sometimes my director will give me the pleasure of taking in outside freelancers for certain projects that require certain expertise not available from within my team. the following is the criteria for which i choose my temps from:
all positions
a cover letter is a must. Short, but sweet. It should tell me anything I might be interested in, but only the relevant stuff. Give me the facts, not the story:
- Name and contact details are mandatory, the rest of your personal information should be reduced to a minimum.
- Education – including all relevant courses, seminars, books read, etc. I don’t digg formal education when it comes to new media.
- Experience – provide links, even from early work – I’d like to see your professional development.
- An impressive fact – employers like pleasant surprises. The most surprising application usually wins. If you’re a designer, show me your single best project. If you’re a developer, tell me about the concept you never had a chance to use in practice.
Check your spelling and grammar. There’s no second chance for idiots.
The cover letter should be well designed. I’m not saying that you should have your personal logo or anything, but the typography should be well though and it should reflect you as a person and show me that you clearly understand what you are applying for. You are going to work in the design industry, so I have to be sure you understand the media and its priorities.
PDF is always more professional than MSWord document, but don’t send me both.
Don’t push it within the e-mail message text. Something like…
“I’d love to work for your company. In case you are looking for some young guns, I attached my cover letter.
Regards,
John Smith”
… is perfectly fine. Don’t be too cheesy. In fact don’t be cheesy at all.
You have to know about the web standards and their importance. You don’t have to be a guru already, but you should show me a strong desire to become one some day.
designer/illustrator
Designers are usually the first ones when it comes to actual project production. However, as a designer, you have to understand other people’s responsibilities and the problems they are facing such as the difficulty to slice a psd file into a well-structured html/css document. You might be the king, but a good king always appreciate her knights.
Understanding of the technological limitations on the web is the most crucial.
client-side developer
You have to understand the importance of visual details – every layout can be done. One way or another. As a comfort, at least you’ll have a chance to push the limits by creating a new technique. And I know you are highly motivated.
Accessibility understanding is a must and the applicant has to convince me that a visitor is really, and I mean really, in the first place.
server-side developer
Besides unmatched programming skills, you have to understand the usability and the HTML specs. You’ll be the one who will deliver content from a database into web standards compliant HTML document.
also
If you’re going to show me a great web app you’ve made, I’d be probably looking for:
- simplicity
- clean, well commented and well structured code
- clear and understandable application interaction
- graceful application fallback
