As I got into Google [translation]
Once I got into Google just over two years ago, different people have asked me to tell the story of how I got the job, and that I had to go.
I promised that tell you about it, but somehow it did not go. I hope that is not too late and someone is likely to be useful. I really try to generalize the experience that I got everything that happened with me and give some advice.
Oh yes, one more thing that. This is not a manual on how to get a job at Google. Based on my experience, I do not think that this even exists. I will not describe in detail the interview (you will not know what kind of questions they asked me), in order not to disclose any confidential information.
The main goal of this text - the story of my personal experience obtained during the "up-Google». I hope that it will be a little useful to anyone of you.
Berets and baguettes ... h4> 
If you do not know me, I'm a guy 27 years old, was born in a small town in the suburbs of Paris under the name of Lagny. I spent the first six years of my life here, and then moved to the south of France where he lived and studied in several different cities, such as Toulon, Hyères, Arles and Marseilles.
At the moment, I'm a designer in projects Google Chrome and Chrome OS, I live in San Francisco.
Study h4> I got a GED (General Educational Development - test of 4 items at the end of high school), specializing in "Sociology and Economics", then studied for two years in a common technology school and another 3 in the School of Management of multimedia projects.
Common between these two institutions is that they taught me to work on all-right. They did not give something specialized. If you go back, I would say that I was made of "Swiss Army Knife».
I taught basic social science and economics mixed with history and philosophy. And yet, add to this the math and get my GED.
The next two years were busy, I directly told that I can do with a computer, camera and other things. From coding to direction respect and photos. A very wide range of subjects, to put it mildly.
The last 3 years it was management. People, projects, communication and training on how to wear a suit ... ... Yes ...
Looking back, the more emerging school courses, the less I got knowledge that were needed in my current job.
At school, I was taught not to do what I do not want. Blockquote>
School is not about to learn, seriously. It's about to reveal you. I have forgotten almost everything I had been taught there, but I was helped to imagine and understand - what I want to do, and what not.
This is how to teach the subject, only to realize that it's not for you. Blockquote>
I had to teach math to eventually figure out that I hate her, I learned to program and found that it is impossible to me worse than the alignment of pixels in an image editor. There was a time when I wore a suit, only to realize that it's not quite what I wanted to wear every day. I learned how to manage projects and people, but after this, I realized that all what I want to do is spend all their free time in Photoshop, listening to the background Hans Zimmer and Amon Tobin.
Maybe it's not the best way to learn things, but I have it like that. Do not get me wrong, I have learned many useful things in school, but it was something like that things which I hated, gave me the most important lessons of my life and ability.
In any project I worked on, I've always been responsible for part of the designer, it was my own island, so to speak. On the question of the possibility of acquiring new knowledge, I decided to concentrate on something one. Blockquote>
Over 5 years (GED), I had to skip past the ears bunch of knowledge to focus on everything associated with the interfaces and their details.
Is this good? I do not know. I do not grasp everything on the fly. I just found that what I was good and instead to expand their range of abilities, I decided to improve the ones that were already at an appropriate level.
Let's generalize what I got after my studies:
Interface designer, obsessed with what he's doing, focused on design web pages and applications for mobile devices. I was able to comfortably and confidently show their ideas to people.
I have a daily schedule consisting of an hour or so browsing the Internet to search for, discovery and categorizing something inspiring, and then 8:00 visual design in Photoshop and Illustrator. Also, I'm fluent in English, by the way is important.
Work h4> The history of my work is closely connected with the school. Three years managing multimedia projects alternated internship. I spent a month in the school and one in another company which is not so bad attitude to newcomers.
I was lucky to work at a company where I was given the job better than to bring coffee or something like that, and I was grateful for that. The biggest that I have learned from this, and what certainly do not regret it:
The best way to learn something - it work for real people in real companies. Blockquote>
No, it does not mean that you will not learn in schools. You will need it to get the foundation / base, you can certainly know all about the design for the book, but here's an opportunity to apply the principles learned in real situations and projects - priceless. The combination of studying and living tasks - as for me, is the best option to understand the subject, at least in our area.
The first year h4> For the first year of internship, I learned to print and logo design and business cards. As an intern, I was not bad. But in the opinion of a professional designer - I was terrible. My work was muddled and full of errors. Fortunately, I caught the right people, and nothing happened.
In your life, if you are very lucky, you will meet people who will help you in the development. Substituting his shoulder, they will help you achieve what you thought was impossible. Blockquote>
That man was my boss in the first year. We were a company consisting of two people, it was a bunch of experience behind him. He was patient and once saw in me a little bit of talent, helped me develop it.
I did not expect this, I believe that it is a rarity - meet somebody who had to earn a living while he was still ready to help you in a professional and personal growth. I try to be so, but it is still far away.
It needs to be truly selfless.
The second and third year h4> These years I spent practicing in another company. Is the first place I left because I had to earn extra money, and he could no longer contain an intern and so it's time to move on.
Next the company was a small web agency, created by one man who is tired of carrying out orders, and wanted to do cool things himself.
Let's stop and I will give one more piece of advice for young designers who need a job or practice:
Next, with a smile. Blockquote>
Yes, just like that. At that time I was a shy guy, insecure, especially in the case when it came to present themselves to someone. My presentation does not cause delight (to put it mildly). If I did not support an employee of the company, it seems to me that I'm still looking for an internship would imagine.
Well, closer to the subject. Remember earlier I wrote about my first boss? So, I was lucky twice. Luck is an important factor in his career, but to this we shall return.
During these two years, I had grown in terms of visual design. I have worked on different projects, ranging from sophisticated web design and finishing applications for mobile phones. This is a good way to keep the spirit of freedom in the work while earning a living. I even worked on the design for mass mailings of letters, which I'm not very proud of, but it's a bit put me in my place. This, incidentally, is important:
You will not always do something than can be proud of, but you can just make something for yourself from the experience. Blockquote>
Following the logic of the school, when you have to do something that you do not like, you form a backbone that makes you a better (and as a designer incl).
This work was beautiful. Most orders were interesting projects with a bunch of problems for the young designer. I grew up with every order, and my boss was my insurance, thereby teacher who was always there at the right time. He believed in me from the beginning and therefore gave me complete freedom coupled with responsibility for what I do.
As insurance for the person whom you want the ability to develop, make him feel the hard way what it means to make responsible decisions. Blockquote>
After finishing his studies, I was hired by the company that guy. There I spent the year before was at Google, and to be honest, I love every second of this year.
Self- h4> Besides the study and practice (someone more experienced) there is one more important thing - self-study. Someone so do say that it is all you need, in principle, especially in our field.
If you have a craving for something, then self-study should be done by itself. If you like what you do, then you are clearly on the right track. Blockquote>
My favorite pastime was to observe the work of others, I took them .psd files, and saw that there is a yes, but what to say - I'm still so do . Way to return the favor ...
There are always people more talented than you. Look at them and learn. Blockquote>
Teamwork and design community h4> Know I hate to work with someone. But I'm used to. To date, I certainly get experience in this, but I still still very bad. When you have to work with some people on my face there is an inexplicable expression makes people think that I hate them. I do not know ... maybe so, but if only slightly. In general, I think that it's only shyness ...
Whatever it was, very early on, I realized that this is the cooperation of a very important thing for the development of your career, especially in our industry. Denis Cowen said in his post on this topic all better of me, so I'm not going to stop there.
That's the power of the Internet, you can work together with someone without interfering in the real world. You can become a designer and make his mark simply by taking part in the community. Seriously, if you're a loner living on some island, you have exactly the same chance of being recruited as any other.
Okay, okay, sociable man from San Francisco ability in this respect much better than the brown bears of the cave in sunny France with poor internet, but you get what I mean.
Fortunately I was not a bear, I was more or less normal internet and I had to start somewhere. And I began with a small blog on Tumbler.
It was a simple blozhik where I shared every design and content articles about this. Something like personal Pinterest. Just a few readers, but it is a trifle. I was fascinated by it. Here you have to note:
If you like to share something with others, even with a very small audience - keep doing it as long as possible. Blockquote>
So I continued to write in my little blog, and once I was contacted by a large French site tied to the web design and different things with which to take inspiration from artists, etc. Number of visitors of course jumped. The blog has become better known, and I moved from posting others' things and notes to his sketches (after came across the work Orman Clark - < a href = "http://www.premiumpixels.com"> Premium pixel ). But what to say, I'm still a fan of his. The blog was an excellent option for self-development, vytachivaniya my love to the pixel and easy opportunity to share different things. I also studied by reverse engineering in relation to other people's work. After this even started writing tutorials.
And one day the owner of this French site asked me:
"Maybe you want to invite to the Dribbble?»
Dribbble h4> Dribbble deserves special mention, simply because this resource was instrumental in my career, and in the careers of many people in our industry.
I checked 6 March 2011 th and published here this screenshot:
And he immediately brought over a lot of new subscribers. At the time I publish a new job once a week. It took a lot of time, and I just sat all week in Photoshop We create content for your blog. I had no idea what all this will lead ... to me began to contact people outside of France, that was unexpected.
Oh, yeah ... so, and Google came to me.
A bit of freelancing h4> While I was working in a web agency. And just in this first working year I started getting offers through Dribbble from different foreign (not French) companies. The very first was an order from the printing company from Sweden, it was great and very important to me. I quite understand and speak English to communicate with them, but they talked about basically any business units ... and I just graduated from the study and was not so immediately ready for completely private / personal projects.
So I suggested to my boss to make this order projects. He engaged in accounting and I to everyone else. That's how I started my first "Tipo frilansny project».
Based on my experience, if you are a young designer and you have the opportunity to work on some side projects for real people - definitely go for it, you will learn a lot. Blockquote>
With the first order all failed, they were satisfied with the result, I did everything on time and we have a good relationship. This project will add to my portfolio, but still I was very pleased that I was able to get out of your comfort zone and do not lazhanulsya.
Out of your comfort zone will add you confidence. Blockquote>
I kept always something to post on Dribbble spending half a day in photoshop, design sketches sites, emails and applications for iPhone and iPad. Frankly, I design anything, from video players and to < a href = "https://dribbble.com/shots/169020-Upload-panel?list=users&offset=67"> The upload form (Why? I have no idea ..). And subscribers and order becomes more and more.
I took on projects from France, Denmark and the United States. Each of them opens up new horizons / territory. I mean, I came across a very different orders, such as design social platform a > or software for DJs .
Orders was so much that I began to choose from them the only ones on which I would like to work. At the same time I started a couple of personal projects. With freelancing all went well, mainly for one simple reason - customers, whom I chose, know what they want and have some idea what they will get in the end (I think it was clear portfolio). In general, the ability to choose your clients is a luxury. And I could choose, because I already had the basic work.
If you have free time and the situation you can take side projects as a freelancer (ie you already have a job) - I advise you to try it, suddenly it for you. But be careful, you have a long time to work without looking up. Blockquote>
The presence of all these customers also helped me make a big portfolio. What led me to the next.
work for free h4> Before we continue, I suggest you read the article on Dan Petty < / a>.
I know that the issue of something delicate. Each work deserves payment. And that there exists a lot of people who will take advantage of this logic, and we'll see ads like "I need a designer for a site like YouTube is $ 200 - waiting for proposals" or "Well, we've got 5 designers working on this, and I'll pay just one of them" .
Can we talk? H4> A year has passed and I got my first job offer in a company from Spain.
No.
