You’ll need to be able to demonstrate skill and ability to stand out.
This is tough if you haven’t had a job in this area first.
If you can’t find paying clients, take on personal projects.
The only way to stretch your skills is to take on real-world challenges and constraints so find a fake design brief online, and create as many different things as you can!
These personal projects can become your portfolio, which will be a stepping stone into your first paid gigs.
There are several routes for you for paid work:
You can find a job to get some experience,
Or you can start freelancing.
Both have their own challenges.
A job means secure monthly payments and not much responsibility.
There’s an attraction in this.
But a job isn’t as safe as it used to be.
Most small companies can’t afford to pay juniors the money they need to meet rising costs of living.
Larger companies don’t really want juniors.
In addition.
I don’t believe that jobs are the long-term “safe option” they used to be.
I myself have been fired from a job only the day before I was going to ask for a raise.
The second option is freelancing, or starting your own side hustle, is tough.
Freelancing means working for many years for not much money.
But with freelancing, your earning cap is potentially unlimited.
You will also have a LOT more freedom to live the life you want.
But it’s a lot of pressure.
You have to learn to do literally every job role yourself.
You have to bring in your own work.
In the end, you have to decide what’s right for you.
Of course, you can find a job AND freelance as a side hustle, which is what most folk do these days.
It’s a safe way to go as there’s not much risk to freelancing when you have a job to pay the bills!
