[thelist] Career Q's

Hi Adrian, this is a timely question since I've been in the position to 
hire web designers/production people in the past few weeks and have seen 
everything from the first time designer to seasoned pro.

>1) Does it count against you if you have no formal quailifications?
>obviously it would depend on the qual'.

Not really important. Luckily for us the web hasn't matured to that level 
yet. If you do good work and have an easy attitude you'll have no trouble 
getting hired.


>2) For getting experience, are you better to try and develop for clients
>directly, or work for another company?

Seeing that someone has experience working directly with a client is always 
a plus. It means they have a better grasp of what it takes to get a site 
done, and therefore are more likely to be team players.

But in the end it's really the work that counts. I would consider hiring a 
guy who's run a fan site out of his apartment for the past 3 years if it 
was good.


>3) how seriously do poeple take hand-coders?
>If your a WD company, do you perfer hand-coders or not, or do you
>avoid them?

I'm a hand coder. I don't trust WYSIWYG for anything other than 
proto-typing. If you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, you're 
not going to know what to do when it breaks.


>4) How essentail is Database experience?
>Are other skills have a higher priority?
>IE - Javascript?

For web design I wouldn't say database experience is all that important.

This reminds me of something else you'll notice as you move into working 
for large-scale web companies; your talents will be pared down to what 
you're good at. If you're better at producing HTML than designing, you'll 
end up writing HTML. If you have more technical leanings you'll end up 
doing more programming than design.

As web design companies start entering the realms of traditional design 
agencies, it's only logical they'll start to mimic their processes.

Hope that helps.

And yes...We're still hiring in LA...