Slides of my webinar organized by XES Helsinki on the job market for designers on 2nd of June/2020. Some of the relevant links mentioned in the presentation: Article: The state of design job market in Helsinki - Present, Past, Future https://bit.ly/helsinki_job_market Job board for designers in Helsinki https://bit.ly/design_helsinki Newsletter for designers in Helsinki http://bit.ly/design_newsletter About the speaker https://twitter.com/paulodzi https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulodzi/

1. Poster Design 101
Paulo Dziobczenski
Design Researcher - Visual Designer
paulodzi.com - @paulodzi
Job Market for
Designers in Helsinki

2. 4 things I’ll talk about today
1 - Intro about design career
2 - Present - What is happening during Covid-19?
3 - Past - What happened in the last 16 months?
4 - Future - How Covid-19 will affect the market?

3. But first
0 - Why should you listen to me?
(or a little bit about myself)

4. PhD Research at Aalto University on how
companies recruit designers.
Studies in the UK, Finland and Brazil.

5. Dziobczenski, Person (2017)

6. Dziobczenski, Person, Meriläinen, (2018)

7. Dziobczenski, Person, Tonetto, Mandelli (2018)

8. bit.ly/design_helsinki

9. http://bit.ly/design_newsletter

10. #1
About design career

11. https://medium.com/@mobiquityAMS/there-are-too-many-designers-6a222e375eeb

12. https://uxdesign.cc/are-bad-designers-hiding-behind-the-term-ux-c3e30f0a4778

13. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/the-ultimate-guide-to-understanding-ux-roles-and-which-one-you-
should-go-for?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=sm

14. https://uxdesign.cc/guys-we-need-to-talk-about-ux-roles-bf86a003f642

15. About job titles:
Everybody is right. Everybody is wrong.

16. Job titles = Shortcut to what a company thinks about design

17. UX designer = Company cares about UX
Visual designer = Company cares about Visual

18. https://uxdesign.cc/the-death-of-the-design-agency-9e201c29edfc

19. #2
Present - What is happening during Covid-19?

22. #3
Past - What happened in the last 16 months?

24. How many design jobs were published?
How many Junior, Mid-level and Senior positions?

26. Who was hiring?

29. What were the job titles?

31. What are the skills that companies were looking?

35. #4
Future - How Covid-19 will affect the market?

37. According to Ornamo Art and Design Finland's studies turnovers in many design companies have already
collapsed, and for the most part, it has been cut by more than half compared to the previous year. However, if
the regulations stay the deepest distress in the Finnish design industry seems to be yet to come. Layoffs have
already begun in companies, but the biggest pressure will build up in the fall of 2020. Currently, the most
serious situation is with design companies whose clients have suspended production or operations. In micro-
enterprises operating in the consumer market, the effects of the coronavirus crisis have been immediate.
Companies surviving the crisis are those that have long-term co-operation agreements or provide design
services to a wide range of client industries. The winners are also companies that have taken advantage of the
increased demand for digital services - and of the value of great digital design services and professionals.

38. There will be uncertain times for freelance and trainees/junior designers, as companies might be
cancelling or postponing projects. Companies will start looking for generalist designers, those who are
able to tackle multiple projects and areas, instead of specialized designers.
On the bright side, the Game design industry is having good results. This might push designers from
other fields to start working with games in the future. Also, designers with some 'free time' on their
hands might start looking at developing other projects - Grafia offers grants for their members to
develop visual design projects.

39. The job market for designers looks very variable in the following months, mostly based on experience, skillset
and ambition/direction. Of course, there is a lot of uncertainty out there at the moment, and scenarios vary
from incredible growth AC (after corona) to a terrible recession.
There are many distributed companies that grow steadily and need to hire to sustain growth. The question is,
what business are they in, and what kinds of positions they need to fill? For inexperienced designers, surely
the entry will be a bit harder, but these kinds of companies might need a lot of production workforce for scale-
up. Another opportunity I see is strategic design and business design for much more senior and experienced
people. These people have been and continue to be in high demand all over. Even more so when everyone is
looking a way out of the ambiguity right now.
The big question here is how will be education and market BC (before corona) match the post-corona market
needs? Are the people educated enough to think and move quickly and solve complex systemic problems?
Sami Niemelä - IxDA

40. It is hard to say how the market will react to the pandemic. There is going to be a huge economic contraction
due to this situation. I believe what will happen is that companies will see returning to normal after
September (with the current numbers of infection rates) and with a possibility of a second wave, we will go
back to similar or harsher lockdowns. We might see companies easing on the idea of hiring again, only to
furlough more staff later on. Also, professionals hired on the last months are in probationary period (4–6
months by law), so any contract started from February can be stopped.
Agencies lost huge parts of their businesses because of the hospitality industry, and certain tech companies,
who are in B2B see extreme losses. Also startups. Startups cannot maintain burning money on such a level if
they cannot generate some profit so they will lay off more stuff. Some companies are doing OK though, but you
can consider those as essential. There is growth, but that might be temporary as I said the market might
contract.
Angelos Arnis- UXHel

41. What might happen on the side is that more traditional companies decide to actually do real digital
transformation, so hiring might take place from unexpected turns. There is definitely a lot of need for
service and product design there. However, we have to be mindful of the perceived needs for companies.
When we see a lot of design departments of one in companies, that also shows us who gets the cut first - or
who is valued more.
Angelos Arnis- UXHel

42. Many things will change, both in the job market for designers and many other professions. I believe that
people will be either forced to switch jobs (laid off) or decide that it's time to change. Most people have a little
bit more time to think about their priorities and purpose in life. I'm sure many people are starting to wonder
'Is this the company that I want to work for?’.
Also, some companies (for example, Twitter) are planning to extend their work-from-home policy for longer.
This will affect the market in two ways: First, companies will start working (and hiring) remotely, meaning
that soon people in Helsinki (and everywhere) will be competing with people from all over the world. Second,
people will have the freedom to work for companies in other countries and cities, which is great for expanding
the options in the job market.
Paulo Dziobczenski - UXHel

43. Take-away(s)

44. The job market for designers in Helsinki is diverse:
some companies look for a broad skill set while
others focus in specialized professionals. There is
not a skill set that fits all companies and needs.

45. Companies have published fewer positions
after the government declared a state of
emergency in mid-March. Things are slowly
getting better. In May there were 12 positions
published in the last 3 weeks.

46. In-house design departments published 3 out of
every 4 positions in the job board (76.2%).

47. Wolt was the company who had more design
jobs in the last 16 months (11), followed by
Nordea/Posti/Reaktor (7) and Adventure
Club/Yousician (5).

48. Only 1 out every 10 position published was a
Junior position. Half of the positions were
for mid-level, and 4 out every 10 was a
Senior position.

49. UX designer' is the most frequent job title,
followed by 'Visual designer' and 'UX/UI
designer'.

50. 'UX', 'UI' and 'Visual design' are the most
frequent skills requested by companies.

51. The future is unclear, most companies were directly
affected and had to pause projects for the rest of the
year, which affects directly hiring and demand for
designers. On the other hand, business, digital and
service design can be an essential tool for
companies in restructuring their daily operations.

52. WFH (work from home) might become
default for some companies, which allows
designers to work for companies in different
cities and countries.

53. https://bit.ly/helsinki_job_market

54. Kiitos
Thank you
Obrigado
paulo@uxhel.com
@paulodzi Medium/Twitter
paulodzi.com