I am a 20+ y/o, male, working adult who has just joined the workforce for about 3 months. I am in the creative/design industry.
For context, I just attained my degree and started my job search right after. I didn’t apply for the position I’m currently in – my portfolio was sourced by the company’s HR dept, went for an interview and got offered the job.
Although the job doesn’t exactly match my strengths (it was a 2D role and I mainly do 3D) I decided to accept it because I wanted to expand my range of expertise, and the creative director (CD) saw potential in me and wanted to develop my skills further.
Prior to this job, I had no prior work experience – only a 3-month internship at a now-defunct in-house design company. I was pretty surprised that the current company (which is big and has global offices worldwide) was willing to take in a candidate w/o experience.
The thing is, the majority of the colleagues in my dept are experienced personnel. CD has 30+ years, the senior designers, 10+ years, the junior designers with 1-3 years of prior working experience. I am amongst a group of 3 new hires, but I have literally zero (real) work experience. This is my first-ever full-time job.
Even the other 2 new hires (females) have prior work experience – 1 has one year, and the other has stints of internships here and there. And they are both a year younger than me. Let’s not forget that females don’t need to do NS ya. Even one of them joined a month later than I did but she is already ahead of me in terms of speed in doing work, and software skills, design skills.
So at times, I feel inferior and lesser than them (and I’m not blaming that guys need to do NS or anything) – just feels like they are younger but already ahead of me. And that, in addition to the rest of the senior designers with many years of experience. I feel like I am lagging behind with a lot of catching up to do.
The good thing is that they are mostly willing to teach, however, they said I need to pick up the speed in doing things (its a steep but necessary learning curve for me). And sometimes, I feel restrained to ask them things because they are already very busy. There are also times when I try to google the for the answer/tutorials but cannot find or get lamented by my CD.
But it also gets me wondering, if they wanted to take me in without experience, then they should be prepared for this to happen? What do you guys think?
I am currently halfway into my 6 month probation period, but I think I will want to continue with the job as the work done are really good additions to my portfolio, I like the dynamics of the team, and also the company is a good headstart for my career path. I also want to step out of my comfort zone and do something different.
Right now, I am just afraid that they might let me go after the remaining 3 months are up, because they might feel that I am not up to speed and skills/standard.
What do you guys think I can do do make the best out of my remaining 3 months of probation period, so I can be a confirmed staff?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for making it this far! Have a great weekend ahead guys.