How can students and young designers makes more potential employers?

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Start building a Web presence as early as possible, even before seeking a junior position. Buy a personal domain and set up a simple portfolio, with an “About” page that gives a snapshot of your personality and talents. If you haven’t done client work, do pro bono projects for friends until you have work samples to show. Displaying them publicly shows that you have pride in your work. Be concise. Employers and human resource people are like anyone else: they are busy and have short attention spans. Don’t make them dig to find out who you are. Give your portfolio website just enough text, images and examples to paint an accurate picture. If you can’t give your own content a crisp and concise design, why should employers trust you to do it for clients?

Also, don’t exaggerate the facts when presenting yourself. Our lives are way too public these days to bother. More important than bragging or dazzling anyone with half-truths is finding a team whose needs and interests align with your own. If you get hired under false pretenses, you will have wasted everyone’s time. Even experienced designers with great portfolios aren’t the right fit, disposition-wise, for every agency they apply to.

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As I mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of the interdisciplinary approach. At most companies, you are unlikely to work exclusively in a single field. In fact, when you do Web design, being able to do some decent-looking icons or cut a simple screencast or promo video is good. This becomes even more important when you are self employed. Moreover, this variety makes and keeps work interesting… at least that’s the case for me.

Just being a nice person and easy to work with is pretty huge. I think employers look for that during the interview process, at least as best they can in that short time. Someone incredibly stiff or stand-offish is unlikely to win the job over someone who is happy and casual. Design studios, in my experience, are pretty friendly and casual. Other random advice: become really good at one thing. You’ll be a lot more valuable as the guy or girl who knows that one thing really well than as a jack of all trades. Being well-rounded is awesome, but having a spike of talent in one particular area will serve you well.

Social skills are necessary when dealing with potential clients. Designers should know what their clients do and provide them with the best possible service. I’d encourage all designers to make themselves a one-stop shop for all of their clients’ design needs. That would include Web design, copywriting, printing, etc. If you’re not an expert in these fields, teamup with a few peers so that you can help each other as needed. Designers should focus on making the entire process easy for clients, but involve clients in some design decisions as well, so that they feel that they are part of the project.I suggest asking clients a lot of questions and aiming to truly get to the core of their business and what would work for them. The more we understand our clients and their projects, the more successful the projects will be and the better our chances of getting them as repeat clients. A designer is a human being, too. Become a well-versed designer, understand your medium, get educated and become a well-rounded person who always aims high. Set high standards for yourself and your work. The right clients will gravitate to someone who holds themselves to high standards.