How to get into the industry?
As I see it, there are four different types of job that one could look at to get into the industry:
Design, Sales, Marketing and Product management
Design
This is a role that definitely requires qualification – I know of no designers who haven’t been to a design college of any description. The only exception to this is people who have started their own brands and may not have had any formal design background. The ones that I am aware of and appear to have some credibility are the Performance Design courses at Derby and Leeds. I have used several people from these for projects and the quality/calibre of the graduates is, in my experience, very good.
Sales
Whilst “sales” may not be considered in the same light as design or marketing, be warned – they have a big influence in many organisations on what gets developed or into the market. I have dealt with many, many sales people within the industry and they are, let us say, a…..variable bunch. This is a breed I really don’t understand, and how they get into this role is one that mystifies me. Just about everyone I dealt with in an organisation came from a sales role from another company, and it looks a bit like musical chairs (many sales people I know have worked for at least 5 brands in the outdoor industry). But how any of them actually got into sales in the first place, I don’t know.
Marketing
Again, just about everyone in this area I have worked with came with a professional background and formal qualifications etc, but there are exceptions. People in the marketing departments of outdoor brands have come from a wide range of previous employments – from sports brands to FMCG. As a discipline, marketing translates across any kind of industry very well – in theory, anyway. Strangely enough, I find the marketing people often have very little empathy with the industry they have chosen, and that includes outdoors.
Product management
This is a weird role – a combination of market and sales analysis leading across to product outlines, briefs and specifications. In some companies, PM’s are actually the designers – in a crude kind of way. The scope of this role certainly makes it one of the most interesting and satisfying, but it can be equally frustrating. However, I think this is also a role with probably the most diverse range of approaches to entering the industry, or at least, one that you could get away without any formal background. However, I do qualify this statement as being true for people of my generation in the industry (15-20 years) – it might not be so now as, at least with the big brands, everything is so much more professional.
How did I get into the industry?
I will relate my tale as I believe this is still a way in. My first job in the industry started as an assistant product manager at Berghaus (the “training school” for so many in the trade) – or was it? In many ways, my involvement started a few years earlier. My background is enviable. Born and bred in New Zealand, I was brought up in the outdoors and subjected to what was then a very good education system (I don’t know what it is like now). I studied and graduated in chemical & materials engineering at Auckland University. After 5 years professional life in NZ, I let my passion for mountaineering take over and discarded my career to become a “climbing bum” travelling around the world. It was during this period (of 6 years) that I started working in outdoor shops to finance the next expedition. This, in a way, could be considered my real start in the industry, but I do think it is typical of many attitudes that “retail staff don’t count”. However, I absolutely believe that two critical elements are here – I understood the end use (being a very active and regularly abusing, destroying but always using outdoor kit) and I understood what ordinary customers wanted (working in retail selling to them). My university degree wasn’t important, although the intellectual rigour that this requires (regardless of discipline) was helpful (if you don’t have it naturally) and I suspect was a background factor in getting my first job.
So, in summary
1. Be active (the level isn’t important – I was an average climber)
2. Use lots of kit and be critical of it in a rational way. Ignore brand-names and marketing hype. Challenge perceived wisdom.
3. Work in an outdoor shop and listen to customers
4. Cultivate contacts with sales reps or anyone else from the industry
5. Go to tradeshows and meet people, express interest etc.
6. Take a balanced approach – there is no perfect product and everybody is different in their experience and expectations.
7. Pursue a course of formal qualification relevant to your skills and ambition
8. Have passion, patience, perseverance and positivism, but especially passion
A final warning
Working for an outdoor brand may appear to be great, but one’s outdoor life can suddenly become seriously compromised as work takes over. Designers can become disillusioned with some brands as commercial realities often conflict with the ideals and flair that is their gift.
[ed] Carol McDermott is the inspirational force behind Crux and Lightwave.
