Helping new designers get hired

Student Forum
#1

Hey everyone :wave:

I’ve worked in the design industry for over 20 years and I’m currently developing something called Wink Academy aimed at helping new designers, and I’d really love your input.

It’s being built to help design students and new grads feel more confident, capable, and hireable when stepping into their first jobs. The idea came from hearing how many grads feel lost trying to connect what they learned in school to what employers actually look for and crushing your first role.

Before I go too far in building the first course, I want to hear directly from you:
• What are you most unsure or anxious about as you think about getting hired?
• What do you wish school had covered to make you feel more prepared?
• When it comes to landing a job or internship, what do you think would help you stand out or feel ready?

The goal of Wink Academy is to close that gap — to give designers real-world knowledge about working with clients, understanding business goals, and communicating the value of their design work.

But I don’t want to assume what you need — I’d rather learn it from you.

I’d genuinely appreciate your honest thoughts, worries, or ideas. Your input will help shape something that’s actually useful for students and grads trying to start their design careers.

Thanks so much :pray:
Craig

#2

I’ve been in the print industry almost 30 years.
What designers really need is knowledge on how to output their wonderful creations. Print, online, interactive or whatever.
It’s great to be creative, but if you don’t know what to sell your client, what good is pretty pictures?

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#3

My perspective is that of an art/creative director who hired talent.

Most college design graduates face reality head-on once they graduate, and that reality is often at odds with what they learned in school.

In school, the client is the instructor, who also graduated in design and appreciates good design. Consequently, the client (the instructor) knows the difference between good and not-so-good and tends to prioritize creativity and aesthetics.

After graduation, the rules change. Real-world clients aren’t designers, but they still have opinions. They tend to look at things from a return-on-investment perspective in addition to their own likes and dislikes. Since these clients pay the bills, the projects that would have gotten A’s in school often end up being unused.

The art and creative directors at ad agencies and leading in-house teams have already learned this lesson and view freshly graduated students as newbies who haven’t yet learned the realities of the industry and will take time to teach. Unlike a college instructor, an art director isn’t usually looking for a designer to educate. An art director is seeking a designer who can hit the ground running and take on the work.

With that in mind, a good-looking portfolio is, of course, important. However, equally important is the job applicant’s understanding of the employer’s needs. It’s up to the applicant to convince the art director that they’re the best person for the job and possess the necessary skills, attitude, problem-solving abilities, and understanding of the business realities required to handle the business design challenges that they were hired to solve.

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#4

Thanks for this @Just-B and @PrintDriver . Your comments are both reflective of my own experiences and the gap I see between uni and the industry, and expectations vs reality. The solution I’m researching for will hopefully close that gap and strengthen those soft skills and the contextual application of design within business environments.

I’m looking forward to what others have to say

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#5

Quick update for everyone who contributed to this thread and those that might stumble across it in the future. :wave:

First, thank you again for the thoughtful responses here. The points raised around output knowledge, business context, ROI, client reality, and the gap between school and the real world were exactly what I was hoping to surface.

Based on this feedback (and 20+ years of seeing this play out firsthand), I’ve officially launched the first course inside Wink Academy: Design for Business (DFB).

DFB tackles this issue head on. It is not about making designers “more creative” — it’s about helping them understand:

  • How design actually functions inside a business
  • How clients and stakeholders think and make decisions
  • How to connect design choices to outcomes, not just aesthetics
  • How to communicate value, not just present work

In other words, the things many of us had to learn the hard way after graduating.

This course exists specifically to help students and early-career designers bridge that uncomfortable gap between “school success” and “industry readiness” so they can walk into their first roles more confident, credible, and useful to the teams hiring them.

I genuinely appreciate everyone who shared their perspective here. This input directly shaped the course and will continue to shape what Wink Academy becomes next.

If you’re curious, I’m happy to share more, and I’ll absolutely keep listening as this evolves.

#6

Hi, this sounds really interesting - especially as a student who’s still learning about design. I’m curious to know more about your course and how it can help students and early budding designers!

#7

Thanks so much for your interest, and great question.

The Design for Business course was created specifically to help students and early-career designers bridge the gap between what is taught in school and what is actually expected once you enter the industry. I have spoken with many current students and recent graduates who openly acknowledge that they struggle to apply what they have learned, or that their expectations do not align with the realities of working as a designer. There is a significant difference between knowing how to design and knowing how to be a designer.

One of the biggest challenges new designers face is not a lack of creativity or technical skill. It is understanding how design operates within a business. In school, success is often measured by craft, aesthetics, and concept. In the real world, designers are also expected to understand business goals, stakeholders, constraints, risk, timelines, and how to clearly explain why their design decisions matter.

DFB focuses on that missing layer. It helps you learn:

  • How design decisions connect to business outcomes
  • How to work effectively with non-designers, including marketers, developers, and stakeholders
  • How to move beyond “good design” and communicate value
  • How to show up more confident, credible, and prepared in your first role

The goal is not to replace what you are learning in school. It is to complement it, so when you step into your first job or internship, you are not encountering these lessons for the first time under pressure. In many ways, the course acts as a practical shortcut, helping you avoid spending the first several years of your career trying to figure these things out through trial and error.

Many new design graduates struggle to land their first role not because they are poor designers, but because employers know they often lack the additional skills required to operate professionally. This includes working with clients, selling design decisions, and understanding that design is not subjective, but a strategic discipline aimed at meeting the needs of others.

If you are still studying and starting to think seriously about your career, DFB is designed to give you this context early, so you can move from student to professional with far less friction.

I cannot post links here, but you can search for The Wink Collective and explore Wink Academy if you would like to learn more. What we are doing is genuinely new, and surprisingly, this gap has not been meaningfully addressed by most academic institutions.

Happy to share more if you have questions or want to dig deeper.

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