How to draw for a living: First Job Profile of a former Disney animator

This summer I connected with some amazing professionals who were willing to share their wisdom. Each profile features how their first job out of college led to their amazing careers today, as well as their advice to help you do the same.

I'll never forget my first trip to Disney World and those little cubes that showed animators desks. Coloring for a living?! Yes please! 

Unfortunately I realized pretty early in life that I did not have the talent nor the patience to draw well. But I've never stopped admiring animators and designers.

I recently met an incredible designer who loves his work and has a deep passion for life. 

Oh, and if you've seen a little movie called The Lion King, then you have seen some of his work:

Cars Paitoon designed

First Job Profile: Paitoon Ratan, Freelance Designer

1) What was your first job out of college and how did you get it?

My first job out of college, in 1993, was as a Visual Effects Artist/animator for Walt Disney Animation Studio Florida at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

In 1990, I won the prestigious Disney Feature animation internship while I was a Junior in college (Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Ohio). I came to Florida and trained with the legendary Disney animators for a semester. 

At the end of the internship, I was offered a job to work on Beauty and The Beast but I decided to go back to Ohio and finish my degree in Industrial design. 

I graduated with a BFA In Industrial Design along with The Outstanding Senior in Industrial Design Award in 1992. 

Thankfully in late 1992, while I was back in Thailand with my family, Disney called me and asked if I would like to come back to work on the film, The Lion King. I said yes and that was the beginning of a decade of working for the Walt Disney Company as a full time cast member.

2) What was the most important thing you learned from your first job?

When I first arrived at the Disney studios in 1990 as an intern, everywhere I turned, I saw someone who is more talented and more skilled than me as an artist/designer. 

It was a humbling experience to say the least to walk down the Disney animation building knowing that I was surrounded by the very best in the world.

Once I actually became a Disney cast member, one of the most valuable lessons I learned was to figure out what kind of a designer I wanted to become and what types of projects I would like to be a part of during the rest of my career as a designer. Ever since then I have spent my entire career trying to become that designer.

3) What did you do to leverage your first job to help you get where you are today?

I stayed at my first job for a decade doing what I loved to do and got to be a part of so many special films. I'm so incredibly grateful for that; it was an amazing time period to get to be a 2D animator for a studio such as Walt Disney and to have that as part of my life journey. 

It also gave me the confidence that I was capable of doing 'more' than just design and animation. In 2002, after I finished work on Brother Bear, I decided it was time for me to go out on my own and give myself a chance at fulfilling some of my other dreams and passions as a designer.

My independent design consultant career took off from the day I left Disney Animation into the direction I had imagined. 

Because my first job at Disney was animation, my transition into the toy and consumer goods, theme park and VDO Game industry was almost seamless. I started to design toys for Disney Consumer Products and DC Comics very quickly after I left Disney Animation. 

As a young Industrial design student, I dreamt that someday I would have "a product" that I designed out in the market. While I was working at feature animation, I set goals to someday be designing theme parks, toys, movies, TV, VDO games etc. and I have been so fortunate to have achieved and done many of those things I set out to do. 

I continue to be a part of some really cool projects working with some really amazingly talented groups of people as an independent designer.

4) What advice do you have for a recent graduate who is struggling to find their first job after college?

In my humble opinion, I think the real question is not so much about the advice on finding 'the first job' but it should be 'finding the job that you feel 'passionate' about.

 I think all of us should have this question answered long before we all go to college. 'What is your passion?' It should be a High school's graduating requirement. :) 

Once you are in college, you should know exactly what you need to do while you are there in order for you to graduate and get a job that helps you become who you want to become. I think if you don't know what your passion is, finding your 'first job, second job or third job ' is not going to matter much as I don't think you will be happy working at your job.

So I'd say go out there and look for the job that you love. But in order to do that, you need to know what it is that you love doing. So you need to figured out what your 'passion' is. 

Then spend the rest of your life going after it because spending 40-60 hrs a week on a job that you don't like is a long time to be miserable every week (even if that job pays amazingly well).

I will end this with a quote from one of my all time favorite authors who spent her entire professional life studying terminally ill patients:

"It is very important that you only do what you love to do. You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to live, but you will totally live. 

"And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do. Otherwise, you will live your life as a prostitute, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived. And you will not have a pleasant death.” — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

How to Get a Job Without a Resume

Ever felt frustrated by not being able to get work experience because no one will hire you without having prior experience? Ever try any of these things, like, stuffing your face with marshmallows?....[crickets]...... No? Ok I guess it's just me then......

Go to isaadney.com/howtogetajobwithoutaresume to get your FREE ebook (releases 8/5/2013)! :D

How to access the hidden job market

Check out the newest episode of The SKiNNY on College Success to learn how to access the hidden job market and get a great job now and after college! :)

How to Get a Job Without a Resume

Below is the kick-off article to the summer series that will be featured on firstjoboutofcollege.com. Each summer I write to help those of you who've graduated college find a job and learn how to turn it into a dream career. When relevant I'll also post the articles here. CommunityCollegeSuccess.com will still have tons of content this summer, as well as answers to the many Ask Isa questions I've been recieving. Loving them!

There is almost nothing as demoralizing as the online job hunt.

When I graduated college at the top of my class I thought companies would be fighting each other to have my brilliance and potential in their office.

I know, I know; feel free to laugh at and judge my millennial-style ego.

Instead, I found myself applying to and interviewing for countless jobs that had never been in my senior-year-of-college plans.

I was interviewing to be a future payroll specialist, medial sales rep, dog food saleswoman, and theme park character.

Like many recent graduates, I ended up taking a low-level hourly job to help pay the rent when the salaried jobs passed me up for more qualified candidates.

But luckily, my first hourly job was in an industry I was very interested in – higher education.

And within three years I went from working for ten dollars an hour in an admissions office to working from home, speaking around the country, consulting with companies at which I’d once dreamed of being employed, hosting a television show, and getting half a dozen job offers (including one to be a CEO of a well-known non-profit).

And trust me, I’m no genius. I also come from a low-income family and was the first to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, so I had zero connections when I started and no idea what I was doing in the professional world.

They say, “It’s not who you know, but who knows you.” I never knew what that really meant until I started engaging deeply in something I cared about and sharing that online.

Whether you dream of being your own boss, saving the world as a non-profit leader, being a life-changing teacher, or finding a job at that perfect-fit company, building an online brand can help you get known, be recognized, and get job offers. Oh and your resume? It will just be a formality; they will barely glance at it because they’ll already know they want you.   

All you need to build your online presence is to add value in your desired industry. When you do that, the key players will find and want to work with you. And when you reach out to them yourself (which you should), they’ll see you as instantly credible when they see the work you’ve been doing online. I’ll be honest with you, this is much harder than formatting a resume, but the rewards are sweet and yield results that you can’t even fathom when you begin.  

As college students graduate this month I’ve had many of my readers e-mail me asking for career advice. I’m so inspired by their desire to make a difference in the world that

I wanted to share everything I’ve learned about building a career in the 21^st
century in a free ebook called How to Get a Job Without a Resume: The secrets to building an online presence that draws opportunities to you (release date late summer 2013).

I wanted to do this because when I graduated college, I read dozens of books to try to figure out what to do with my life. I was comforted by the many things I read that confirmed the “20-something” crisis was real. However, I was always left wondering, “Okay, now I know why I feel this way, but what the heck am I supposed to do?”

How to Get a Job Without a Resume will share exactly how to build an online presence, step by step, even if you have absolutely zero technical skills. It will also teach you the strategies I developed to build a network of incredible mentors and friends who can teach you everything you need to know about your industry and help you get where you want to go.   

I started my online presence because a book about how to get your non-fiction book published told me I had to (I was reading it years ago in preparation to write my first book). So I started a blog. I got up early and wrote once a week before work. I tweeted my blog posts.  And I did that for almost a year without anything happening.

And then, someone from the largest global learning company, Pearson,
saw my blog on Twitter. She started following me. We started interacting. We
set up a phone call. And eventually Pearson became my first consulting client; I
was able to leave my traditional job, work from home, speak around the country, and start a consulting business.  

A few months later a local cable station e-mailed me asking if I’d travel to their location a few times a year to host their new college success TV show; they had found me on YouTube.

While I love a good funny cat picture, it turns out, social media and other online tools can add so much more to your life and career.

And as Thomas Friedman recently shared in The New York Times (bold mine):

"What’s exciting is that this platform [the Internet & social media] empowers individuals to access learning, retrain, engage in commerce, seek or advertise a job, invent, invest and crowd source — all online. 

"But this huge expansion in an individual’s ability to do all these things comes with one big difference: more now rests on you.

If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you. The boundaries are all gone. But if you’re not self-motivated, this world will be a challenge because the walls, ceilings and floors that protected people are also disappearing."

The only people who will really have job security in the 21^st century are those who use their online presence to consistently contribute to an industry, even when they’re not getting paid for it. The process is continuous, and while it requires a lot of hard work and dedication, once you get going it can actually be quite fun.

Are you ready to start?

You can sign up  on my website to be one of the first 500 people to get a free ecopy of the book a week before it’s released to the public, and below are two quick tips to get you going right now:

1) Write down what you want: What do you think about when you go to bed? What gets you up in the morning? What moves you? What makes you feel the most alive?

Building a personal brand will be the hardest thing in the world if you do not first define what it is you really want and align that with who you are, what you’re good at, and what the world needs.

There are hundreds of books dedicated to helping you discover your strengths and think about what you want to do with your life. But don’t stop there – today’s careers often aren’t in books. Be creative.

Even if you don’t know what kind of job you want yet, write down what you want out of life and read those goals every morning.

2) Choose one online tool: When I started to build my online presence I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know what HootSuite was or how to pronounce it (I called it Hut Sweet) and didn’t know why people used hash tags.

In the free ebook each social media channel gets its own chapter. You won’t need each one, but knowing how to make the most of them all will help you decide. In the meantime, choose one online platform and start adding value in your industry.
 

Start a free blog and write once a week. Start a Twitter if you haven’t already; follow key people in your industry, retweet and share industry news, and interact with people who work at the organizations to which you aspire.

Update your LinkedIn profile and start joining the conversation in your industry groups; search the companies and jobs you find interesting and study the “resumes” on LinkedIn – where did they get their start? Connect with some of them and ask for their advice.

Start a YouTube channel and film a short video of yourself teaching someone how to do something, or start a Facebook page where you share industry news, quotes, and conversation starters. 

Choose one and go.

If this feels like a lot and you feel overwhelmed, remember this: the most important thing about personal branding, to which its name proves ironic, is that the person that matters most isn’t you – it’s your audience.

Ask yourself, who can you help with your knowledge and talents? Where can you make a difference? Speak to them. Make their life better, easier, more joyful.

You have more to offer than you realize. And while the Internet seems crowded, you’d be surprised at
how much room there is for you. There are problems only you can solve, niches
only you can fill, and people out there who need you to be their online
superhero.  

Resumes not required. Capes are optional, but highly recommended.

Visit isaadney.com/whoknowsyou to sign up to be one of the first to receive the free ebook How to Get a Job Without a
Resume.