Artist and designer Laura Colgan (above) on the struggles of finding employment in the digital sector (or any sector for that matter).

Nine months in a onesie.

She writes:

I’ve been unemployed for nearly nine months (actually that’s extremely scary, it’s the first time I’ve totted it up). Rewind to September 2012 when I quit the shop job that I had on and off for nine years. It got me through school and college, the year of saving for America and the year after I got back.

This was the point when I decided I needed to do something drastic about my career. The more I stayed in that job, the less likely I was to find a job in my field, and the more my creative energy diminished.

I got an Honours Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication from NCAD in 2009, where I focused on illustration and print. When I quit my job I had a freelance layout job with a non-profit book publishers. It turned into a longer-term job that I milked through to May 2013. In that time I also squeezed in a three-month part-time unpaid internship with an Irish Women’s magazine. I vowed never to do anything unpaid after that, I did my time and I deserved to get paid. I’M AN ADULT!

I’m not the type of person who likes being unemployed. I keep busy. I’m creative and motivated and interested in new things. Alongside job hunting, over the next eight months I would voluntarily paint murals for the local Tidy Towns Committee, move house, join a hockey club, take a two-week trip around Ireland and subsequently start my ‘Photo of the Day’ on Instagram. I would go on a few interviews that I was so close to getting. One employer in particular really loved me and my work but someone with more experience eventually got the job. I found this the case numerous times.Continue reading →