Enhancing Your Career: Resources at Your Fingertips

Resources

Career Center
iida-jobs.careerwebsite.com

National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ)
cidq.org
The only nationally recognized professional competency exam. Developed by the Council of Interior Design Qualification.

Interior Design Qualification
cidq.org

Interior Design Continuing Education Council (IDEC)
Committed to the advancement of interior design education, scholarship, and service.
idcec.org

1. Communication

Never say in two words what you can say in one. If we have a tendency as humans when communicating professionally, it is to overwrite, over-speak, and overthink. With correspondence during a job hunt, ask yourself: is there a more concise way to phrase this same thought? The answer is (almost always) yes. And make sure to send a ‘thank you’ note after an interview. You may send a note in the mail as a supplement, but in our digital age, it’s important to send an email within 24 hours.

2. Outreach

A job search is a campaign, requiring a high level of organization and concerted outreach. It is up to you to proactively cultivate relationships and coordinate their involvement. We always tell candidates: conversations never hurt. Put another way: talk to as many people as possible. Conversations yield knowledge, and knowledge is empowering. Most, in fact, won’t lead to anything concrete. Until one does. You simply never know when a conversation will become your next job.

3. Resume

Always craft your resume for the role you want, not the role you have. It is a prospective, rather than a retrospective, document. Honestly, it is a marketing tool – and the product is YOU. Relatable content is important. Projects, places and people are valuable conversation-starters in interviews, anything to which a reader might have a personal connection. Perhaps you spent time in Istanbul earlier in your career, which appears on your resume. If an interviewer has also spent time there, that connection might be the most important detail in the whole document, establishing an easy rapport. And no typos. Period. Some hiring managers won’t call you for an interview if you have a single misspelling. (Principal, not principle!)

4. Portfolio

Your portfolio is your ‘greatest hits’ album. It should include the work of which you are most proud and that you think showcases your attributes and experience. It should not be an exhaustive collection of every last thing you have ever worked on. Make it 10-20 pages at most. Perhaps a bit longer. There is no reason for it to be 50 or 100 pages. Nobody will look at page 74, no matter how good the work. Everyone is too busy. Make their lives easier and serve up a superb 15-page portfolio instead.

5. Interview

An interview is a world unto itself. Both the atmosphere and expectations are heightened, which means our preparation, approach and attitude should be, as well. An interview is your opportunity to ‘connect the dots’ on your resume to tell your professional story. Remember to think beyond the jobs. The jobs are the anchors, the themes are the substance.

Career Center
iida-jobs.careerwebsite.com

LinkedIn #iidanccareers

Due to the current state of the economy, many firms in the Commercial Interior Design Industry have experienced layoffs and furloughs in the last couple of months, but even in these hard times, we’re also hearing of firms that are hiring! 

If you are a firm looking to hire in the Northern CA region, please include #iidanccareers in your LinkedIn job post so that these opportunities can be filtered to our local Commercial Interior Design industry! 

If you’re looking for opportunities, please help us share this post to get the word out! 

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”- Helen Keller

Workplaced

Workplaced is the first centralized and open platform that is 100% focused on workplace real estate, architecture and design. The industry has gone through significant shifts over the past couple of months and will continue going through changes. The forced experiment of remote work has put in motion rethinking the role of the office space and employee experience.

We believe the various talented professionals who lost their jobs due to the pandemic are critical to help build the future of the workplace. In an effort to make certain our industry is not losing this wealth of knowledge and expertise, as well as to better streamline the job search process, we have built Workplaced.  

Feel free to check out the site,join our talent pool , join our online chat community via Discord and attend the best industry-related talks. We would love to also hear from you all with comments, feedback or just to say hi @ hello@workplaced.co!

Other Job Search Resources

AIA SF Career Center

NEWH (Hospitality)

Archinect 

Dezeen 

Business of Home (Residential)