RISD staff, students and administrators acknowledge that the job market for fine art and design has suffered because of the poor performance of the economy over the past few years. Art remains a luxury, so employers continue to be reluctant to employ art school graduates.
But the college's Alumni and Career Services department provides a variety of job search programs that attempt to give students the tools to navigate the job search in competitive fields, such as inviting employers to campus for portfolio reviews, holding workshops on the job search process and forging new ties between the local business and design communities.
In the past, applying for 10 to 15 jobs would usually return about three to five interviews, but now, students must apply to up to 60 employers to be offered the same number of interviews, said Assistant Director of Alumni and Career Services Kevin Jankowski.
"(The market) has been tough," said Jean Blackburn, head of the illustration department. "This is why it has become an important priority to alert seniors to the pertinence of thinking about and planning for their immediate future as early as possible."
RISD students also acknowledged the competitiveness of the market. "Art directors receive tons of applications every day," said Jesse Lefkowitz RISD '04. "Students put together lots of promotional material like flyers and name cards which they send out every three to six months in hope that their work will stand out."
Margot Livingston RISD '95, a career counselor and media specialist at RISD's ACS, emphasized the significance of these visual methods to catch employers' attention. She also advocated the use of personal Web sites to display student work, citing their convenience and ease of availability to art directors.
Michael Neff RISD '04, a photography major, is now the director of Janet Borden Inc., a photo gallery in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. He described RISD as a "happy little bubble" where students concentrated fully on improving their artistic skills. But "towards senior year, you must start to get people to look at your work," Neff said.
That process often begins with departments. According to Blackburn, the illustration department holds classes that prepare seniors for entering the working world. Classes like "Portfolio Preparation," "Professional Practice" and "Entrepreneur" get students to think about the various markets they can break into, as well as methods of self-promotion. "Entrepreneur" requires students to display their work along Benefit Street during RISD's annual alumni weekend. "This allows students to network, and find out from alumni what is marketable," Blackburn said. "It teaches them to deal with the public and with the feedback they receive about their work."
Similar courses are also offered in other departments, and career services works closely with faculty to integrate their programs into these classes. As part of the syllabi, ACS hosts workshops, and counselors go into studios to give presentations on topics like the principles of business, said Steven Whitten, director of ACS.
During RISD's winter session, ACS offers a six-week career program in partnership with Bryant College. Called the Center for Design and Business, it was established in 1997 to unite the design and business communities for purposes of economic development.
According to the program's Web site, its goal is to develop stronger and more profitable businesses by combining design and business skills. "This acts like an incubator to support design-based entrepreneurs," Jankowski said. The program is open to both current students and RISD graduates, and it also acts as a powerful networking medium.
During the peak period of RISD seniors' job search, which is typically from late February to May, the four counselors at ACS juggle 60 hourlong appointments with individual students each week.
"Seniors who seek career services for help with their job search are nervous for a variety of reasons, but usually they are afraid of the unknown, especially if they haven't interned before," Livingston said. "We try to help students navigate through the opportunities that are out there and then provide them with the resources to start their search. We encourage them to be proactive."
Tim Belonax RISD '04, a graphic design major, said he found ACS extremely useful in helping him find employment. Belonax is currently interning at a publishing company, Chronicle Books, in San Francisco. He has also interned at various companies over previous summers, including a graphic design firm and an advertising firm. Belonax said he was using his first year after graduation to find his niche.
Interning after graduation is not an anomaly, Jankowski said. "The industry is usually more accommodating towards fresh graduates," Jankowski said. "After that first or second year following graduation, you start to become regarded as competition (to working artists)." Jankowski encouraged experimentation. "That way you can network and meet more people, as well as learn the ropes of working in the real world," he said.
Nessie Ruiz RISD '05, a photography major, agreed. Ruiz has already been offered employment by George Lange RISD '78, a photographer with whom she interned last summer. "I found out about so many things that I didn't think I needed to know. There is so much more out there that we can't learn in school that we have to find out about."
Belonax concurred. "In the working world you are in a position that is very different from the classroom setting," he said. "Here you are working with people who are 10 to 20 years your senior and at different points of their lives. You have to learn to work with people."
ACS also warns students about this stark change of environment. "Suddenly there are so many more people students will have to answer to. Starting out they will have to answer to their bosses, their clients, so many more people than they are used to answering to," Jankowski said. "There are now strict deadlines to be met and solid goals to be set. We have to put them at a point of awareness of this."
RISD emphasizes the educational aspects of the job search. Companies invited to campus to give portfolio reviews are told specifically that their role is to provide constructive criticism, not to recruit. Companies even hold mock, unrehearsed interviews with seniors in front of an audience to show the students what they are looking for in a potential candidate for employment.
The goal for RISD educators and administrators is to help students become adaptive to the ever-changing art industry, which Blackburn describes as one where "fluid combinations" of skill sets are needed. For example, an illustrator could work in the film industry as an animator, or perhaps in the field of digital media.
Jankowski and Livingston agreed, adding that RISD courses focus more on imparting conceptual knowledge than technical skills, allowing students to apply their expertise in a flexible manner to a wide variety of artistic vocations.
