john3610
New Member
I had an interview a few weeks ago for a job where a guy I knew was one of the people interviewing me. It was an interview with 4 guys and the guy I knew was 1 of those 4. That's a good thing because after I didn't get the job I was able to get some feedback from him about the interview.
During the interview they asked me the question, "Why didn't you get a graphic design degree and instead got a marketing degree?"
I told them that I had been working professionally for several years doing graphic design when I decided what to major in and that I was still working professionally doing design so I thought it would be a good idea to expand my skillset so that I would be able to both design a product as well as learn how to market it. I thought that was a good answer, and so did the guy who was in the interview that I knew... but the other 3 guys didn't like that answer.
My contact told me that all 3 of those other guys had Masters degrees in graphic design and they were insulted by my comment. They went on to say after the interview was over "This kid thinks he learned everything he needed to know in just a few years? Ha!" My contact said he knew that wasn't what I was saying, but that is how those guys took it. I inadvertently offended their pride. It is further evidenced that I offended their pride because they went on to criticize my portfolio by saying "He says he has high proficiency in Photoshop/Illustrator but all he did was put text on top of stock images." Which is just their demeaning my work... and that isn't even true at all. I put a lot of work and design time into my work.. and none of it is how they described it.
That is a hard lesson for me to learn... it sucks because I ruined my chances for that job in the first few minutes of the interview because I accidentally offended the pride of the people I was interviewing. I wasn't even making a value judgement on graphic design school. The part of the story I left out is that I met with the head of the design department at my college and she advised me that it would be better for me to do advertising/marketing because I would not get a lot out of the design program since I had already learned so much in the design field from working in it professionally. From now on I'll amend my story if I'm asked that question to just tell the part about meeting with the head of the design department.
At the end of the day this is all very frustrating... sin nature is part of what kept me from getting this job. The pride of these guys.. blah. Not to say the other candidates weren't good, they may have been much better designers than me.. but I got ruled out as soon as I answered that question because apparently it injured their pride.
Please pray for me that I won't be bitter about this. I want to have the right attitude.
During the interview they asked me the question, "Why didn't you get a graphic design degree and instead got a marketing degree?"
I told them that I had been working professionally for several years doing graphic design when I decided what to major in and that I was still working professionally doing design so I thought it would be a good idea to expand my skillset so that I would be able to both design a product as well as learn how to market it. I thought that was a good answer, and so did the guy who was in the interview that I knew... but the other 3 guys didn't like that answer.
My contact told me that all 3 of those other guys had Masters degrees in graphic design and they were insulted by my comment. They went on to say after the interview was over "This kid thinks he learned everything he needed to know in just a few years? Ha!" My contact said he knew that wasn't what I was saying, but that is how those guys took it. I inadvertently offended their pride. It is further evidenced that I offended their pride because they went on to criticize my portfolio by saying "He says he has high proficiency in Photoshop/Illustrator but all he did was put text on top of stock images." Which is just their demeaning my work... and that isn't even true at all. I put a lot of work and design time into my work.. and none of it is how they described it.
That is a hard lesson for me to learn... it sucks because I ruined my chances for that job in the first few minutes of the interview because I accidentally offended the pride of the people I was interviewing. I wasn't even making a value judgement on graphic design school. The part of the story I left out is that I met with the head of the design department at my college and she advised me that it would be better for me to do advertising/marketing because I would not get a lot out of the design program since I had already learned so much in the design field from working in it professionally. From now on I'll amend my story if I'm asked that question to just tell the part about meeting with the head of the design department.
At the end of the day this is all very frustrating... sin nature is part of what kept me from getting this job. The pride of these guys.. blah. Not to say the other candidates weren't good, they may have been much better designers than me.. but I got ruled out as soon as I answered that question because apparently it injured their pride.
Please pray for me that I won't be bitter about this. I want to have the right attitude.
