Designers Vs Developers - Which Way To Go

[Virgo Nightingale]

I actually have 2 degrees. A Bachelor's in music industry, and an Associate's in graphic design. I have a pretty good portfolio. I'm planning on searching for a new design job in the semi-near future. Even though I have these wonderful positive attributes, I think the WORST thing on my plate will be the fact that my design degree is an Associate's.

[Bob]

Originally Posted by <b>

I'm sure this filtering process eliminates some perfectly good designers, but there has to be benchmarks for making the initial rough cut.

So how do you filter that first round of candidates? Do you evaluate again on the relative 'reputational' value of the various schools those degrees represent?

University of California pioneered the concept of 'Degree Farms' way back in the seventies. They were almost universally laughed at by the other schools about the audacity of commodifying something as uncommodifiable as a university degree.

Until they started making money hand over fist.

And the reason undergrad factories took off is because it saved corporations tons of time and money in interview time, staffing, and recruitment testing to just be able to use a metric like degree filters to do the rough cutting.

Study after study has shown that most companies fail miserably at recruiting talent -- creative and otherwise. The cognitive biases built in to most convential recruitment processes are seriously flawed. Even at the executive levels.

Anyone interested in the subject of cognitive biases might enjoy 'Thinking Fast, and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman. (One of my favourites was the 'market predictive' surveys they tested on all the fortune 500 CFO's. The guys with the seven figure incomes. To a person, they did worse than chance.)

[PrintDriver]

Everyone forgets about the overhead.

Gromit, you earned your chops and would be an exception.
Cosmo on the other hand has many years of experience as well but has not been able to get any job without a degree. So he's gone back for one.

Some of it has to do with job market area too.

I've often wondered about those that open a freelance business when they obviously don't even have the skills to be hired...

Bob, if you just happen to have graduated from any college one of the owners attended, you might have a leg up, but it doesn't get you the job.

[<b>]

Originally Posted by Bob

So how do you filter that first round of candidates? Do you evaluate again on the relative 'reputational' value of the various schools those degrees represent?

Our situation gets a little weird because there's taxpayer money and government grants involved. This makes the paperwork associated with any recruitment subject to about a billion lines of red tape and, seriously, no kidding, about a thousand pages of paperwork.

It's incredibly inefficient and stupid, but jumping through federal and state government hoops is part of the requirements of working with them. For example, the initial cut has to be made by an HR computer program with an algorithm that assigns points based upon how they answered the application questions. HR types in the cutoffs based on my input, and their computer spits out the list of those we have to interview. We're not allowed to sort through the list picking and choosing or selecting qualified applicants who, for whatever reason, didn't make the initial cut. In fact, I'm not even allowed to see who didn't make the computer program's initial cut.

If the initial cut yields too many names, I'm asked to tighten the selection parameters so they computer can spit out fewer applicants that we have to interview.

When I finally get an approved list of computer-selected applicants to work with, I'll carefully go over everything personally.

I recited all this detail just as an example of the sorts of things that design job applicants might be up against. Stupid or not, internal hiring procedures come into play in one way or another at nearly every company, and they become part of the equation when looking for a job.

Basically, it boils down to more education, more skills, more experience and a killer portfolio adding up to a higher chance of landing a good job. The job market is so saturated right now that it's almost necessary to have first-rate qualifications in each of those areas just to stay competitive — especially for someone just starting out.

[Nobert]

Originally Posted by Virgo Nightingale

I actually have 2 degrees. A Bachelor's in music industry, and an Associate's in graphic design. I have a pretty good portfolio. I'm planning on searching for a new design job in the semi-near future. Even though I have these wonderful positive attributes, I think the WORST thing on my plate will be the fact that my design degree is an Associate's.

Maybe on your resume you should list your education as "Bachelor's...degree in Graphic Design" (except use a proper elipsis, of course).

[FineDineRecords]

By the comments, it sounds like a real hurdle to get into a Design firm.

All the effort to get a degree, and then get your foot into a company with minimum wage and possibly on contract?

mmm...

Okay...

Just to let you guys know that I am not from USA. From where I come from, having a great portfolio pretty much gets you in.

I know a friend who studied a graphic design degree and has a portfolio (poor portfolio though) and still could not get in. He is now a drink/bottle store manager for a liquer outlet. At least he can drink his sorrows away lol.

[FineDineRecords]

Originally Posted by ec101

Back to your original questions. I think before these can be answered, you need to carefully define "designer" and "developer". Both of these terms can apply to a wide spectrum of abilities and required knowledge. What skills are you thinking of when you use these terms?

Web Developer
Web Designer

[tZ]

I started out as an Illustrator though graduated as a graphic designer. Though in my own time I always had my head in the web stuff. I think becoming a developer was on of the best decisions I have made in my life because otherwise I don't think it would be to far fetched I would be living on the street or even worst – mom and dads basement. Though there are several successful designers out there. So pick your poison. Just remember that web development is in essence programming. Essentially a software engineer that specializes in the web. So to become good at it requires learning computer science in and out fyi. Design is a whole other beast…

[FineDineRecords]

Originally Posted by tZ

I started out as an Illustrator though graduated as a graphic designer. Though in my own time I always had my head in the web stuff. I think becoming a developer was on of the best decisions I have made in my life because otherwise I don't think it would be to far fetched I would be living on the street or even worst – mom and dads basement. Though there are several successful designers out there. So pick your poison. Just remember that web development is in essence programming. Essentially a software engineer that specializes in the web. So to become good at it requires learning computer science in and out fyi. Design is a whole other beast…

are you a web developer?
What languages do you know?
What IDE/Platforms do you use? Or is it only notepad .

Yes Graphic Design is a different beast. I really think they should change the HR process.

[<b>]

Originally Posted by FineDineRecords

I know designers who didn't do that. I do not believe a diploma or degree is what makes the designer...or even any professional...

Originally Posted by FineDineRecords

All the effort to get a degree, and then get your foot into a company with minimum wage and possibly on contract?

That's an interesting, but naive viewpoint. Would you trust someone with no formal medical training to remove your appendix?

Formal college/university training isn't about putting in the time to get a piece of paper. It's not some silly initiation exercise that employers require for no real reason. Employers use university degrees as benchmarks because, on average, formal training produces better, more knowledgable, better-rounded and more focused designers (and programmers).

I've seen great portfolios from designers with limited formal educations — there are some on this forum. However, I've seen a far higher ratio of great portfolios from designers who have graduated from a university-level design program.

A formal education isn't about the piece of paper you receive at the end — it's about the education you receive while you're there. By itself, college doesn't produce a great designer, but it ensures that the basics have been covered and that the graduate is prepared to enter the workforce with a good, solid, well-constructed foundation to build upon.

I've been a designer and creative director in various capacities for about 30 years. I'm actually not too bad at it, and I make a pretty decent living besides. If I had started out by entering the profession without a formal design education three decades ago I'm quite certain that I would have nowhere near the abilities that I have today and would very likely have been washed out years ago.

Now if you've got the natural design and/or programming talent that would gain nothing from formal training and direction, and if you live in a place where lack of a degree won't be a handicap — go for it if you think school will be a waste of time. You just might be right, and you just might end up being the exception and wildly successful. The statistics, however, argue against it.