I consider myself a fairly informed person, and that is especially true when it comes to the future of my career. Since I declared myself a student of graphic design, there hasn’t been a day that I have not gone online with the intent of getting a forecast into the future of my career choice.
I tend to take career news reports with a grain of salt, especially when words like “recession-proof” and “fast-growing” are used to describe the job market offered to those in the creative market.
Recession-proof is a stretch by all means. To prove it, all you need to do is a quick search on Craigslist. Compare the amount of jobs currently available to the amount offered a couple of years ago. The results are frightening. There was a time when one could do a quick search for creative positions in New York and yield several pages of ads in just one day. Try the same thing today, and you are lucky to get half of a page worth of hits.
Fast-growing is another word I am skeptical about. According to Yahoo Hotjobs, graphic design is one of the top growing professions today with a median annual salary of $41,215 per year. Art Bistro states a pay range of $35,000 to $100,000. These are some pretty interesting figures when the average salary I have seen tends to offer slightly more than minimum wage.
The second problem I see with this comment on fast growth is the lack of available entry-level jobs. Most are asking for a minimum of two to three years experience, and they still offer little pay. The number of professional creative people may be increasing, but the job market seems to be shrinking.
After all of this you would think that I have become pessimistic about my future, but in fact, it is the exact opposite. Within struggle comes growth, and this is as true in the job market as it is in any other setting. A tighter job market brings with it an opportunity to push myself and perhaps prove to my future employers that I have what it takes to flourish under pressure.
-Brian Randle
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