skills for successful career ...or something like that

[epath13]

So I'm looking into changing my attitude a little, trying to figure out if I can ever have a successful carrier or a job per se in the industry where I sort of know what I'm doing - art and design. Found an interesting slide with a small article attached:

"Top Skills Needed for Careers in Art and Design"
Top Skills Needed for Careers in Art and Design - College Advisor

I'm just going to post the article here:
(Written by Cari Stewart)

"Creativity

The need for creativity as an artistic professional should go without saying. If you are in an artistic field, you need the ability to create and showcase unique and innovative products. There is no concrete creative personality type, but if you feel the need to create or build upon existing creative expression, a profession in Art and Design may be for you.

Communication

Whether you?re explaining your design to a client or a co-worker, you need to have the ability to effectively articulate your concepts and ideas. This applies to emails, face-to-face conversations, and online conferences.



Collaboration

If you are working in a team or with a client, you need to know how to effectively and efficiently collaborate with others in order to solve problems and find new opportunities. It?s all about finding the great idea while everyone contributes.



Critical Thinking

Your job is to find solutions to design problems. You need to be rational, disciplined, and open-minded in order to discover how best to take advantage of new opportunities.

Your job is to solve problems through artistic expression. Depending on your industry, the problems will vary greatly, giving you the opportunity to think in new and innovative ways to accomplish your goals.

Can You Be Your Own Boss?

You have a greater chance of being self- employed in the art and design fields than in any other professions.

Roughly 59% of Interior Designers are self-employed
Roughly 35% of Graphic Designers and Illustrators are self-employed.
Roughly 21% of Architects are self-employed
Roughly 60% of Artists are self-employed
Roughly 50% of Musicians, Singers, and related workers are self-employed
*Statistics from the United States Department of Labor

Tech Knowledge

You need to be familiar and proficient in computer programs used to create and enhance you work.

Business Sense

How do you make money as an artist or designer? You have to market yourself. No matter how great your work is, you need to know these three things:

Your audience
How to reach your audience
How to monetize your efforts


Project Management

Learn how to manage your time. Many artists have to balance their time between multiple clients or between their 9-to-5 and freelance work. You need to make sure you can meet deadlines by managing your time and resources.

Networking Skills

As unfair as it is, it?s not what you know but who you know. In order to grow your business or find jobs in the arts, you need to know the right people. Start building your network. You can do this in-person or through online networks like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Style

Your style will allow people to recognize and differentiate your work from your competitors. Start developing your unique approach to art and design and separate yourself from the crowd.

Passion

A great artist is passionate about their work and practices their art because they love their work and feel a need to create."

some guy very adequately responded: "While you built this deck to define the skills needed for a specific industry - Art and Design - I submit that at least 10 of the 12 are now requirements for success in nearly every industry. The only one I would set off to the side (and only a bit at that) is number ten... Be your own boss. Great deck by the way."

so here's my spread:
? Creativity - yes
? Communication - no
? Collaboration - no
? Critical thinking 50-50% very conditional
? Can you be your own boss? - have no clue
? Tech knowledge - 30%
? Business sense, how to market your skills - no
? Project management - no
? Networking Skills - no
? Style - unidentified, do not know what my style is
Passion - very conditional, so as passion for life in general, but then again - I probably should say - don't know.

It seems that I'm pretty much screwed I'm freaking 33 years old, IQ hundred eighty something and feeling like a 15 years old well I would just have to tame that dragon, won't I? I don't really have a choice. Well, there's always a choice, but I prefer not to have one right now

 

[King_Oni]

That sounds familiar... that's usually the way I can cancel out any means of employment, especially those where I might be interested in. There's always a list of things that I either need a lot of guidance/training or are just inherently not me.

Judging by that slide and somewhat interested in arts over anything else that qualifies as a job.

? Creativity - Myea... but I don't go into creative binges. I like visualize stuff in my head, it's not that I have a drive and passion for just drawing.
? Communication - No... I've been told my vocal skills are rather unprofessional. That does not mean I do not have them and I cannot talk to people, but it's just not me to act like a pro... I rather act like a rambling buffoon who actually does know what he's doing.
? Collaboration - Looking back in the past working with others, that really, really depends on what I'm working on. I've had experience in bands, which went really fine in some cases and really, really bad in others. Depends on if I can connect to my collaborators.
? Critical thinking - In general I've been told that I have quite a mind and train of thought for that. But I might be way to harsh and end up scrapping a lot of ideas that in general might be good, and pitch ideas that are way to "weird".
? Can you be your own boss? - Depends on what you're defining it by. If that means that, if you're in arts, you are doing jobs on commision and/or commercial, then no. I'm totally not commercially driven, so selling myself isn't me for a bit. On the other side, I do have problems working for companies that are commercially driven above anything else either.
? Tech knowledge - I think I can manage that, but it really depends on what you require. There's a lot of stuff that I understand the basics of, but never got better at cause I don't have an application for it (3d design being one of those)
? Business sense, how to market your skills - No (see; can you be your own boss?)
? Project management - I'd say yes... most of the time I'm way ahead of schedules cause I have to finish up something before I feel I can go on with something else... I try to keep the vibe going. That being said, I'd be terrible doing multiple clients. But then again, I rather have a project finished in a day, than do 5 stretching over 5 days.
? Networking Skills - No, because I still feel that "knowing the right people" is the wrong premise of being "succesful". You should be succesful and good cause your work shows up places, not because you can have a nice convo and network.
? Style - I can say that there's a lot that's NOT my style. And I know there's things I prefer to work with over other things. Those might define what I like and what I do.
? Passion - I'm passionate about my own ideas, but rarely about those of others. Yes, that makes me a terrible commercial talent. And rather egotistical artist, but at least I can stay passionate about my own doings a lot more often than others that are taking it as a 9 to 5 job.

A had a similar checklist/conversation at the employment agency, where they asked me what I would like to do as a job. If anything that's seen as a job give me some training to be an illustrator or graphic designer.. likely I'm least prone to depression, burn-out and disinterest over that, yet that sector is overflown with a lot of passionate people that just like to do about anything artsy and aren't just on to their own thing.

At that same conversation they figured that I didn't have the skills that come with THAT job (commercially driven etc.) but those were skills that I would need for pretty much any job, so I can't feel bad for not being a commercial creative talent.

 

[epath13]

Thanks for replying again. To be honest I don't expect anyone else to say anything, you seem to be the only one who replies to most of the posts (I mean all posts in general)

 

[King_Oni]

Thanks for replying again. To be honest I don't expect anyone else to say anything, you seem to be the only one who replies to most of the posts (I mean all posts in general)

Let's go with; I'm on AC a lot. And the "what's new" button is the first I usually hit...

Besides, this post, I can relate to a lot, especially the employment deal and the interest in arts (not neccesarily as a job, but I did think those options)

 

[Spinning Compass]

That's pretty similar to what I have been learning through my administrative professionals organization. Sad to say there is no getting around social skills, even if one works for oneself, because sooner or later you will have to deal with other people. The good thing is that there is more and more information out there on acquiring social skills because even Neurotypicals are starting to have problems in this area as well.

I do believe that social skills are not inborn but have to be taught. Some of us have better teachers than others, some of us are more receptive than others. The problem is many of us aren't really interested in learning social skills, we say we are, but it's actions, not words that count. If I am interested and motivated in learning something I have no problem picking it up, but if I am not it is an uphill battle to learn, and the same with social skills, grooming and all that. Yes, it feels like acting and many ways it is acting, but there really isn't any substitute. I had to learn the hard way and believe me that is not the way to learn.