How did you find the best job/work you have

[wienerdog]

Instead of complaining about the lack of good work or what I hate designing to make money, I thought I'd open up a thread for people to share how they got the best freelance or full time work?

What was it, and how did you get the job?

I'll start:
Job: Big firm in-house design/production dept.
How:
My rate jumped about $5 an hour on a full time basis taking a job a temp agency in Philly got me. Some days are better than some real lousy ones, but it pays and looks great on a resume.

Job: Urban T-shirt company
How: Through a posting on-line. It pays low, but the work is fun and I have almost full creative freedom.

[steelcoast]

It's all about relationships. Chances are you have heard the cliche "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Well, unfortunately, that is more true than some people would ever imagine.

My best fulltime gig was as a lead UI designer at a big training frim here in Pittsburgh. The money was amazing and the work was so simple it became mundane.

I got the job simply because I knew the right guy when they were looking. Sure, I brought some talent to the table, but it was the connection that got me the interview.

In closing, when you read or hear about some little "artsie" gathering going on in your city, get your butt out there and meet some people. Go to as many of those little gatherings as you can afford to. Pretty soon you will find that your city is a lot smaller than you think, and who knows what that might lead to.

Cheers

[chalsema]

I'm still a student, but I got really lucky with the internship I have. I get to do just about the same type of work that the full-time designers do. I was expecting to get all of the crap like doing photo cropping or something all day, but I get to come up with my own designs. On the down side, I don't get to make big decisions, my work isn't that prominent, and I only get paid $6.50/hr. But it's the best I could hope for just starting out. :)

Oops forgot to answer the question the first time I posted - I found it through school job postings online.

[Patrick Shannon]

The best work I ever got? Still waiting on that one ;)

[morea]

^ ditto.

[Ulysses]

I just wished for it ... put on my charm ... and got the work. Still works most of the time.

[Keyare]

I surfed the dot-com boom. I put my resume on monster.com as a lark and got a ton of job offers. Took the closest one for $36 an hour....until the bust. Company fizzled because they were all retards. And they'd spent all their shareholder's money.

[Image]

I'll second it's who you know.

I was just barely into graphic design. At 18 years old I had done some this and that, nothing serious. I had a best friend with a movie producer dad. This kid really looked up to me and always BSed with his parents about how good of a GD I was. Well, his Dad interviewed me. I smiled big, was polite, funny, a little bizarre, made a good impression on him. Next thing I know he's got me on the phone with the president of ESPN, asking for a bid on a corporate identity for an International account.

Bizarre. He didn't ask to see a portfolio or anything. I bid $27,000 for fun, he said his lowest bid was 24,000 (damn, i was close). I bid 20k even and was hired. Real easy job. My boss was so busy putting together the program I was designing for I never really met him. Did everything over Email. The logo was simple typography and I wrapped it up in about three days.

And it's gonna be on 4 channels of ESPN daily in four months in 10 countries.

It's all about those bizarre contacts you get through friends and family. I got another pretty serious national job (much more difficult) through my brother's girlfriend because she used to work with the company. Right place. Right time. That type of thing.