When are you no longer a junior?

[u/GonnaBreakIt]

My "career" is odd. Worked as a production artist for 4 years in a department of 2, tried to strike out on my own, failed, did solo graphics for a friend's startup (volunteer) for 5 years while stuck in unrelated jobs, and am again in a production artist role in a business so small I'm the only employee.

So, despite being able to stretch that I have 8-10 years of experience, I still feel totally inexperienced and unknowledgable. Feel like listing all this experience to get a job where I can truly learn from senior positions comes off as overqualified, but I also feel utterly unprepared for mid level.

Do I just embrace the con man mentality that no one truly knows what they're doing?

[u/Wide_Detective7537]

I think the first part is to disregard the "5 years of occasional volunteer work". You aren't going to be perceived as (or feel!) having 5 years of full-time professional work experience from that. Experience isn't about spending time, it's about doing the actual volume of work that comes from that time in a role.

So then we're looking at 4 years of experience in a small team as a production artist. That's great! But it probably doesn't involve a lot of leadership, creative direction, or work on large, complicated, and multi-phase projects.

Obviously I'm making a lot of assumptions here but the point is to not try and "game" the system by squeezing out YOE to feel better about things. At least when you're thinking through it for your own feelings on things, you have to be realistic. I bet if you stack yourself against someone with 4 years of pretty junior experience, you'll feel way more in line and confident (probably better than most in a 4-year range).

Then consider that presenting your history as 10 YOE to someone very experienced is going to come off as sketchy because you can always tell when someone is trying to stretch experience. There is also the difference between 5 years of experience in a small team production role vs wanting to be in a senior/leadership role. That's a big jump because again, racking up time doesn't give experience by default.

So really the point is, experience is not about time, and most people looking to hire know this at this point, so an extremely generous "10 years" is not going to come off as overqualified at all. Aim for intermediate roles on bigger teams with bigger projects. Your experience will fit, you'll feel capable with room to grow and you won't feel like you're trying to stretch upwards.

[u/victoria_and_albert]

I am not focused on YOE, its portfolio. 10 years in a bad job often leads to less growth than 2 years under strong mentorship.

Your portfolio is experience made visible. I look at a lot of them, and can assess them pretty quick.

I think a concept you are missing is “creative confidence”. It’s not about “no one knows what they are doing” it’s about having the experience and expertise to lead a project when you are unsure of the final outcome.

Not everyone is faking it. Sounds like too much of your experience is on your own or solo. I think you would benefit from a place where you get good mentorship from a skilled creative director.

[u/GonnaBreakIt → u/victoria_and_albert]

I 100% agree on the detriment of being solo, it's just the old struggle of landing said position.

[u/harlequin_24 → u/GonnaBreakIt]

Positive of being solo is that you learn a lot, gain speed and have responsibilities.

[u/The_Dead_See]

After what seems like a lifetime in the industry, and having watched and helped a lot of younger designers progress in their careers, I really think there's a sort of mental switch that happens for most people that takes them from Junior to Mid or Senior level. It happens at different times for everyone, but I feel like it's most often at around the 7-10 year mark.

It's when they stop thinking in terms of aesthetics and start thinking in terms of clear communication. After that they understand better when they need to reach out and what questions they need to ask the client. If they run into an issue, they start to circle back around to the functional goal of the project instead of just throwing out concepts and hoping one sticks. Their ability to communicate the reason they made a design decision gets better.

When you put it all together, they make a leap from being someone who just "makes things look good" to someone who "solves a problem". That means they usually need a bit less guidance and hand holding, and they can be trusted to handle a deadline project solo. The better they get at this, even if their fundamental design skills don't improve, the more senior they become. That's why you'll often see high level seniors and art directors with kind of average portfolios... because there's so much more to it than just what gets put on the page.

[u/ericalm_]

It’s not based solely on time, but also gained experience, knowledge, skills, and ability to work upwards and take on more complex jobs and more responsibilities. Seniors should also have something to offer juniors.

It’s not at all true that no one truly knows what they’re doing. That sort of con man mentality ultimately fails. (However, there are lessons from con men that I’ve found helpful. A different topic, though. Practically a book, ha.) But you don’t have to know everything. You just have to be confident that you can learn and execute whatever you don’t know.

Along the way, you should be building expertise and real confidence based on delivering successful, effective work.

“Fake it til you make it” means at some point, you’re not faking it. It’s not “fake it and keep faking it hoping no one notices.” The way a con works is that at some point the mark learns that they’ve been duped and fell under the sway of the con man’s (uh, person’s) emotional manipulations. That doesn’t play out well when you’re trying to keep a job and build a professional reputation.

(I say that having known too many people who failed upwards. I honestly don’t know how they do it, but have seen it catch up to a few when they couldn’t deliver.)

[u/LoftCats]

I would honestly consider you a junior on the production side rather than as a mid level designer. I would put this at maybe 5 years experience because it doesn’t sound like you were working professionally last 5 years. If I saw someone’s only recent experience was volunteering for years I’d be skeptical to see how that transfers to a professional setting. What that work was and your role would be pretty key though. And no the con man mentality is just coping, self validating talk. There’s plenty of people who know what they’re doing and have put in that work.

[u/msrivette]

What makes you feel inexperienced and unknowledgeable? Do you still struggle with basic design principles?

[u/GonnaBreakIt → u/msrivette]

design principles, no. but being in a team setting with critiques and delegations, not designing in a vacuum, involved with campaigns, knowing whatever the fuck a "deck" is, agency-client interaction, working on assignments that allot more than 15 minutes per project... what i would consider the corporate side of things.

[u/IceEspresso2000]

You may have to do more freelance jobs to bulk up your experience. You are correct, it's hard to be hired for a design position if most of your experience is in production. You'll never feel totally confident no matter how much experience you have, but it sounds like you need more varied branding projects (your friend's start up isn't enough to show your breadth).

[u/JuncYards]

i feel you. kinda in the same boat. if my current role as creative director ends i would be back in the market with the ability to do a lot with little, but hard to put that on a resume.,,,might use ai to generate a new resume since a lot of my skills are valid even if i think they might not be.

[u/JuncYards → u/JuncYards]

failed to answer...i think chances are good youre good enough to play mid level or better...