Career+ Emerging Professionals Roundtable White Paper

To better understand designers’ experience as they begin and grow into their careers, in 2015 the American Society of Interior Designers gathered 65 emerging professional designers with zero to 10 years’ experience for a series of roundtable discussions in five major metropolitan areas. Participants, who came from a range of 30 different large- and medium-sized firms, were asked to share candid reflections on their careers so-far, what it’s like to work in their design teams, and their efforts to balance professional and personal lives. This white paper shares what we heard during the roundtables and offers a few suggestions on how to make improvements for the benefit of other young interior designers and the firms that employ them. Our purpose is to encourage dialogue within firms and the profession and ultimately to improve the experience of working as a designer today.