[Update] A Coffee Chat Led to My First Design Job in London!

(26 Aug. 2024)

After that coffee chat, I not only got a lot of insight and feedback, I ended up landing my first job in London. Last month, the alum sent me a JD and said her friend's company was hiring and asked if I wanted to give it a shot. It was just a job lead, not a referral, but I still thought it was a great opportunity! So I sent my CV and portfolio, went through the interviews, and got the offer! The whole job search took only 2 months, so networking really is a key accelerator.

One more thing I want to share: since it's July and August now and most classmates haven't graduated yet, I also ran into notice period issues when interviewing with other companies. For students, the bottleneck is visa timing. In my case, even though I finished my courses and handed in my work in August, the school wouldn't release the final result confirming graduation until 9/20. Until then I could only work on a student visa at 20hr/week, and that still led companies that needed someone immediately to pass on me.

Overall, I think coffee chats really matter. Compared with blasting out CVs on job sites by yourself, openings that are only posted on a company's own website, or on platforms you've never looked at, will slip right past you if you're not paying attention. Please don't be shy about messaging people on LinkedIn. A friend worried that “it feels like I'm getting something without being able to give anything back,” but I don't think you need to worry too much about that. For example, I once set up an online chat with a designer who had given a talk at my school. It was my first time doing this, and when I told him “you're the first senior person I've reached out to,” he was actually really happy, encouraged me to post more, and later even reshared my portfolio!

From their side, these industry veterans can tell from my profile that I'm new, so of course they don't expect me to bring them anything. More often it's genuine goodwill and the joy of sharing experience and resources, so go ahead and connect~~

(24 Apr. 2024)

Jason recently set up an alumni mutual-support network, and I just finished a 2-hour coffee chat in London yesterday

so I'm sharing what I got out of it right away, and I hope it encourages everyone to start asking people out for coffee!

I got in touch with this alum because during a group tutorial, our professor mentioned, “The Taiwanese girl who graduated last year just found a job!” The whole class applauded this stranger, and silently cheered ourselves on too. After class, I got her LinkedIn from the TA. As a new graduate with only internship experience, job hunting was pretty unfamiliar to me, so after chatting for a while I asked to meet her in London.

On the day, to my surprise, a whole group walked through the café door: three Taiwanese people who had all found jobs in London! I went through the questions I'd prepared and we talked for a really long time; they patiently answered every one. Below are my notes from that conversation, mainly about the questions designers run into when applying for jobs in London. If you've been working in the UK for years, feel free to leave a comment and add your thoughts.

Housing tips

• Live in West or North London; if East, not too far east. South is dangerous.

• Some places include council tax

• You don't need to be close to the office, but it's best to be close to the Tube

• Start looking at places a month before graduation; too early and you can't hold it, too late and there's nothing left

Job-hunting tips

• Besides job sites, you can also look up companies' email addresses and write to them directly

• Make good use of your school's career resources

• If most of your usual work comes from freelance projects, use your graduation project for something more creative that shows your personal style

• Order of importance: Portfolio➡️Cover letter➡️CV

• Apply for the PSW in October–November

Portfolio tips

• Don't order it chronologically; put your strongest work up front

• Unlike school applications, a job portfolio is more about showing results than the ideation process

• Make both a website and a PDF; the PDF should be 20-30 pages

• Look at how gallery websites use narrative logic to order their work descriptions

• Keep revising your portfolio while you job hunt

I hope this helps art and design students who want to find work in the UK. Visa rules have recently started changing, and all we can do is be fully prepared. As for my goal of starting my career in the UK, all I can say is: don't force it, but don't give up either. I look forward to sharing my experience of the UK workplace on the forum next year! Wishing myself and everyone all the best✨