If you’re seeking a new career in a field that involves design, learning Adobe will help you get there. Studying Adobe can also help you upskill to expand your professional abilities. Adding an Adobe product to your skill set might also help you wrangle that promotion or raise you’ve been aiming for in your current role. And if you’re the artistic type, there are many Adobe products that can facilitate personal expression as well.
Adobe is Industry-Standard in Design Professions
In most design professions, mastery of at least one Adobe product is not merely expected but required. This is widespread across this type of profession because the Adobe Creative Cloud provides a suite of design programs that includes applications for almost any design profession. And Adobe is so well-established that for many design professionals, not knowing Adobe would raise some eyebrows for a hiring manager at a prospective employer. A Photographer who doesn’t know how to use Photoshop, a Graphic Designer who hasn’t studied Illustrator, a Film Editor ignorant of Premiere Pro, a User Experience Designer who doesn’t know Adobe XD–all of these professionals would experience serious hindrances in their chosen careers. Even if their initial job in the field didn’t require knowledge of an Adobe product, they’d likely need to learn Adobe to move forward in their career. As a current or aspiring design professional, you don’t want to end up in a situation where the one missing piece for the job you want is knowledge of an Adobe product expected in your profession.
Why is Adobe industry-standard? The company has been producing reliably high-quality design programs for over 40 years. That’s nearly as long as computers have been used for design in any way. Its name carries a reputation for quality because of the company’s many accomplishments, and its current programs bear that out. Adobe has also devoted significant energy and resources to making applications that are indispensable in a wide range of design professions.
Adobe products have great creative capacity, user-friendly interfaces, and compatibility across the 20+ apps in Adobe Creative Cloud suite. While some design professionals may use other programs too such as Figma for user experience design or Final Cut Pro for film editing, most employers want design workers who are knowledgeable in the relevant Adobe program as well. Plus, even if your current employer uses a non-Adobe product exclusively, you don’t want to be searching for a new job and have to limit yourself to pursuing positions in which you’ll use that same program and never be asked to work in your profession’s Adobe program of choice. At some point in your design career, you may find that knowing Adobe is the stumbling block between you and your ultimate goals.
Adobe is also continuing to expand its suite of creative products. Once you’re familiar with the interface for one Adobe program, it’ll be easier to pick up new ones as they emerge and ultimately become expected knowledge in your field. If you’re later in your career and want to make sure you stay current, it’s important to learn the programs that are expected now, of course. But you can make even more progress by positioning yourself to be a quick study of the software that will be needed later, especially in the ever-changing world that is digital design.
Start a New Career in Design
If you’re reading this, chances are that you are currently investigating bootcamps, certificates, and other programs for studying the Adobe product you’re interested in. If so, you may be one of many workers looking to start your career in design or make a change from your current career to a design profession. That means you’re in the right place, because if you want to be a designer of any kind, a great way to get started is by studying an Adobe product.
Let’s say you are a teacher who wants to get into the edtech field through user experience design. You know a lot about what students and educational institutions need. You’ve used content management systems in the classroom and done the daily project management of making one run. You know how to create an experience that will speak to a particular user or user group and help them achieve what they’re looking for. But the missing piece for you is knowing how to actually design the interface for the app you’re dreaming of creating. Studying Adobe XD will teach you those design skills and help you master one of the most sought-after programs that employers look for when hiring User Experience Designers.
Or perhaps you’re a recent graduate with a film minor. You’ve found a job in the field you majored in, but you long to get back into doing film. In the film classes you took, you studied Final Cut Pro, but when you meet for coffee with a professional film editor, you find out that what you really need is to know Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. An Adobe bootcamp or certificate can help you close that gap and make your career what you really want it to be.
Adobe may not be the golden key that helps you unlock the career of your dreams, but in combination with your transferable skills and existing knowledge, it can provide the final piece that makes you the ideal candidate for a job in your new field. If you can demonstrate the practical design skills expected in your chosen profession, you’ll be able to dispel any doubts prospective employers may have about career changers or those just getting started in the field. Most bootcamps also include creating a portfolio of your designs and getting feedback on them from professionals in your field. So not only will you have a completed Adobe course on your resume, but you’ll be able to provide evidence of the skills you’ve gained and what you can do with them.
For career changers, the array of available bootcamps can be dizzying. To make your final choice, you’ll need to do plenty of research about what is expected in your particular field, the industry you’re aiming at, and the specific types of employers you’re interested in working for. But even once you’ve done that research, you may be uncertain as to what kind of bootcamp to choose. If that’s where you are, look carefully at schools that offer instruction in Adobe. Selecting an Adobe program is a secure choice for any kind of design career because these software are industry-standard, long-established in the design field, and well-supported. If you’ve studied Adobe and can demonstrate your skills through a strong portfolio, employers can be confident that you will be useful to them in your chosen design profession.
Upskill to Kickstart a New Job Search
Say you are already in a design profession, but you want to expand your career potential and conquer new worlds beyond the arenas you’ve explored so far. Or you feel you’ve gotten as far as you will with your current employer, and you want to upskill so you’ll be more attractive as you search for a new role. Whether you’re looking to shift careers within design or want to pursue the same type of position in a new context, studying an Adobe product can make your job search easier, shorter, and more effective. This is the case whether the Adobe Creative Cloud is completely new to you or you’re expanding your skill set to a new Adobe product as you look to enter a new area of design.
Perhaps you’ve been a great Graphic Designer for several years. But your family is growing now, and you know that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, User Experience Designers make an average of $28,000 a year more than Graphic Designers. Plus, you’d really like a new challenge in your life. So you decide to pursue a bootcamp in Adobe XD and become a User Experience Designer. You learn all about the interactive elements that make designing a user interface different from graphic design, and you build a great portfolio to show prospective employers you’re not limited to static designs anymore. Through that portfolio and the connections you make in your bootcamp, you get a challenging, lucrative new job with a tech company in your city, all because you expanded your knowledge and skills by studying Adobe.
Or maybe you’ve been working in print magazine advertising design for a while now, and Adobe InDesign is old hat to you. You still love advertising, but you decide you want to work in online video advertising instead. You can turn to Adobe again and make new professional friends in the form of Premiere Pro and After Effects. After getting an Adobe certificate, you can easily make the pitch to a new employer that you have both the knowledge of advertising and the skill in film editing to make an excellent worker in your new field. Upskilling through the study of Adobe made it quicker and easier for you to get started in a new career.
Another scenario that might arise is where you aren’t looking to change the nature of your career, but you want to explore a new industry, and that industry uses different software than what you’re familiar with, including Adobe products. Maybe you’re a designer looking to go from a cash-strapped industry in which you primarily worked with free design programs to a more profitable industry that can afford to invest in paid ones. If you’re a Graphic Designer looking to shift from non-profit work to the corporate design world, your hard-earned Canva skills may not cut it. Doing a bootcamp or certificate in Photoshop or Illustrator–which one you choose will depend on the specific nature of the jobs you’re seeking–could give you the boost you need to snag that better-paying job in your desired new industry. Similarly, maybe you were doing film editing as one aspect of your education job, but now you’d like to become an editor full-time. You’re a whiz with iMovie, but employers in film expect you to know Premiere Pro and After Effects. So it’s time to look into bootcamps and certificates.
You might also be looking to learn a new skill because you want to switch employers, even if you don’t want to change careers or industries. For example, you could be a User Experience Designer who’s always worked in Figma. But when you start looking at job ads, you find that many of the companies you’re interested in want you to work in XD instead. Others say “Figma or XD, ” but you suspect that knowing both would really help you stand out from the crowd of prospective candidates. Either way, learning Adobe is a good way to make yourself attractive to employers when you are looking to change jobs.
Get That Promotion or Raise You’ve Been Seeking
Some professionals seek out continuing education even though they don’t want to change their career, industry, or employer. They’re happy where they are, but they still want to keep growing in their profession. They might be looking to improve for love of their craft, but it’s likely they are also seeking a promotion, a raise, or both.
Imagine you’re a web designer, and you’ve been in an associate position for a couple of years now. You’re great at front-end coding and are familiar with a few graphic design apps, but you haven’t yet explored the potential of any Adobe products. You want to move up to a mid-level role, so you look at the job ads for that level at your employer and competitors. And you notice that many of them want proficiency in Adobe products, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and XD. Then you chat with some of the mid-level designers, and they mention that they use Photoshop to create graphics for their sites and XD to design interfaces. Depending on your specific career goals and strengths, you’ll want to research which one of these best fits the kind of role you want to move into. Then you’ll take a look at the best bootcamps for your purposes. In some cases, you can even get your employer to help you out with tuition by explaining that you’re looking to grow your skills so you can be of more value to the company.
Even if you’re not able to negotiate that type of arrangement, you can look at the bootcamp as an investment that will pay off in your future compensation. Needing or wanting to make more money is another reason why workers will often learn how to use Adobe products even if they don’t want to change employers, industries, or careers. Knowing Adobe will make it easier to make the argument for a raise to your employer, either by showing that the knowledge will be of value to your company directly or, in a pinch, by negotiating an offer somewhere else and then bringing it back to the current employer. Whatever your strategy, studying Adobe can help you grow your career and improve your financial situation.
Improve What Your Company Does
Some workers, especially mission-driven ones who are passionate about what their company does, can find themselves frustrated because they can see that the way their employer currently conducts business is getting in the way of its full potential. If you love your work for its own sake and believe in what you do, this may be you, either now or someday. Many employers outside the tech or tech-adjacent fields may not be familiar with the current programs available for design or what they are capable of doing. So these companies’ designers might have worked for years in programs that are now outdated and haven’t kept pace with trends in design. You see your competitors outpacing you, getting attention for their products while yours fall by the wayside. But you haven’t been able to persuade your employer to change.
So what can you do? One tactic is to persuade by showing, not telling. If you can master the relevant Adobe program that is industry-standard in your field, you’ll be able to show the employer what that program can do. After studying Adobe, you can create a mockup design that you could use in your work. If your employer sees an engaging app you made in XD, or a professional-quality TV ad you built in Premiere Pro, or a fabulous print layout you did in InDesign, they’ll be more likely to make the switch you’ve been advocating for. It may seem illogical to study a program before you know it will be useful, but learning how to make it useful is the best way to prove that it will be. And even if you still can’t persuade your boss, knowing Adobe will serve you if you choose to move on someday.
Find a New Outlet for Self-Expression
Not everyone who studies an Adobe product is choosing to do so for their career, however. You might be totally satisfied in your current career, but still have creative goals that an Adobe product will help you fulfill. Learning to use Adobe products can be helpful in many artistic endeavors.
Have you always wanted to make a movie? Have you envisioned a professionally edited product with slick transitions and cool effects? Then check out Premiere Pro and After Effects! Even if you don’t want to or can’t afford to do a full bootcamp, a course or two can help you bring those professional touches to your artistic work. Similarly, if you want your self-published novel to look like a major press produced it, learning InDesign can help you make crisp-looking layouts for printing.
Maybe you like to design clothes, and you’re looking to expand into graphic t-shirts. Adobe Illustrator is a great tool for creating attention-getting and attractive graphics. Illustrator could also be useful if you want to design posters for your band or theater company. Visual artists looking to expand into digital formats may also want to study Illustrator or Photoshop. Game designers can also use these graphic design programs to make art for use in the game. Photoshop is key if you want to take your hobby of photography to the next level, and you might want to learn Lightroom as well.
As you can see, Adobe products have a lot of potential to enhance your creative expression, even if you’re not looking to use them for career purposes. If you’re an artist, try an Adobe course or two. You’ll be excited to discover everything these products can do for you. And you’ll be impressed with the new things you’re capable of doing for your art when you complete the course.