Where to go from here?

I have recently finished my degree course in Interactive Multimedia Design and I now have to decide what is the best thing for me to do for my future.

Initially I applied for a number of jobs in the web design industry, hoping to gain employment and start working. Unfortunately at this time there was not a great deal of job places available so I had to concentrate on doing something else. I did not want to go into a temporary job position where I would be doing a job that I did not want to do and would not enjoy doing. With this in mind, I started to look around for anywhere that I could gain some freelance employment.

The main place that I started with was on Gumtree, it is free to place an advertisement and allows prospective clients to find you without having to search and cold call yourself. This is how I got my first freelance position.

Another method that I found worked was simply to ask people that you know. A quick question to them asking if they know of anyone requiring the services can sometimes end up with a job, this can also work if or when they run into someone who is interested in having some design work done. Word of mouth and recommendations are free, and trusted, advertising.

I have been accepted to continue to the Masters course in University of Ulster and in doing so have decided to form a ‘design collective’ with other members of the Masters course. This will allow us to pitch for larger jobs, as there will be more of us available to work on them, and will also provided an area of support when working on larger and more daunting tasks. This may not be for everyone but it seems to make sense for the direction that I am going in at the moment.