How to Strive at Your New Internship

You’ve just landed dream internship.  Congratulations!  So now what?  There are countless ways that you can really make your internship count.  Many hope to turn their internship experience into a full-time position, but how exactly does one go about that?

Make your internship goals are clear.  Set up a meeting with you manager; they’ll know that you are serious about gaining experience from this internship, and you’ll have a better idea of how to most efficiently service the company.

Never be afraid to ask questions.  If you’re confused on whether or not your executing a task properly, just ask.  There’s not use in continuing to do something wrong.  That doesn’t help you, doesn’t help the company, and wastes a lot of time.

Be respectful of the office policies. Follow the companies’ dress code.  The last thing you want to do is show up in a pair of flip flops and a mink skirt when the policy is business casual.  It’s simple to dress professionally and make a good impression in that regard.

Lloy Hack Essay Competition Winner Spotlight: J. Ashley Hawkins

Congratulations to J. Ashley Hawkins the winner of IIDA’s Lloy Hack Essay contest! The contest featured essays written by students reflecting on Students Mentoring Week that IIDA hosted last February. They were asked to describe their mentoring experience and how it will benefit them when pursuing a career.

Lloy Hack was an Interior Designer and IIDA member in Bostonwhose memorial fund was set up in 2002 order to assist young, aspiring Designers.   Ashley from Gwinnett Tech in Georgia won a $1000 scholarship for her essay.  She shadowed Allison Gerstung, NCIDQ, LEED AP, IIDA a Design professional at Gensler in Atlanta.  I had the opportunity to read Ashley’s essay, and ask her a few questions about her experience.

It sounds like you had a ton of exposure to design projects on your mentor day, but which one would you say stuck out above the rest?  Why was this valuable and what did you learn from it?

Ashley: Definitely the Coca-Cola project.  It’s easy to make assumptions about what the client wants and needs so it’s important to work through a design development process and communicate about every aspect of a project.  Often the most important part of that communication process is listening.

As an interior design student, what are your career goals as of now?  Are you open to many experiences or is a set concentration your goal?

Ashley:  My favorite part of design is space planning.  I am interested in commercial design and I like the idea of finding an area of specialization.  But I am open to various experiences because my ultimate goal is to enjoy a fulfilling career that suits my personality and utilizes my skills and interests.

Did your own career goals morph at all after your visit?  If so, how did they change? 

Ashley:  I had already begun looking into NCIDQ and LEED certifications but I am more committed to working toward those goals after receiving encouragement from Allison.

What would you tell a fellow Interior Design student who was unsure about the importance of a mentoring experience?

Ashley: Interior Design is a broad field and there are so many areas to learn about.  Classroom learning is important but there is no substitute for hands-on experience.  During my day at Gensler, I was exposed to types of projects that I might not learn about or participate in otherwise.

Thanks again to Ashley for taking the time to answer these questions, and to all those who took the time to participate in the competition!

Graduating College? IIDA Board Members and Staff Share Career Advice

IIDA wants to help graduates make that all important transition from college to the real world so we’ve polled our IIDA International Board of Directors and IIDA’s Headquarter staff asking them: What single piece of advice do you wish you had heard when you were about to graduate college? Check out their answers.

“Don’t forget the reason you chose this profession in the first place…it can’t be because of the money or the job security or the 9-5 hours. It’s because you are passionate about design. Keep that passion alive throughout your career and continually look for ways to be inspired. Challenge yourself, your colleagues and your clients. Never settle for just okay and make a difference in our built environment.”
– Viveca Bissonnette, FIIDA, Assoc. AIA, CID, LEED AP, Hollander    Design Group

“Interior Design is a people profession. Therefore, we need to start with ourselves to understand how we can use design and our understanding of people to improve the world in which we live.”
– IIDA International President Peter Conant, FIIDA, AIA, LEED AP, Conant Architects

“A business card is not an acceptable form of personal identification. A series of jobs may end up being a career (or not), but the work that you do doesn’t define who you are – but you define the work that you do. And, you should always be able to explain your job to your mother. And she should understand what you do and be able to tell her friends that you are awesome and will someday rescue the planet from disaster and chaos.”
–Cheryl Durst, Hon. FIIDA, LEED AP, CEO and Executive Vice President of IIDA

“Don’t be afraid to fail.”
– Jeanne Fisher, IIDA Senior Director of Marketing and Communications

“Ask for what you want. If you’re looking for a job, ask for one. Informational interviews are great, and you should ask for one of those, but also be sure to ask for a job, should one become available. Ask for other people you should talk to, other places to look. If you have a job, maybe you want a higher starting salary? A review? More hands-on experience? Extra vacation time? Ask and you might receive. Don’t ask, and there’s no chance.”
– Allison Levy, IIDA Senior Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs

“Great Design is a synergistic process with your client, project manager, engineers, contractor, etc. resulting from clear communication (visual and verbal) and is only successful when your CLIENT loves the space and is proud of it.”
– Susanne M. Molina, IIDA, CID, LEED AP, ID+C, Klawiter and Associates

“Be proactive – don’t wait for opportunities to come to you! Put yourself out there, be confident and be proud of your work. Networking is an important part of gaining opportunities, knowledge and inspiration. Every experience will in some way inform where you go and who you are as a designer!”
– Felice Silverman, FIIDA, Silverman Trykowski Associates

“Be Flexible. There are literally dozens or even hundreds of appropriate solutions to every design problem. When a client, a code or code official, a supervisor, another architect or designer, or a contractor present something that forces you to change your design, don’t get angry and act like your design was the only and best solution, because it probably wasn’t. Take it in stride, be flexible, think about it and use it as an opportunity to make your design even better.”
– Jack Weber, IIDA, MCR, LEED AP, Gresham, Smith and Partners

“Happiness will make you wealthy in the long run.”
– Sarah Winchester, IIDA Manager of Chapter Accounting

“I wish someone had clued me in BEFORE I started working that DESIGN is more than the final space – it’s the project experience, the space itself, the impact it has on the occupants, their memories and finally the relationships that result.”
– IIDA President-Elect, Jim Williamson, IIDA, LEED AP, Gensler

Find more tips to jumpstart your career here!

Could This Be The New Frontier of Job Hunting?

In our last post, we talked about how to make your resume better.  We told you that most recruiters only spend 6 seconds on your resume!  Kind of discouraging isn’t it?  Well, it may even be possible that in the near future you may not even need a resume anymore—at least not in the traditional sense. 

What you’re doing online this very second could be the key to job success!  A new start-up based out of Jacksonville, Florida called Path.To is pioneering the movement to not only match you up with your best job, but employers to their best candidates—all by your internet activity.  On their own blog, they call themselves the “e-harmony for jobs.”  The company stresses the benefits that you, the job-seeker, get from using their service.  This includes even small details such as your workplace dress code preference, and what sorts of benefits you expect a job to provide for you.      

Users of social media sites such as GitHub and Dribble, which are aimed at the design industry, will find this especially helpful, as the site aims at specifically incorporating these sites.  However, your Facebook and Twitter accounts won’t go unnoticed.  Path.To uses your public updates to determine how well known you may be, and how much passion you could bring to the industry in which you may be hired for. 

Path.To stresses once again to us the importance of maintaining our cyber footprints.  Depending on the success of Path.To, job hunting techniques like this may become the new norm.   

How to Make Your Resume Stand Out

Would you want to look at your own resume?  If the answer is no, then it may be time to update your layout.  A new study from TheLadders has found that the average recruiter will only spend 6 second looking at your resume.  6 seconds.  You may not even have blinked once in that open time. 

 Eyetracker technology was used to record exactly what a recruiter looked at in a resume.  So how do you make your resume stand out above the rest?  The key is to grab your potential employers attention span. 

• Take note of what the job description is seeking and tailor your resume to attract the most attention to those particular spots.   
• Use the right typography and white space in order for the eye to be drawn to those parts of your resume. 
• Big blocks of texts were shown to be completely glossed over. 

 Need more tips? Check out the resources at your schools’ career center that will have resources available to help you create the right design to fit your career experience.  But we’re fans of the creative approach like this student’s resume. However, don’t just build your resume around the first template you find.  For example, a resume layout that has been used by a senior executive who graduated 25 years ago may not be your best choice.  Make sure to scour through a variety of options before picking the one right for you.

So want to stand out in six seconds?  Learn more here:.

• How to redsign your resume for a recruiter’s 6 second attention span
• We love this resume example we found on Pinterest!

Greetings from IIDA’s Newest Intern!

Hi everyone! My name is Vicky Guerrero, and I am lucky enough to be newest Communications and Marketing Intern at IIDA! In my next few months at IIDA, I really hope to gain a plethora of invaluable experience, and look forward to doing my absolute best on the job, including blogging right here!

I’m a junior at Loyola University Chicago, with a history and communications double major. Originally, I’m from the somewhat small town of Oswego, about an hour out of Chicago, and have always wanted to move to the city. I have one younger sister who is almost 15 (oh those teenage years!) and my mom and dad, who I miss dearly, but luckily they visit me often!

  My Sister and I at Christmas (i’m on the left!)

My hobbies include writing (I’m currently working on my first script), and eating, which sounds strange, but I like to incorporate it with my writing. I have a blog dedicated solely to the love of pizza, which I’ve neglected a bit lately, so I’m really hoping to show it some loving again once summer rolls around! I’m also hoping to possibly expand it to restaurants outside of pizza as well.

Being a college student, the workload can get quite brutal at times, and so for those tough school work nights, I love when they consist of baking cookies and sipping on wine with my roommates. I feel that life is all about enjoying the little things!

I’m new to the interior design field, but ready to dive in share with you what I learn along the way.  I have immense respect for the profession, and look forward to learning more about it in the coming months.

Thanks so much for reading about me, and I look forward to posting additional blog posts soon!

Interior Design Video Aims to Go Viral

IIDA is proud to support the effort behind the first place student winners of the 2011 Interior Design Video Education Competition presented by CIDA, IDEC and NCIDQ that aimed at elevating awareness about the impact that interior design has on economic well-being.

The first place team of winners included Kate Croy, Lauren Reinhard, Kelsey Keller, Lory Marsocci, Anna Beydoun, with Advisor Renee Walsh from Radford University.

On Monday, April 16, everyone is asked to participate in an effort to promote and publicize this winning video well beyond the interior design community by making the video “go viral.”  We need your help to create a high volume of traffic to the video in a 24-hour period of time by liking, sharing and linking to the video. Check out more detailed instructions from the interior designer  promoting this effort.