First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Alexis and as you can see, I am new to this forum. After much contemplating, I finally decided to register at this forum in order to seek guidance and advice from those more experienced than me in the web design industry. I am a 21 year old college graduate with a degree related to graphic/web design who needs advice on getting his first job in the web design industry.

I know that many designers choose to go the freelance route. I might eventually go that route one day but not without first going through the experience of having a web design job. With that said, I'm not sure how to go about it. I don't have past freelance jobs that I can showcase in my portfolio nor do I have any idea how much work to include. I do have a resume and a business card (that has yet to be printed). I guess my biggest question is, what should I and how much should I include in my portfolio? Would just web related stuff be acceptable or would having a diverse portfolio that includes some print work be more promising? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you guys in advance.

P.S. I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this.

Hi Alexis

I think that you should be as open as you can with your portfolio and have it all neatly categorised as this industry is huge with many companies looking for all sorts of skills from CMS backend mods to magazine adverts.

It is important you have a portfolio and not attributes to prove to potential employers of your capabilities if you are looking for a decent salary otherwise you might just get a job working for a company who will demand a lot for little reward but I guess in your instance (of not having a portfolio) that it may eventually work in your favour (portfolio growth) if you are patient enough to cope with the pressure.

I would suggest you start looking for freelance jobs on rentacoder.com, scriptlance.com elance.com and also this forum has a marketplace you can get some work from and a design competition which is good for starters/graduates as you are constantly making an effort to design something and also you get to see other people's work and learn from how they approach a project with their samples.

How about you show us your resume so we can give you some ideas of what to expect?

Greetings Alexis. I am currently going through the same thing. I'm 20 and busting my @$$ looking for work. Don't have much experience and don't have a job as a designer yet.

I'm currently making my portfolio. I don't have much to put into it as of now. Just 2 templates and I won't be happy till I have 5 or 6. One thing that you may want to consider is creating multiple portfolios. One as a freelancer and one seeking employment.

Things to include in your portfolio, is of course past work. An 'About Me' page, going over your skills and software that you use. If it is your freelancer portfolio it's not a bad idea to put your hobbies... if you like to fish and someone needs a fishing website done, it makes them feel a little bit better about you. If you have any questions on the differences between a freelancing portfolio and an employment portfolio please ask.

I'll let you on a few fine details that I have found out from my small amount of experience. As a freelancer straight out of school you obviously want work... In that case you should get 3 things right away.

1. Portfolio, even if you don't have any work to show it's something to show that you have and that you do have skills to create a website.

2. Statement of Work(SOW) Your only protection between you and your client. This way you both know what you are getting into and there will be less confusion. If there should ever be confusion you have his signature on your agreements. It's important to have this ready that way you can get a quote out and get them signed asap.

3. General client survey. This will help you figure out what kind of website they want and give you some details on how to design it. Questions like, who's your target market? How many pages? Some of their favorite sites listed and what they are seeking for theirs?

Examples of these 3 things can be found all around if you just google them. They will teach you a lot and they have templates out there for your SOW which will make it very easy. Because those things are just like securing a very, very important web server.

Thank you guys so much for the replies so far. I feel the need to clear up a couple of things though. My question really wasn't what my portfolio site should consist of but rather what types of work and how much should I include on the website. I actually have a portfolio website but it isn't completely finished. I'm just stuck on whether I should have 10 websites or 5 websites in my portfolio. The thing is I don't have much experience. You can also find my resume on the website. Thank you.

http://www.alexisavellan.com

How many is a personal preference in my opinion. If you want to keep it limited and just show your best of the best, that works great as long as you show 5-10. But I've seen many people all of their templates. But if you do all of your templates make sure you keep it organized and separate them into pages. Overwhelming them with work could be a negative if done wrong. Anyways, if you don't have very much work, you really only have one option.

You have a good image going there on your website and resume but it lacks, as you already mentioned, activity/portfolio.

Go freelance, get some jobs done, fill up your website and resume and then get that job.

Thank you guys so much for the replies. Another question, do you guys feel as if participating in contests on 99designs.com would be a great way to add to my portfolio?

http://www.getafreelancer.com/ is a great site to pick up jobs

Originally Posted by Alexis A

Thank you guys so much for the replies. Another question, do you guys feel as if participating in contests on 99designs.com would be a great way to add to my portfolio?

It'll be a competitive way, that's for sure.

I think you should open all avenues and pursue them (incl. 99designs). A better place to start is to maybe find friends or family who own a business and offer them a cut-price branding solution. This way, you will have time and familiarity on your side therefore you no need to be concerned for deadlines and scrutiny if you come into any obstacles such as getting a SSL certificate or something.

Don't be egotistical and expect a lot of money when you bid on a freelance project as there are, unfortunately *bangs head*.. many designers out there who will work for peanuts (10 page website for £20.. ) .

so what does that mean for you? well, if you don't have a portfolio, then be willing to lower your bidding until you build up something presentable and worthwhile then you can eventually increase your net worth and start telling these clients that your 10 page website for £500 is of the highest standard and that your portfolio backs that up.

Most of these peanut designers aren't very good and many steal other people's portfolio (I have seen this from the days when open bidding was available on RAC and the occasional signature link on some profiles).

Your graduate level has shown good quality and I think you just need to back it up with a couple of freelance jobs and don't bother making those latin-spam (lipsum etc.) type dummy websites as your reference since that isn't really the real deal.

The above is reflective from personal experience. I'm sure there are many other ways to approach the game but this would be my way..

I believe you should start offering your services on webmaster forums. You will find quick projects that you can add to your portfolio.

Once you have a strong portfolio of any service you are comfortable with, go to freelance bidding sites like getafreelancer.com

All I can say is you will have to start low in price, but as you build your portfolio, you can raise your price.

Also, get as many testimonials as you can from clients. They really help your portfolio.

The problem with going to one of those freelancer websites is that your working for less than minimum wage! Seriously, we have a job that requires a little more work/brain power than a clerk at your favorite grocery store. I suggest people that have a respectful portfolio to stay off those sites. Even though they don't, but those people that are working for $300 for a professional template are really messing up the job market and are really pissing me off. Seriously, set your standards and don't betray them unless your desperate. Considering you don't have much experience, freelancer websites are a great place to start.

Originally Posted by NewBreed

The problem with going to one of those freelancer websites is that your working for less than minimum wage! Seriously, we have a job that requires a little more work/brain power than a clerk at your favorite grocery store. I suggest people that have a respectful portfolio to stay off those sites. Even though they don't, but those people that are working for $300 for a professional template are really messing up the job market and are really pissing me off. Seriously, set your standards and don't betray them unless your desperate. Considering you don't have much experience, freelancer websites are a great place to start.

Yeah, I agree.

These freelancer websites were my all at the beginning but now I consider them filler sources for income although you do tend to get a fair bit of money from the occasional buyer on these freelance but most exploit the desperate coders for £3 an hour rates..

To some extent, portfolio depends on the type of job you are applying to. I agree with the comment though of just doing stuff for friends and small businesses to build up a stockpile of work. As corporate and stodgy as it sounds, diversify your portfolio.

Originally Posted by NewBreed

The problem with going to one of those freelancer websites is that your working for less than minimum wage!

Not necessarily. It's true that you start out at a lower rate, but I work more or less full time on "one of those freelancer websites", and make FAR more than minimum wage. To get started, I bid stuff out at $11 - 12 dollars per hour just to get a rating, but my rate went up very quickly. http://odesk.com is the best place to work at an hourly rate. If you want to do jobs at a fixed rate, there are many choices.

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

Not necessarily. It's true that you start out at a lower rate, but I work more or less full time on "one of those freelancer websites", and make FAR more than minimum wage. To get started, I bid stuff out at $11 - 12 dollars per hour just to get a rating, but my rate went up very quickly. http://odesk.com is the best place to work at an hourly rate. If you want to do jobs at a fixed rate, there are many choices.

There are some jobs that do ask for a higher rate but they normally ask for server side work, which puts me on the SOL list since I am just starting to learn PHP/MySQL. I've accepted that when you are just starting off you will be getting paid less. Not that I've looked at a lot of site, but what I have seen was a lot of under cutting. So maybe I've just been on all the crappy sites(very possible). I never heard of this odesk till today when I was actually looking at your website and of course now that your mentioning it. Anyways, thanks for the info wayferer, I'll be sure to check out the website a little more. Nice website by the way.

When I started out, I knew a lot about HTML and CSS so I concentrated on that. I didn't know very much about JavaScript, and hadn't started to work with jQuery yet. I knew some PHP, and had programming experience, but I knew almost nothing about MySQL or any other SQL language, so I avoided those types of assignments. Most of what I learned about PHP and MySQL was learned on the job, and I taught myself JavaScript and jQuery due to the demands of my work. Most of the first assignments I did were just HTML and CSS mockups based on other people's designs. As my skillset improved, so did my pay.

Think of this career as being one of ongoing, on the job learning, because that is partly what it is. We always need to be furthering our education by learning new skills and improving the ones we have. So represent yourself by communicating what you're good at, what you know a little bit about, what you're not good at, and maybe what you'd like to learn. If you're totally upfront with people they'll know what you're good at and will have a better idea what it will be like to work with you.

Weren't you afraid you wouldn't be capable of finishing the work taking on jobs without any experience? If you take a job and come out with promises you can't deliver that really kills your reputation and I'd hate to give people the wrong image of me. Did you work out some kind of deal to cover your @$$ in case you weren't able to deliver?

I actually had some experience before I started, so I wasn't totally green. I had worked for a couple months at the JBA network, but they let me go because they couldn't afford to keep training me. Before that, I had pretty much taught myself HTML and CSS, and some PHP, though I still had a lot to learn. I knew how to validate code to debug it, and could put together a website layout without using tables. This turned out to be a huge advantage when seeking freelance jobs, because most of the people who hired me were development companies who where subcontracting a portion of their workload.

What I did for those first people (and still do to a certain extent), is if I had a question about something that I didn't know, I would clock off, and spend some time on my own researching the answer, then I would clock back in when I had it. I knew the first few ratings were of key importance, and could potentially make or break me. I was lucky to get some people who wrote very kind things, because those reviews are rightly read by people looking to hire.

One other thing that helped me get started was the ability to represent myself in writing. I mastered the art of sending a cover-letter, which is very important because your application needs to stand out from amongst 20 or more other applications. Your cover letters should be a brief but concise introduction of yourself along with stating your interests in their assignment and why you may be a good fit. If you're new tell them you're currently offering your services at less than normal rates, in order to build a reputation. People love a bargain, even if you're green. I always try to be very light and not pushy when introducing myself, though I rarely write applications any more: I've gained so much reputation in the system, that if I take on a new client, it is because they have approached me.