Do you feel like creatives nowadays are pressured to be a jack of all trades?
To clarify, I am actively looking for work around my profession (photography) and when I do find something, many of which require you to have a BA in a similar profession + marketing experience (or a marketing qualification) + videography experience + 5 years plus previous experience.
I have a BA in photography and a few years of experience however it never feels like I can ever have enough.
Do any of you feel this way? If so, how do you respond to these applications?
Replies10
- @Javier Navarro well said! I do feel that my profession will advance when I do work with a company eventually. During these lovely isolated times, I'm buying UI/UX courses, Photoshop and InDesign course haha.
- Hi Tyler,I totally understand your questions and where are you coming from.To be honest it has always been the case and people usually expect you covering a wide range of areas, mostly becuase creative disciplines are organically entwined and are also in constant evolutions.In my opinion there is a missunderstanding in being able to do different things and being distinctively good in all of them.With that in mind I suggest (specially at the early stages of your career) to try and spread your knowledge & expertise and at some point have an honest conversation with yourself about what works better for your, where do you see yourself excelling or simply what you enjoy doing the most. And then you can probably be more specific about your work, but will be a path narrowed by experience, not by default.Hope this helps!
- @Lauren Hammond word!
- Yep. I am a copywriter and in the early days I 'accidentaly' got roped in to all sorts. Clients think if you are a creative you can do anything apparently!
- @L W to correct myself, i meant that i have no problem learning more skills along the way.
- @Tyler Calleja Jackson But that's in any profession. You may always feel like there is more to know and that's okay! You can always pick up skills and interests as you go :)
- @L W I noticed these letters on certain job applications in fact and I never knew what they stood for. Thanks for the clarification :) so basically I'm stuck feeling like i can never know enough to qualify for anything :/
- Absolutely. Big companies want 10 skills in 1 person so they can pay them the wage of just 1 role. Luckily there are various models of knowledge (T, V, M, etc) so if someone wants to specialize in 1 thing but have a tad bit of knowledge in related fields, they can. This approach can be beneficial for certain roles like Art Director, where design may be your primary skill but you still need adjecent knowledge (photography, UI/UX, etc) to lead a team or campaign.
- @Elizabeth Pascka Latim You said it! It's tough :/ I'm not sure how things will go from here on out but I sincerely hope something is done as it is physically impossible to get all of this experience and knowledge without being given the chance.
- I feel you completely Tyler. I feel over the years, creatives have been forced not only to express interest in different styles but are now expected to be able to do plethora of skills impeccably. I am lucky because I have a lot of different interests that can be intertwined and used. However I do find that we have now strayed from individuals being specialists at one thing and good at a others, to a place where now we need to be in the know of everything and do everything to a specialist level.Although this may also be done to a bigger demand in creative skills, shrinking budgets and smaller teams.
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