Ep 135 Career: The Hidden Problem of ‘Experience-ism’ in Creative Careers

In The Crazy One Episode 135, Stephen Gates dives deep into a pressing topic in the creative industry today: “experience-ism.” As companies face economic downturns and shifting priorities, experience that once stood as an asset now feels like a liability. In this episode, Stephen reflects on the frustrations of senior creatives navigating the job market, where seasoned professionals find themselves sidelined for being “too experienced” or “too opinionated.” He explores how companies are shifting toward creativity as a service, prioritizing quick delivery over impactful design and leadership. Stephen shares his personal struggles with this trend and offers advice for creatives seeking fulfillment and opportunities in a market that increasingly values the status quo over innovation. Listen in for a candid take on how to navigate these challenging times and what it means to stay true to your creative expertise, even when experience feels like a disadvantage.

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Transcript

What's going on, everybody, and welcome into the 135th episode of the Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and a whole bunch of other stuff that matter to creative people. Now, as always, look, if you like the show, if you're listening to the show, do me a favor.

Leave a review. Let people know what you like about the show. Tell a friend. Put it on the billboards. Put it on a sticker, write it on a bathroom stall, whatever you want to do. But things like that always helps me to let me know that people are actually listening to the show. So with the episode today, this is something that I think has been on my mind probably for a couple of years now, and I haven't really talked about it, because one of the things that I've experienced that I talk to people probably every single week that are in all different levels of seniority that are like, Steve, look what's going on with the

market, right? What's going on with hiring? And I think, you know, like we've already talked about just, you know, again, it feels like right now things are starting to swing away from design a little bit. We're probably seeing across the board salaries are about 20 to 30% lower than where they were. But I think especially if you're in one of the more senior positions, right.

I think this is where I had just have so many conversations lately. And some of these conversations are people come to me and say, look, do you think I'm just too old? Like, do I not know what I'm doing? Is it like ageism where they just want to hire younger people? Is it that I'm too expensive? And did I sort of miss what I think my value is?

And do I need to value myself differently? And I had this conversation with myself whenever I went through my interview process that ultimately led to me starting my own studio, where it just felt like something was different. And it took me a lot of interviews and probably some months to even, I think, finally put my finger on what I think is going on.

And I'd be fascinated to hear from you guys around what you think about this. I don't think it's ageism. I think there's look, there's probably some question of value, but what I think is actually going on with so many companies right now is what I would call experience ism. I think the first thing I need to do is to figure out how the hell to spell experiences on.

But but here's what I'm thinking is that I think for a lot of companies out there, they just they don't want people that actually have a lot of experience. Or maybe it's opinion ism, personality ism, because I think in a lot of ways what you see is that right now, if you believe a lot of the polls that are out there somewhere north of 70% of people aren't loving their job, and I think that is a byproduct of that.

A lot of people like, look, I just want to come in, I want to do my job. I want to just meet whatever it is I need to meet so that I can hit my big five or my bonus and just keep on moving on down the road, that the number that I think is even crazier. And that is allegedly up to like 20 some percent of people are actually so frustrated that they are actually actively trying to sabotage their employer, which is nutty to me.

But here's the thing, right? So most people are just going in, and I think that, you know, one of the saddest things that I hear so much is that even from so many creatives, right? It's just that they're not really looking for fulfillment in their work anymore, that they've given up on that. Right? It's just, you know, they're more afraid of, am I going to keep my job or do I have a backup plan or things like that?

So I think that what I'm seeing and a lot of people that I talk to is they don't want somebody who's going to be able to come in and sort of say, look, that works, that doesn't. That person knows what they're talking about. That person's full of shit, right? Like I because I think it's just if you have a certain level of experience, you can bring that in and be able to look at everything and say, okay, this works.

That doesn't, you know, different things like that. And I think whatever you do that you're the savior to some people and you're the devil to others. And I just think right now a lot of people just don't want the headache, right? They don't want the friction. They don't want somebody who's going to come in and want to do things differently.

I think a lot of companies just want you did ship or hit a deadline or make it pretty or do whatever it is. And this idea that it's anything more than that or that you would, I mean, honestly almost inspire people to more than that. It just it feels to me like that's just not something that's wanted right now.

And I think that's what I mean. Whenever I say experiences, I'm is just if you're going to come in and tell people that things are going to get better, that design will have a bigger role, that there can be a bigger impact. But that means we're going to need to make some changes or do things differently. And look, I think if I'm being honest, I think it's a little bit understandable on some companies part because we just went through an era where you saw every company bought into design thinking and got expensive design leaders and didn't really make the changes for any of that stuff to work.

But I think and looked at that and kind of went like, okay, that didn't work. And then the pendulum swings the other way and that right now it probably is a little bit more of a push towards creativity as a service, not as actually something that's impactful. Now, as we all know, the companies that continue to be successful, the companies that everybody continues to admire, do not think about things this way, that they want to encourage that sort of dialog.

But I think that seems to be in so many of the conversations that I've had, and even going back to the interviews that I did, that was the part where everybody's eyes sort of glazed over, was it was that moment when I wasn't just going to come in and do what everybody else did, where it wasn't just, okay, I'm going to come in and just take orders blindly that I might challenge things or I might again actually be looking for, I don't know what, enjoying my work, having fun at work, doing things like that that seem to just be a bridge too far.

So that's the thing that I would say to think about, right? I think if you're somebody that's going out there that you're interviewing, if you feel like maybe you're too old, maybe you're out of touch, maybe your skills are something that are a little bit misaligned. And again, I little had a conversation today about this that I think it's just we're really in a spot right now where they aren't really looking for.

It's so weird to say, right. Like how how would we in a world or in a place where it feels like experience is a liability? And I think that was probably my biggest takeaway whenever I went through it, I was doing my interviewing was at the end of that. I felt like the fact that I'd worked in different places or I'd worked on big teams and small teams and I had all this experience was a liability.

And that's super, super weird because wouldn't you think that's what companies would want? Wouldn't you think they'd want to get better when you think they'd want to actually walk the talk that they all do? But I think that's it for me. Right? Is I think that just we're in a spot right now where for too many companies and too many jobs, experience just feels like a liability.

And I think this is something for you to think about whenever you're interviewing, whenever you're talking to different companies, when you're figuring out what's next for you, is are you going to be okay working at some place where it's just the status quo and you sort of go in and you do whatever you need to do and, you know, take the paycheck and go home, or are you going to want more?

I think especially knowing that wanting more, which again, seems so crazy that if you want a company that actually, you know, thinks about people and doesn't view them as just resources, if you want to be able to be, you know, satisfied in your job or things like that in a real way, right? Not in the lip service way that every company does.

But that's going to be the thing. And, you know, look, these areas can't last forever. And look, I've worked at this long enough that I've seen this cycle of there's an economic downturn. They make changes, they get rid of marketing, they get rid of design, they scale back on all this stuff, you experience becomes a liability. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, crap, right?

Like our product isn't very good. We're losing market share. We nobody knows our brand anymore. And then they hire all those people back, usually for more money. So these arrows don't last forever. But I think that this one does feel a little bit different is there is so much friction still between an office and remote and experience versus just doing your job and a lot of these sort of things.

But this feels like one of those things that to me, not a lot of people are talking about or maybe raising that. It feels like that might actually be the undercurrent of what's going on. And I think that for so many of us, that's where we're struggling. And I think that's where I felt personally so lost and disconnected, because it all of a sudden it felt like everything that I'd spent my entire career building, everything that I thought had value, everything that I thought would make me valuable suddenly felt like a liability.

And it's not right. And in the long term, it's not to the right company. It's not. But I think it's just know that we're going to have to pull the signal from the noise on a lot of this sort of stuff to be able to show the value and wait for a lot of that to come back around a little bit.

But I think, I don't know if you're going through this, if you feel like maybe this is what it is you're seeing, like, leave a comment, reach out. I'd love to be able to kind of hear if this is something that is just my perspective and maybe I'm missing something, but I think for those of you that are going through it, maybe you can feel like you're not alone.

Maybe you feel like this is something that actually is sort of going on more, or that this is a weird trend around that. But I don't know. I just want to share my thought on that. And it's going to be a short, quick episode. But I just think for me it was just it's something that's really been on my mind, and some of it's a theme of too many conversations that I've been having lately and just felt like something I wanted to share and get your thoughts on.

So look, I think as always, you enjoy the show. Leave a review, subscribe, do all that fun stuff. We're going to go into some of the things I touched on here today and a little bit more upcoming episodes, so stay tuned for that. And hey, you know, don't don't ever apologize for being experienced. Never apologize for having an opinion.

It's what makes us all great and produces great work. So as always, hey. Stay crazy.