Job Search
May 24, 2005 9:53 AM Subscribe
I've been doing web design for a very small company for almost 6 years. My skills basically are limited to designing comps for websites in Photoshop & building them out with Dreamweaver. I also do a tiny bit of Flash. But the current company is unlikely to grow, nor will my responsibilities become any more interesting, so I've set my sights on the local university's tech & humanities departments.
For those of you who do webwork within the university environment, what sorts of capacities are available for someone with my skills? What sort of departments need my skills? If they expect me to be more well-rounded, what skills should I brush up on? What interesting medium-level web jobs are out there? How different is working in the university environment vs. a small business? Was it hard to find the job? Is it competitive? Do any other MeFites with computer skills work cool university jobs I might not have thought of?
One last important question: I haven't put together a resumé in 7 years. What cool online resumés can guys recommend I check out? I'd like to do something really slick.
For those of you who do webwork within the university environment, what sorts of capacities are available for someone with my skills? What sort of departments need my skills? If they expect me to be more well-rounded, what skills should I brush up on? What interesting medium-level web jobs are out there? How different is working in the university environment vs. a small business? Was it hard to find the job? Is it competitive? Do any other MeFites with computer skills work cool university jobs I might not have thought of?
One last important question: I haven't put together a resumé in 7 years. What cool online resumés can guys recommend I check out? I'd like to do something really slick.
The upside of a university job is that they're very much into letting you grow. In my experience, I took a job as a low level web designer, built a new site for my group and started working on department sites. But in between those projects I honed my skills in all sorts of ways.
I tend to think of university jobs like grad school -- you can do as much or as little as you want and you'll probably keep your job until you die if you don't piss anyone off. Most people in the university sector I've worked with opt for doing very less, but I used my time to bone up on all the latest coding and layout techniques, I created projects to teach myself how to program (like MetaFilter), and I joined every web design mailing list I could to keep up with the industry. I also read two or three books a month on web stuff while I was there. By the end of my three years, I learned a ton about content management systems, databases, graphics, user interfaces, and user interaction.
So my advice would be to watch all the local university job boards, and when you find something you qualify for, take it and when you get the job, use it as a way to grow all your skills in ways you'd like. Don't worry about being in over your head at first, you'll have plenty of time and room to grow in a job like that.
posted by mathowie at 11:08 AM on May 24, 2005
I tend to think of university jobs like grad school -- you can do as much or as little as you want and you'll probably keep your job until you die if you don't piss anyone off. Most people in the university sector I've worked with opt for doing very less, but I used my time to bone up on all the latest coding and layout techniques, I created projects to teach myself how to program (like MetaFilter), and I joined every web design mailing list I could to keep up with the industry. I also read two or three books a month on web stuff while I was there. By the end of my three years, I learned a ton about content management systems, databases, graphics, user interfaces, and user interaction.
So my advice would be to watch all the local university job boards, and when you find something you qualify for, take it and when you get the job, use it as a way to grow all your skills in ways you'd like. Don't worry about being in over your head at first, you'll have plenty of time and room to grow in a job like that.
posted by mathowie at 11:08 AM on May 24, 2005
The major downside of a university job is that they're almost certain to have outdated hardware and software resources, so it's a challenge to keep up with current developments. Also, people seem more set in their ways than in a corporate setting, so it's more of a challenge to replace old-school (heh) ways of doing things with more modern and efficient methods. People will be astonished at accomplishments that are standard practice in a corporate setting.
There's also the possibility of being a big fish in a small pond. You may be the person that knows the most about the web, and possibly won't have peers to bounce ideas off of or get sanity checks from.
geeky and mathowie are right about the good aspects of a university job, and for me they good stuff outweighs the less-desirable stuff, but it's got it's challenges.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:39 AM on May 24, 2005
There's also the possibility of being a big fish in a small pond. You may be the person that knows the most about the web, and possibly won't have peers to bounce ideas off of or get sanity checks from.
geeky and mathowie are right about the good aspects of a university job, and for me they good stuff outweighs the less-desirable stuff, but it's got it's challenges.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:39 AM on May 24, 2005
my school is very interested in employee development. I can get technical training on a regular basis, and there's personal/ professional training through the school every month.
Present them with a resume that shows how much you enjoy helping the educational process -- students, faculty, staff, and you can edge out someone who might be more qualified than you. There was quite a bit of competition for the position, and I think this helped put me ahead of the pack.
The payscale is reasonable, but you might find it on the low side of reasonable. Most schools have excellent benefits that make up for mediocre pay scales. You should also be able to pursue a degree of your choice, gratis, until you reach the doctorate level.
Things can be disorganized, much more so than in small business. Any long term projects you might engage will be held hostage to the academic calendar, and with many universities having a variety of term starts and lengths, you may only be able to devote a very small amount of time to planning or execution before having to deal with the operational problems of term start dates, class and academic issues and such.
Kirkaracha: I'm not sure if that's true for all schools. We've had a mandate to make sure our school is close to cutting edge, and the equipment is starting to reflect this. Beefy servers, good staff workstations, laptops and flexible spending for faculty and good student-facing technology are all priorities for us. Our outdated stuff gets portioned out to charity or used in one-off projects at the school.
posted by boo_radley at 12:36 PM on May 24, 2005
Present them with a resume that shows how much you enjoy helping the educational process -- students, faculty, staff, and you can edge out someone who might be more qualified than you. There was quite a bit of competition for the position, and I think this helped put me ahead of the pack.
The payscale is reasonable, but you might find it on the low side of reasonable. Most schools have excellent benefits that make up for mediocre pay scales. You should also be able to pursue a degree of your choice, gratis, until you reach the doctorate level.
Things can be disorganized, much more so than in small business. Any long term projects you might engage will be held hostage to the academic calendar, and with many universities having a variety of term starts and lengths, you may only be able to devote a very small amount of time to planning or execution before having to deal with the operational problems of term start dates, class and academic issues and such.
Kirkaracha: I'm not sure if that's true for all schools. We've had a mandate to make sure our school is close to cutting edge, and the equipment is starting to reflect this. Beefy servers, good staff workstations, laptops and flexible spending for faculty and good student-facing technology are all priorities for us. Our outdated stuff gets portioned out to charity or used in one-off projects at the school.
posted by boo_radley at 12:36 PM on May 24, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
As far as skills, are you using the UI in Dreamweaver, or are you hand coding? I can tell you from experience it's best to hand code to avoid being tied to one app for development. Important skills I use in my job: XHTML, CSS, standards compliant code, javascript, Mac/PC proficient. Other skills you may want to look in to: CMS/Blogging apps, PHP, ASP, .NET, databases. The workload at my university has been steadily leaning towards more database and web app related projects.
I love the university work environment. It's very casual (jeans at work!) and laid back. Bosses are usually very flexible about deadlines and about time off. The pay is lower than what you will find in the public sector, but the benefits make up for it in my opinion. I'm sure not every university is the same, but that's what I've seen in my personal experience.
University jobs (at least in this area) are pretty competitive. The hiring is usually a little bit tricky - often universities are required to post job announcements even if they already know who they want to hire (like someone from within). Beware: there is also usually quite a bit of internal politics that go along with university jobs.
If you're bored with your current job, are you sure a university is the right place for you to go? From what I've seen, most universities are not on the cutting edge of web development. My job changes and grows quite a bit, but I also feel like I'm in a fairly forward thinking group.
posted by geeky at 10:32 AM on May 24, 2005