In The Employable Web Designer, Andy Rutledge gives his take on how you can be ready for a real web design job coming out of college.

Now more than ever, it is a student’s responsibility to craft his or her own career preparedness in addition to, even in spite of, the plans and curricula defined by schools. This fact is especially true for aspiring Web designers, for every indication is that most higher education institutions don’t have the first clue about the interactive professions or how to prepare future professionals.

As a web craftsman, I think even seasoned web designers could take a look at this list of skills and traits that make a truly employable web professional. Pay close attention to the “Technology and Web Craft Skills” section since those items require constant reading, learning, and exploration.

I hope that this list and my suggestions help aspiring web designers to better craft their own preparedness and, if necessary, adjust their degree plans toward a more effective and responsible result.

Andy’s list is not only a great resource for aspiring web designers and developers, but I see it serving as a standard for all web professionals to live up to.

(Also, see my take on preparing for a career in web design, Learning Web Design, from 2006.)

I field a lot of questions about search engines and SEO (search engine optimization), so I’d like to point to a great resource for understanding SEO basics: SEO Guide for Designers. When I found this on Nick La’s Web Designer Wall, I realized it was a great resource for basic SEO learning—even for non-designers.

Many of the tips should be obvious to you if you maintain websites on a regular basis, but if you are a non-technical website owner or maintainer, bookmark the article and reference it when you are working on your website marketing and optimization.

(Also see my 2006 post Search Engine Rankings for Your Site.)