what you have as
your skills already up to date as something that is desirable
by a prospective employer. So that's what we can talk about
in the episode today. Definitely something I work on
with people in my design mentor. I know it's challenging to try
and get hired when a lot of positions say that they need a
degree in interior design. And even if you don't have that
doesn't mean you can't apply for the position.
And there's ways to make yourself desirable to that
perspective employer without the degree.
Of course, the degree is great if you have time to go back and
do that, but not everybody does. So we're going to talk about
that today. OK, so let's get into it.
You're now listening to Design Curious, a place where you,
Creative one, are here to learn about what it really is like to
be an interior designer. And I'm your host and mentor,
Rebecca Ward. If you're worried about how to
succeed in a creative career, if you're ready to learn your next
steps to become an interior designer, and if you want the
satisfaction of doing something you love every day, you are in
the right place. Grab a coffee, a notebook, and
let's dig into today's episode. OK, Let's talk about how to make
you marketable to other interior design firms.
This would be likely residential firms that we're going to be
talking about today. When you're starting out and
shifting careers, like maybe you come from experience in the
workplace for a while, but not interior design experience,
which is what a lot of interior designers are looking for when
they're looking to hire a design assistant, an entry level
designer, or just someone working in their firm.
Just because you haven't been an interior designer before or you
haven't had your own projects or done anything professionally as
a designer and you maybe you've just come out of school or
you've taken a certificate program or something, that
doesn't mean that you're not marketable to a prospective
interior design employer. This is exactly the type of
thing I talked about with my mentees in my Design mentor.
If you're interested about what skills of yours are
transferable, then you can get in the program and we can talk
about it because everyone has a unique history and path that
brought them to this point. And you do have experience.
You have life experience. And keep in mind when you are
applying to work for an interior designer, likely they are a
smaller firm. Maybe they have only a few
employees. Some of them are larger and it
might be harder to get into those doors.
But the smaller firms, maybe it's a solopreneur who's finally
ready to get some help, some boots on the ground help with
installations or anything like that.
They will require that you wear a couple different hats.
Often you're not just going to be designing, so those other
hats that you need to wear, you likely have some experience
doing that. So let's talk about what kind of
skills an interior designer might be looking for when they
go to hire you. One of the main ones that is
really transferable is project management.
Doesn't matter what industry you're coming from, often times
there is a project management process that you have to go
through to take that project or whatever it is that your team's
working on from start to finish. And it's that process and
understanding. There's a system, making sure
there's checkpoints, staying on task, following up.
All those are skills that are transferable and things that you
should be talking about when you want to seek employment for an
interior designer because that's going to be really useful for
them. Maybe they don't have as much of
that skills and so you can definitely benefit them in that
way by being super organized or efficient or just loving
systems. That's great.
If you love spreadsheets and you love helping other people get
organized, that's going to be another thing that's that lights
people up. It gets interested in you.
If you've worked a lot with client, maybe you've done retail
or maybe you've done sales. That's a huge part of interior
design because you're dealing with people all the time.
You're hand holding the client, you're selling designs, you're
selling product and those skills are definitely transferable.
If you've been creative in any other way, maybe you were in the
event planning space or weddings or graphic design, that is all
creative process very similar in the way that interior design
runs this process. So those skills are very
transferable sometimes at first glance.
So if you just say that you were a graphic designer, that
prospective employer is not immediately going to think about
those transferable skills. So it's important to spell it
out for them in your cover letter or if you're talking to
them in person or on the phone, all those things.
And then if you have business skills or accounting skills, I'm
telling you these things are what I look for when I'm hiring
someone on my like, oh, you worked for two years as a
bookkeeper here or you work for, you got a minor in business.
That is going to be great because I need someone to bounce
ideas off of a business or just whatever.
Help me like another set of eyes on this, someone who has
experience in it. I think all of these things will
be helpful and transferable. So just because you don't have
interior design drafting skills or you've never done that
before, put together a mood board doesn't mean that first of
all, you're not hireable because you already have so many life
skills. But secondly, those can easily
be learned while you're waiting to get higher.
So take a look at your past if you're in this position, just
write down your job descriptions that you've had.
And then let's extract from that this transferable skills into
interior design. It's not all creative like we've
been discussing here on the podcast.
It's like 20% creative, right? You can't always just be in this
wonderful flow creative state. Yes, we get to design the
project, but then there's all those pieces that go alongside
it, the people part, the systems part, the management part, the
selling part. So you probably have something
that will transfer. I'm taking a break in the
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OK, then we let's talk about the lack of a portfolio.
Well, in Episode 137, we talked about different ways that you
can develop that portfolio when you're first going out.
So you can use vignettes of your home, you can create a virtual
mood board. You can start to learn how to
use a rendering software. There's some out there that are
really approachable. There's SketchUp, but also
Homestyler is a great one that you can use for free.
And then start making 3D renderings of potential projects
just to show that you have some creative skills that you can put
colors together. You can envision a space you can
work on a floor plan. It might be very intuitive for
you and you want to showcase that to a prospective employer
even though you haven't maybe gone through a four year degree
to learn how to do floor plans. You also want to try to
demonstrate your design thinking, so show any problem
solving skills. Maybe do a hypothetical before
and after, ask around to friends and clients, maybe a problem
that they have in their home and you can try to answer it.
You can even do a video. I've seen people do this on
Instagram where they'll take, you know, send me your problem
area in your home and I will give you a solution.
So they'll send in a video and then the person will talk for a
couple minutes on what they would do with this space.
You can add that to your portfolio.
Just your ideas are part of your creativity and your value as an
interior designer. So that would be a great way to
showcase that you have ideas even though you don't have a ton
of experience in your portfolio. And maybe you're great at
creating systems spreadsheets. You could do a hypothetical
business system spreadsheet or how to run a project or create a
welcome packet for the prospective employer.
Maybe they don't have one and then you took the time to do a
little research and put together a mock up welcome packet for
them that they could give to their clients.
They're going to see value in that.
OK. And then we'll focus a little
bit on networking. Like we said in 137, get out
there and tell everybody that you're networking and then seek
out mentorship. So come to my design mentor, but
also locally or might be someone who you could shadow.
Get to know. The more people you know, the
more likely you're going to be able to learn from them.
And then also find out who they know.
Maybe someone else is hiring or that you might be a better fit
for. Don't forget your platforms like
LinkedIn to show off your professional history.
It might show that you've worked many places and that you have a
lot of experience as a working professional already, that
you're not going to be quite so green coming in.
And that is sometimes a good thing.
You don't have to teach someone how to answer the phone or
answer emails. They can just jump right in.
And maybe they'll need to be shown how to, how to put a mood
board together. But that can easily be taught if
the instinct is there. Yeah.
So you can showcase some of these things on your social
media, put together a little nice portfolio for them.
Picture of yourself. I always recommend on your
resume, try to keep your resume to one page.
People are busy and don't have a lot of time.
But I would also include a cover sheet to help them to focus on
those skills that you had, those life skills that you have that
are transferable. And then while you're waiting to
hear back from people, actively pursue professional development.
So you could join my design mentor and put on your resume
that you're in a design mentorship program because you
know, in there we, I have practice projects.
You can practice your drafting or practice space planning or
create a mood board for it. So there's things that we can
work on your skills while you are waiting to get hired.
And that will just make you even more hireable because you'll
have more things to show. Or take a CAD class CAD has
proven to be one of the most marketable skills that I have
when I was first starting out, got me jobs in a lot of places
while I was trying to build my business.
So if nothing else, then try to learn a CAD software, fiddle
around with some 3D rendering software's, a lot of free
programs out there and try to get some hands on experience
volunteering. Maybe there's like a Habitat for
Humanity project going on in your area.
Also, you can seek out aging in place certification like I
talked about in a previous episode.
There's a lot of other certification.
There's like sustainable design certification.
So if there's like kind of a niche that you're looking for or
that a company that you want to work for is focused on, it'd be
great to take that certification.
Doesn't mean you necessarily have to have a four year degree
behind it, but if you have some kind of structured schooling,
that is great and definitely marketable.
So to recap all of this, the main strategy to make yourself
marketable to a perspective into your design employer is to focus
on your life skills that are transferable, networking with
people and pursuing education, continuing education.
Develop a little bit of an online presence so people can
see some evidence of your skills.
So if you need help updating your portfolio or identifying
those transferable skills, think about joining my design mentor.
And if you like this type of episode, let me know so I can do
more things like this in the future.
So what did you think? Did you get your wheels turning
to see what kind of skills might be transferable?
I know you have some, so let's do a little work and get you out
there and get you working for some other designers because
sometimes that's the best way to get experience.
If you're not quite ready to start your own business or
really you don't have a desire to start your own business, but
you still want to be an interior designer.
Not every interior designer has to be a business owner.
So let's talk about other ways to do it, right?
That's why this podcast is here. I hope you enjoyed today's
episode and I would love to hear from you of any other topics
that you're interested in hearing on the podcast.
Don't forget to check out the information on my design Mentor.
Or if you're going to launch your business, you're going to
want to sign up for the wait list of Launch Your Business
Boot Camp happening this summer, July and August.
For eight weeks, we'll get your business off the ground and
running. OK, that's it for this week.
Next week we'll have another great episode.
And until then, stay creative. Thanks for listening.
If you love this episode, please leave a rating and a review.
This helps me reach other curious creatives like you.
If you have a topic request or would like to contact me, simply
head over to my website arworddesign.com or e-mail me at
podcast@arworddesign.com.