Interior Design Job Interview Traps

Some interior design firms conducted job interviews can be for anything but looking for talents, some design firms contacted job seekers knowing they were not qualified but still asked the job seekers to come by with their portfolios anyway. The job seekers then would never hear anything from the design firms after the interview. Few months or years later, some job seekers would shockingly see some design ideas showing on the project photos published on the design magazines looked strikingly similar to his/her design ideas, and then realized that project photos were published by the design firms he/she did the job interviews with in the past.

To the newly graduates, please don't show your portfolios just to anyone, not even to the well-known designers. In the interior design world, everyone copies everyone. Never leave any copy of your portfolio behind to the design firms you went to do the job interview with. Always bring your portfolios with you, you come, portfolios come, you leave, portfolios leave. Also, only show some examples of your design ideas, don't show everything you have. Most of interior design firms will never teach you everything you need to know for running interior design business, so why give them your all?!

Interior designer, a creative driven career without the importance of being creative

When we talked about any design, the first thing came to our mind would be creativity, but the fact proves creativity does not play any important role in interior design business anymore. Instead, how well you can socialize, and how good the connection you have become the main factors for success. That is why we always can see the most stupid designs published on the magazines with no taste, no creativity, but full of mistakes and improper designs. Who else can we blame?! No one! Even NCIDQ exam does not test designers’ creativity. It is not like surgeons must be very good at what they do, interior designers can design ugly interior space, so what?! the clients will not die!!

Milk To The End

Construction business is suffering but at least construction companies or the workers that did big constructions will have the government’s Job Bills to help to work on infrastructures, the interior designers, architects, contractors, and the suppliers who usually did high end residential projects will have no such luxuries. Reckless spending cuts start to show its negative impact on the economy, and the congress gridlock will even worsen the already depressed market, so I really do not see anyone will spend big money on high end residential interior design in the near future. Many interior designers have started to advertise more aggressively and even turn themselves into business consultants to educate others how to survive in this tough economy and get more clients. Well, I admire those interior designers and design magazines can adjust their business strategies and goals quickly in order to survive themselves, but the fundamental problem of the market is not people can’t see or find your advertisements, but no one is willing to spend that kind of money even though they have seen your ads a thousand times, so under this kind of circumstance, all of those big talks in those marketing speeches, classes, strategy conferences to me are simply business agenda for those design magazines or interior designers turned business consultants. They knew there would be no one out there looking at those ads you spent a fortune on, and they also knew the possibilities for you to get a big client in this kind of economy climate would be nearly zero, but they are still trying to educate you how important it is to market yourself even more aggressively by asking you to pay to attend their seminars or to post your ads on their magazines. For me, they are just treating you like a big mama cow and milk you till you exhaust the last bit of money you have saved.

Interior Designers' Backgrounds

Being in interior design business for more than a decade, I have heard all kinds of backgrounds the interior designers were from, from showroom sales, furniture store sales, department store sales, artists, hair stylists, make-up artists, to teachers and house wives, you name it, but when I learned a well-known interior designer from South Florida who used to be a truck driver, I was speechless.
I have to ask why the interior design field in the US is full of the designers who are not professionally trained, not NCIDQ certified, not state licensed but all can be design firm owners and make a fortune but those who are formally trained as interior designers, NCIDQ certified, and state licensed interior designers can barely survive?! Why has interior design become a profession that is un-professional leading professional? What is wrong with interior design business? Has any interior design organization been doing anything about it? Has any design school been doing anything about it? I am outraged to see those armatures who are making all the money while professionally trained designers are struggling to survive, not only it is wrong but unfair to the consumers.

Interior Design Career Blockers

Wanna pursue your career in interior design? It is not as easy as you think. You can be as creative as you can be, but these four interior design career blockers will delay or even prevent your dream from coming true:

• The Economy: Interior design business is affected by the economy tremendously. Because interior design is not considered as the "essential", people think they can have it or not. Some people can die without seeing a doctor, some people can be in jail without hiring a lawyer, but what kind of serious emergency will happen to people without having their houses done by an interior designer? None. So, when the economy is down, interior design will be the first thing that consumers would like to cut down or cut off. Interior design has been portrayed as "Luxury" or "For the wealthy", so low income people usually do not even think about it even the economy is good, middle class people will completely cut it out because it is not essential, and wealthy people will put the projects on hold because they want to observe the market and wait. I had seen this phenomenon first hand in person in New York City back in 2001 after the 911 Attack, and the recession we are having now starting from 2008. Massive laid offs that forced many interior designers out of business. The lucky ones can hang on by becoming instructors for the CE classes or the marketing instructors. Those who are not so lucky will be forced to completely give up their careers and do something else that are totally have nothing to do with interior design.

• Government's Regulations: Many countries around the world and most states in the US do not require interior designers to be licensed in order to practice interior design. In the US, the state of Florida has the most stringent regulations to regulate the professions including interior designers. However, the current law in Florida still allows the un-licensed interior designers to work on residential projects, and that makes licensed interior designers face tremendous competition from everyone including the people who are not necessarily creative or talented but just business or marketing savvy. Because these business and marketing savvy people are usually have the skills or money to open up their own design companies, they can just hire the licensed designers who are really creative and talented to work for them, and it creates an unique phenomenon in the interior design industry which is the un-professionals leading the professionals. Moreover, the income gap between interior design company owners and interior designers who work for someone else is huge. While the interior design company owners can make more than $200K/YR easily with minimum or no interior design related education or work experiences, those really creative and talented designers who work under the design company owners will be super fortunate if he/she can make $60K/YR with more than 10-year interior design related work experiences plus NCIDQ certified plus LEED AP plus 4-year bachelor's degree in interior design. If I were a parent who has a son or daughter wants to be an interior designer, do you think I will allow my kids spending my life savings to study interior design in the college after knowing all these?! Of course not! I'd rather having my kids major in business administration instead.

• The Market Norms: The government regulations are not so friendly to interior designers, but the market norms are even more cruel to interior designers. The consumers usually think interior designers are "decorators", what they do are just selecting fabrics, paint colors, furniture, light fixtures, and accessories not knowing interior design actually involves lots of structural and architectural related knowledge. Lack of understanding what interior designers do discourages the consumers to hire interior designers who usually charge slightly higher fees but hire usually less expensive decorators to do interior design work which often involves construction, electrical, plumbing, HVAC as well as ADA requirements and LEED certification requirements that will directly affect the occupants' health, safety, and well-being. For residential projects, in many occasions, interior decorators got more business opportunities than interior designers even though the projects involve construction, electrical, plumbing, or HVAC.

• Your Employers: You might be wondering how can employers be career blockers since they are supposed to serve the role as your career mentors, but in reality, they can be just the opposite. This career blocker is the bi-product of the 3 career blocks I discussed above. Because of the bad economy, because of the government regulations, and because of the market norms, interior design becomes an extremely competitive business, everyone is trying to survive in this tough business and everyone becomes your competitor no matter who he/she is. If you are a business/marketing savvy business owner, you will do whatever you can to prevent those interior designers who work under you from learning how to run interior design business or do the marketing, you will never let them do any task that relates to marketing, and you will never ever even let those interior designers work under you see a copy of your letter of agreement or contract, you will divide the tasks for different designers, one designer will only do drafting, one will only do purchasing, and another one will only do job site supervising, and they will never learn anything else but just that one task or few tasks you signed them to do, and when those real creative and talented designers who worked under you designed any project, you will publish the project on the magazines and take all of the credits but will never ever mention your employees' names. Also, when those design companies hire interns or junior designers, they will teach the junior designers or interns as least as possible so that they will not create their own future competitors. Well, you might think that is ridiculous, how much threats a junior level designer or an intern can put on an interior design firm owner or an interior designer who has let's say 15-year interior design related work experience? How about an intern or a junior level designer who is coming from a very well connected and wealthy family?! those people can basically open up a design firm funded by their affluent parents with large numbers of client sources introduced by their parents 1 month after they graduated from college, they can be market ready and beat your company anytime! How about the intern or junior designer who sucked on interior design with no creativity or talent but business/marketing savvy?! You think they can kick your butt fast? then good luck on mentoring those who are not only business/marketing savvy but also creative, talented, and rich. So, in this dog-eat-dog interior design field, you really think anyone will mentor you?! dream on!!

A Career Coach or the Problem Source?

When I heard the career coach at the seminar said interior designers must have their own firms in order to succeed, so her job was to teach interior designers how to run their own businesses. I wondered why interior designers must have their own businesses? why can’t they make good living by working for someone else? why can’t they be successful by working for someone else? why is the income difference between the interior design firm owners and interior designers who work for someone else is so great?
At first, I thought the career coach just wanted to say that so she could get more businesses since she makes the living by coaching interior designers to run their own businesses, but when I think deeper, the career coach, who was a furniture sales before becoming an interior designer, was actually the source of the problem.

There are too many people in interior design business who were not educated as interior designers, they didn’t study interior design in colleges, they are not NCIDQ certified, they have no interior design related credentials or educations, many of them are just bunch of business savvy people who want to share a piece of pie in the design market, so what they do?! they hire someone who had educations in interior design, they hire someone who is NCIDQ certified or state licensed to work for them, after few years learning from those real interior designers, those business owners have learned whole bunch, so they thought, if I can make lots of money and run a successful interior design business without any formal interior design education or training, I probably can find someone who is like me to work for me but pay him/her much less, and because there are so many none interior design majored or licensed interior designers out there who share the job market with those real interior design educated ones, the salary level for interior designers will never get higher.

Interior designers who had formal interior design educations and trainings do not have the leverage to negotiate salary with their employers because they can be quickly replaced by those designers who are not interior design majored or certified but learned their experiences through other real interior designers while worked as a secretary, a sales person, or whatever in a furniture store or in a store that sells kitchen cabinets or bath accessories. If we have too many people like the career coach keep jumping into the interior design market to share the pie, there is no way interior designers will be able to make good living by working for someone else, and it will be a huge disadvantage especially to those very creative designers since most creative people are not naturally business savvy, and slowly, there won’t be any creative people left in our business but just bunch of businessmen. Will that be good for interior design profession if this industry is leading by bunch of businessmen? is that fair for the clients who are looking for creative individuals but what they can get only are those business savvy businessmen?! You be the judge.

Need a good interior design career advice

My boss has promised me to give me minimum $10,000 US Dollars bonus after the project I am working on is completed. However, my Christmas bonus this year is just half of the amount I got last year, and the reason according to my boss is that the company does not make any money this year, so I wonder how I can be sure my boss will not use the same excuse and cut my bonus to half or not to give me any bonus at all after the project is completed?! It just does not make any sense. Moreover, I have been asking my boss to put whatever she promised in writing but she refused. Can anyone give me a good advice whether I should stay and work on the project till the end and hope my boss will not screw me over or I should just resign as soon as I get another job offer?

Punked by an empty promise?

My boss has promised me to give me minimum $10,000 US dollars bonus after the project I am working on is completed. However, my Christmas bonus this year is just half of the amount I got last year, and the reason according to my boss is that the company does not make any money this year, so I wonder how I can be sure my boss will not use the same excuse not to give me the bonus or cut my bonus to half after the project is completed?! It just does not make any sense, can anyone give me a good advice whether I should stay and work on the project till the end and hope my boss will not screw me over or I should just quit now and take another job that offers better salary?

Boss quality

When I witnessed many interior design firm owners who cut in front of people in the lines when shopping or driving, and then I saw them lied to their clients that they actually designed the space all by themselves without blinking their eyes. If these are the qualities needed for being a good interior design business owners, then I think interior design field really needs a revolution.

Talented Designers' Missions

When I read an article on the Mar 2, 2009 Issue of TIME magazine that talked about a group of psychologists did a research and found a person who speaks louder, speaks up, speaks well, and provides more answers towards a question in a group often is perceived as the leader of the group even if those answers are wrong. Basically what those researchers found was the leadership is often just loudership. This finding really fascinates me because it totally reflects the phenomenon I have been observing in my profession, the interior design field.

Just like the finding of the research, many of those very well-known interior designers are not those who actually did the designs for their well published projects. By working and interacting with many interior designers, I realized the people who usually had more creative and appropriate design solutions were those who really did not have too much to say. They were always those quiet ones who listened, and only spoke at the end of the design meeting or client meeting. On contrary, the higher ranking designers, usually the owners of the companies, were the ones talked from the beginning to the end, provided lots of ideas, described their visions of designs up and down, left and right, in both design meeting with the company employees and the client meeting with the clients, but really did not know what they were talking about. Many of them cannot even draw a table or a chair correctly. They constantly provided their clients inappropriate design solutions which often needed to be corrected by their employees. In the constructions sites, those design company owners who usually only went to the construction sites probably once a month often acted like they know the job site situations better than anyone else by talking very loudly and directing the contractors to do things that were totally opposite to what those employed designers had directed previously in order to show they are the ones know everything and they are the ones in charge, and when errors occurred, those employed designers always had to reverse what their bosses’ said at the job sites and went back to the old ways in order to correct the mistakes. Behind the beautiful photographed project pictures on the magazines, behind the close doors of many those famous interior design companies, these kinds of scenes repeatedly happened over and over. Sometimes, I wonder why so many consumers are still willing to take the risk and hand over their big checks and big houses to those famous designers to design and manage? What if their employees, those who really know the designs, did not discover the mistakes their bosses made or simply didn’t dare to speak out and against their bosses’ orders? Who is going to pay for those design mistakes at the construction sites? Well, it will not be those famous designers or the contractors, but it will eventually be you, the consumers.

Study also has shown the creative individuals are usually introverted and quiet. Unfortunately, being introverted and quite in this competitive interior design business really does not help those real designers to advance their own careers much. In many social events where many potential clients will be, those quiet introverts usually either avoid attending or attend but stand at the corners and not to socialize with people which reduces their personal career opportunities tremendously. On contrary, those well-known interior designers fly around every corner of the social events like social butterflies end up getting all of the business leads and prospects.

Maybe it is because those famous interior designers know they really do not know so much about their professions, they are often very insecure about their employees-those real designers, so besides having their employees sign all kinds of non-competitive agreements, they usually do not publish their employee’s names on the design magazines when they published any interior design project that was actually designed by their employees. By keeping their employees’ names in the dark, those famous designers ensure their employees will always remain un-known to you.

Because I don’t think it is fair for the famous designers to keep making all the money and the real designers keep doing all the work, or for you, the consumers, to take the risks of paying those un-necessary fees just for the “big names” or for covering the design mistakes made by the famous designers, I have decided to create this website and provide you the different kind of platform to search for interior designers. Most interior designer searching websites out there really do not and cannot differentiate the famous designers and those really creative ones, but we have developed unique ways to identify those real talented interior designers and filter out those designers who are just talkative social butterflies.

Usually those famous designers cannot design on their own, so they must hire someone who really knows the design to work for them, so in addition to the already over-priced design fees those famous designers will charge you, they must also charge you the “overheads” to cover the costs of hiring those real interior designers who actually perform the work. So, why not just hire those real designers who really perform the work directly?! It is making not only the design sense, but also the financial sense. Moreover, we do not charge a dime from any interior designer who posted the profile on our website so we do not have any conflict of interest. Therefore, we will not advertise any designer just because he or she simply can afford the expensive ads like those on other interior designer searching websites or interior design magazines. So, please sit back, relax, and start searching for the right interior designers for your current and future projects via Talenteddesigners.com

ASID Worth it?

Time to pay ASID membership fee, but what does ASID do for you? Well, depending on if you have your own design firms. If you have your own business, ASID provides a great platform for you to advertise your firm, but if you work for someone else, ASID really does not help you that much. Why? if you work for another designer, how are you going to use ASID to advertise yourself?! Moreover, people who come to ASID website to look for a designer, they will contact those who own companies, not those who work for someone else. Here is the best part, the design firm owners pay exactly the same amount of membership fee as their employees while the income difference between them is huge.

Pretentious interior design business and professional events

Every time I went to those interior design events at the showroom when I was working for another company, I had always tried to socialize with other designers, but every time when they asked me what my company's name was, and I answered I didn't have my own company, I worked for someone else, and those designers always turned around and left. I know I was poor when I worked for my greedy boss, but it was not my fault, I was poor which did not mean I was not a good designer. I helped my boss make a lot of money! Now, I treat the designers who work for someone with respect, and because those un-happy experiences, I never really enjoyed any interior design event even after I do have my own business now. I hate the pretentiousness.

ASID, say what?!

Discussed about how useless ASID membership for those un-established interior designers before, here is another example. ASID recently launched a service on line that allows design firms comparing fees to their competitors. How is that going to help those interior designers who do not own design firms?! and yet, they have to pay the same amount of membership fee as those interior designers who own companies and will enjoy this new service. That is wrong!

Used to the ultimate

I spent around $800 to get myself LEED certified and my employer never wanted to pay for the classes, books, or exam fees, but they mentioned my LEED status on company's website, ads, and business cards when advertising, and that is low.

Company's Strengths

At an office meeting talking about marketing strategy and was told to list the strengths and uniqueness of the firm, and then we all came up with some of them that we thought other design firms do not have, and when I analyzed what everyone wrote in more depth, those strengths and uniqueness were all listed on my resume, but why all these good characteristics of mine did not translate to my salaries? Well, when I was told I could not have a salary raise due to the bad economy while the owner of the firm still could go on the luxury cruise vacations, purchase an expensive car, or remodel home, I wonder why.

Integrity in interior design

Many people mentioned about integrity in interior design field usually was about billing related issues such as designers bought very inexpensive things from foreign countries or whole salers but marked up 200% - 300% of the whole sale price and sell them to their clients. For me, that is stealing. However, there is another kind of stealing in this business which is tweaking other designers' designs to become their own. To me, it is just like piracy. In China, you can buy name brand stuff in very low price, and after you look into the trade marks, they are always missing one letter or spell one letter wrong, even if the manufacturer changed one letter of the trade marks, it is still considered piracy. Many interior designers including some of those famous ones do not want to spend too much time on design developing, they want to move from one project to the next quickly in order to make more money, they cut corners on design development. They read different magazines and "borrow" this idea and that idea and combine them together or make small changes on other people's designs and become their own, for me, that is also stealing. If the only thing they know is tweaking other people's designs, why not calling themselves interior tweakers?! Have some dignity and integrity!

Is 4-year interior design college education wasting time?

I spoke to an interior designer today who told me she was graduated from an university in Ohio and was majored in interior design. I was shocked since there are so many interior designers out there do not even have any interior design related education. I told her that she and I were the minority in this field. Despite of her success in this field, she thinks the 4-year college was totally wasting time because there are so many people in this field do not have the interior design related education and yet still make big bucks. She said she could have used the 4 college years to make even more money by starting early and be student loan-free. I totally agree with her. Don't give me wrong, I think the college education is important, but if I can turn the clock back, I would not choose interior design as my major. I would choose business administration as my major and golf as my minor so I can easily run an interior design business and meet wealthy clients on the golf course.

Interior Design Career Gridlocks

Interior design is a competitive business, design firm owners have plenty of tricks to prevent their employees from becoming their future competitors, besides asking you to sign non-competition agreement, here are some tricks usually employers used to block their employees' career path:


1. Dividing Tasks: You will only be asked to perform certain task(s). If you are a CAD drafter, then you will only do AutoCAD, you will never be asked to do purchasing, estimating, or supervising construction sites, or if you do purchasing, you will never get the chance to do AutoCAD or estimating, or you will only supervise construction sites without ever being asked to draw, purchase, or estimate. Even if you are asked to do CAD drafting, purchasing, job site supervision, you will never be asked to do contract signing, profit, over head, mark up calculations. By doing that, you will never be able to become a real professional interior designer because you do not know all aspects of design but few.

2. Selective Learning Opportunities: When you take CE courses, usually your employers will let you take those classes are solely about interior design, not those classes that will teach you how to run interior design business or how to do marketing.

3. Keep You In The Dark: You work your butt out on a project, but when the project is enrolled for a design competition or wins an award, your name will never be mentioned, or when the project is published on the magazines, your name will never be listed on the magazine. By keeping you in the dark, your talent will never be recognized, so for the potential clients out there, you will always be unknown to them.

Usually when the employer him/herself is a very talented and creative designer, he/she will be less likely to use these tricks on their employees, those who use these tricks are often the ones who do not have any talent or creativity but just business savvy. So, if you realize your employer is using these dirty tricks on you, please resign as soon as possible. Otherwise, you will never become a successful interior designer.

Admired or Punked?

When I was working for a designer, I was always put on the front line to deal with contractors, vendors, and millwork shops. When the work was delayed or the craftsmanship was not met, I was always the one confronted those people. I always wondered why everytime when bad news happened at the job site, my boss was always angry at the office but all over the sudden became a nice person at the job site, I asked "why were you so angry with the contractor at the office but when you saw him at the job site, you always acted so nice?" My boss said " because I want you to be in charge, you are the project manager, so I want to give you the full responsibility, and I don't want to step on your toes." Initially, I was thinking " wow! I must have done great work so my boss trusted me to handle things all by myself." Later on when I went out on my own and I bumped into the contractor I used to work with, I was asking how is business, he replied, great, then I was joking with him "any job for me?" he said " Na...no one dares to work with you.." I finally woke up. My boss made me piss off all of those contractors, vendors, millwork shops...etc to make me play the black cop in order to cut off my future referal opportunities from those people if I ever go out on my own. That is scary.

Selective Continuing Education Classes

Some interior design firms generously paid for their employees to attend CE classes, but usually those classes are selective, I remember my former employer told me to attend some classes, that classes came with 3 parts, but I was only notified on the 2nd and 3rd part of classes but not the 1st one, so I was wondering why, when I went to the 3rd part of class, the class provider mistakenly handed out the handouts for the 1st part of class, and I quickly read through the handouts and found the 1st class was about teaching interior designers how to run their own interior design firms, then I finally understood why my employer didn't want me to go to the 1st part of class.