The art job interview: because being on time is the easy part.

How to Get and Keep Illustration and Design Jobs: The Art Job Interview

In my continuing mission to turn every artist into a working artist who eats whatever they want (not just dry packaged noodles), I’ll be posting a series on getting work. Whether that means FT employment or complete independence, I’ll cover it. I’ll probably get some of my talented working friends to help me out. You’ll enjoy them. They’re nice.

I’m going to cover getting freelance gigs in a later post. First things first. But don’t skip this post just to get to the good stuff later, you starving freelancer, you. Some of the stuff in this post will apply.

Besides, the best thing to do if you’re going to build a freelance career is work a real job. I’ll cover that, too, but you heard it here first.

Here are my time-tested tips (if you’ll pardon the expression), from the point of view of your interviewer. You may as well get to understand that person now, before you walk in with cream cheese on your collar.

Be on Time

Wait. What the hell? Do I really have to cover this? Aren’t there a bazillion articles and blogs that talk about the importance of being on time for your interview?

I mean, duh.

If you have trouble being on time for something that means so much, then bulleted tips about setting two alarm clocks isn’t really going to help you, is it?

So I don’t waste your time (how thoughtful of me), I’d like to cover the other stuff. The stuff about interviewing that your interviewer noticed and thought about but didn’t tell you because he was trying to figure out how to politely get you out the door without betraying the fact that he thought you were a horrible candidate.

The Other Stuff

Don’t be too early

As weird as it sounds, your mother’s advice about being ten minutes early for the interview was pretty good. It’s good because you can fill out all the paperwork before you sit down with your interviewer. You can also pretend to be nice to the receptionist and win points there. Because HR is gonna ask her when you’re gone. Trust me. You could actually be really truly nice, but if you were going to be really truly nice then I didn’t have to tell you that anyway. Yay you. Besides, the receptionist can tell when you’re faking nice.

Now that I’ve said all that… don’t be too early, okay?

I once had a guy show up for an interview an hour and a half early. Yep. Apparently he thought we could “get it out of the way” earlier because he had to go pick up his sister. In jail.

After I told him that the best thing to do was either come back at his interview time or reschedule, he proceeded to check in every fifteen minutes to see if it was a better time. I had to keep walking by him to get stuff from the receptionist and he would flag me down like I was a taxi. 

Don’t tell the interviewer you have to pick up your sister in jail

You see, like it or not,  your interviewer is forming an opinion about you personally. No matter what the employee handbook or federal guidelines say, when you say you have to be quick because your sister is in jail that’s all we’re thinking about now.

As crazy as it sounds, when you let loose with some personal information that isn’t necessary, you’ve just classified yourself. You’re no longer the Dude with the Killer Portfolio, you’re Jail Dude. When you leave, Jail Dude is how we will refer to you. You won’t be hired, because we’re too uncomfortable working with Jail Dude. All of us.

Here are other people I’ve interviewed and did not hire because of the ewww factor:

• Descriptive Irritable Bowel Syndrome Girl
• My Mother is Waiting in the Car Guy
• My Divorce Can’t be Final Soon Enough Lady
• Ms. I Forgot to Wear Deodorant Today Isn’t that Funny

You know how people tell you to just be yourself in interviews and you’ll do fine? Okay, but try and be sort of 85% yourself and 15% mystery.

The people who feel comfortable bringing up jail with someone they’ve just met and are trying to get something from always have some other issue that comes up in the interview that keeps them from the job. Always. Whether it’s “I don’t really know the computer that well,” or “I need every Wednesday and Thursday off to meet with my anger management counselor,” it comes up.

Things like, “You’re from Rhode Island? My sister went to school there, she says it’s nice,” or “I don’t like cherries, but I can draw them,” are perfectly lovely personal statements to make. You should be personable, human, friendly. Just don’t forget to turn the ewww filter on before you leave home.

My name is Zgnon-5. I am a robot. My serial number is…

Speaking of which, you really have to engage your interviewer. Please. Bring us some conversation, something from the outside world that doesn’t involve careerbuilder.com or a portfolio site. After ten interviews today, we are starved for real human interaction.

Don’t just answer the questions and wait for the next system command. Expand on the topic, let us know you can think. For cryin’ out loud, make a friggin’ joke already (ummm, just not about jail or your bowels).

How many sick days do I get?

This is a perfectly legitimate question… when posed at the right time (like when we’re talking about that kind of thing).

I had a candidate open with this. Our hands had barely separated and this thing flopped out of his mouth, this question about how he would be compensated for being sick. The interview was done before it started.

A better way to find this out (because you have a right to know that kind of stuff) is to wait until the interviewer asks you if you have any questions. Then you can pose a questions like, “Can you tell me about your vacation day and sick day policies?”

If you do it the other way, you might as well just say, “I plan to be sick a lot. How far can I push it before you fire me?” At least be honest.

This one I did in 2nd Grade, but I just keep it in here because my mom likes it

No you did not. You did not just show me your art school group project that didn’t get finished because Carl had a bad attitude and that’s why it’s all messed up. You didn’t just tell me that it would have been better if Carl wasn’t such a dickhead. You didn’t just make me stare at it for ten minutes while you spoke poorly on Carl’s character.

Oops, you did.

See, I don’t think Carl is a dickhead. I don’t know Carl. I know my current employees, and I know that if I hire you, you’ll throw them under the bus like you just did to Carl when something doesn’t go right in your world. End of interview.

The other thing? I do not want to see stuff in your portfolio that you have to make excuses for. If you have to explain away the crap, it shouldn’t be there. It would be better to show five pieces that you can only think of as awesome than twelve pieces that pad your book with Freshman year garbage.

That said, be prepared for an interviewer to say something like, “Tell me how this piece could be improved.” Be prepared, because as an artist, I know that your first instinct is to say, “It can’t, Asshole. It’s perfect and if you don’t see that then you’re an idiot (but I’ll work here anyway).”

Make some shit up. I’m not really thinking it needs changing, I just want to hear how you handle feedback. Okay?

Habernathy’s Graphic Design Corporation

Hey, Ms. Habernathy, is that a little gap in employment there? Let’s go ahead and fill that with some of this putty I call My Own Bloated Pretend Company.

On your resume, it looks something like this:

Habernathy’s Global Graphic Design Corporation, President and Lead Design Art Director/Operations Manager, 1994-present

In this demanding role, I utilized all my talents as an entrepreneur and Art Director to create Graphic Design for clients like MoGo’s Pizza, Good Faith Youth Group, Habernathy’s LogoWorks, Habernathy’s Web Site Company, and Habernathy’s Sign Development Corporation. Since 1994 I’ve serviced clients with the utmost attention to detail, even creating flyers for free as a non-profit donation for causes I believe in and happen to be a part of because my dad is the chairman of the board and makes me go with him every Saturday so I can carry donuts. I also botched my own web site design, but you’ll forgive me because it’s really the graphics you’re supposed to look at and what? that didn’t load right? sorry, i’ll fix that and send it to you again as soon as i finish this racing logo for my boyfriend’s chevy lumina…

You do realize that HR sees through the gap-fill, right? Well. We do. We know you’re not a corporate tycoon with a global presence. How do we know? Well, you’re here, looking for a job as an entry-level graphic designer.

It sucks to have gaps in your resume. It happens. Layoffs happen, you’re not happy and leave your old firm, you stop working at Joey’s Pizza so you can actually find a design job. We get that stuff. Just say it.

If you try to make yourself look bigger than you are or plug holes in your resume, you’re going to look foolish. I’ve hired artists with barely any experience, just out of school, because I liked a few things about them:

• Honesty
• Attitude
• Personality
• Energy
• Willingness to admit they don’t know everything already and want to learn

If the firm you want to get hired at is looking for someone with skills above your level, here’s what you do. Submit your resume anyway (WITHOUT gap-filling) and include a cover letter that simply states that you would like to be considered for an entry-level role when it comes up. Then let it go. You may not get a call, but if you do you’ll interview knowing that they’re giving you a shot without the puffery. So much easier to start out that way than on a pretense.

And don’t say “utilize.” Just say “use.”

I don’t do spec work. Is this some kind of test?

Good! Just say no to spec work. Ugh. Hate. It.

However, some firms give a little design test to make sure you’ve got skills. Don’t be offended, your portfolio is lovely and that’s why you’re still here. But we’re not just testing your key-command acumen. We’re putting you in a position where you have to create something, take direction, and do it in a timely manner while your’re surrounded by other artists in a fast-paced environment. Can you hack it if we hire you? is what we want to know.

If you get offered a skills test, it’s likely not client work. If a company gives a job candidate real client work to get some free design, it’s not a place you want to work. Run away. A design firm that would risk actual client work on a potential new hire is very scary.

So go ahead and ask the question, politely. Every studio I’ve worked for has some form of a test and it was never “real” work. Once that’s out of the way, just take the damn test. Put your foolish pride aside and remember that no matter how fast or great you can whip that thing out, it’s not just about your skills. It’s about playing nice with the other kids.

Don’t be that girl that got angry, said I was doing something illegal and demanded to know if the AIGA knew about our test. Do you mean the test you just failed by yelling at me in the interview? No, they don’t know about it. Um, here’s your portfolio. Yes, the interview is over, I think that’s all we need to know. Thank you for coming.

After one round of tests, one artist had slightly better skills than the other. Sadly, the one with better skills kept making negative comments to the other artists during the test. We hired the nicer one and trained her to make better graphics. That was easier than training her to be nice.

Be Easy

That’s it. Be easy. Make it easy to hire you. The people that are interviewing you sometimes have other jobs besides hiring new artists. They may be thinking about their own job and how if they make another bad hiring decision they’ll be on the other side of the table. They may be thinking about how they have to stay late because after this interview they have a design meeting.

Help the interviewer by making it easy for them to go to their boss and say, “That’s the one, right there. no question. We need that person on our team.” Don’t be overly demanding, don’t have an expired work visa, don’t talk badly about your last employer, don’t leer at the receptionist and ask me if I’ve seen her legs.

Help me get to sleep tonight. Please.

Last but not least

It’s killing me, but I feel like I have to say this. Be on time. If you need tips on how to be on time, go to careerbuilder.com. Don’t tell them I sent you.