A couple of weeks ago our UX/UI Designer Natasha Hockey and Web Developer Martin Kiss gave a Happy Hour Digital Industry talk at Southampton Solent University, both Alumni graduates of the Web Design & Development course.
Their aim and ambition for the talk was to educate and inform current students of the realities of landing your first paid career role and what you expect in the industry, right through to accepting you’ll make mistakes but using those mistakes as opportunities to grow and do better next time – A mistake isn’t a mistake if there are learnings to take away.
Getting your first job
During this part of the talk they covered the typical process that a graduate would go through when applying for jobs, and at each stage, insights were given into what companies would be looking for. It’s important to make sure that you stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs, in a good way of course!
They also touched upon things that students should be looking for when applying for these jobs. It’s important to highlight that it’s not just about accepting the first job offer you receive, but it’s really thinking about the whole job as a package and if it’s the right environment for you.
Expectations vs Reality
Here they highlighted some expectations that students may have when getting their first job in the industry, pairing these expectations with the likely reality to give students a real insight into what working in the industry at the beginning of your career may be like.
Our number one take away from this section was the importance of becoming a problem solver. A common expectation of graduates is that they will have someone to solve problems for them, there’ll, of course, be guidance but when taking your first steps into the industry it’s important to become the problem solver and not assume somebody will have the answer for you all of the time.
Making Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes and this shouldn’t be seen as a negative. Making a mistake is the biggest learning curve you’ll experience, and as long as you learn something from a mistake then it can be seen as a positive learning experience.
We’re all human (Natasha and Martin included) and naturally they’ve each made their own mistakes throughout their careers. They decided to share a few of these at the talk and discuss the ways they worked through/avoided them from happening again. Here are the mistakes that were covered:
- Underestimating the scope of a project
- Learning that it’s okay to say no
- Working in silo
The hope is that by sharing insight into their mistakes, students will no longer perceive this to be a negative outcome and instead embrace them.
We had great feedback from the talk and the students at Solent University appreciated the more honest and realistic approach we took in delivering our personal experiences. The students particularly loved the free Hinge branded bottle openers that were handed out!
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Hinge Branded Bottle Openers
