I opted only to look at entry level web design jobs, even though I'm not entirely sure that's what I want to do with my life. But, I figure, it's a good starting place. Based on a bunch of websites of research, I came up with the following general requirements: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, HTML, and CSS. They were listed as requirements almost everywhere. A few other places also wanted Final Cut Pro or video editing software, some other Adobe products (like Illustrator or Fireworks), and a lot of people wanted someone with cross-platform experience - ie, they want someone who can work both in Mac and PC.

Then, of course, there were the non-technical requirements like a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, learning/working quickly, working under little supervision, etc. Which, to be honest, is almost as important to me as knowing the software. Personally, I could learn all the technology in the world, but if I don't care about attention to detail the design things that I could create would be a disaster. Knowing your work environment - groups or alone, etc. has a significant impact on the kind of designs you develop too.

I took all these search options, including the one about little supervision to see what other jobs I could find. Not surprisingly, even when I took "web designer" out of the search options, I still found a LOT of front-end design jobs. But I also found a few graphic design jobs, a few web DEVELOPER jobs (the back end, instead of the front) and even a couple marketing jobs focused on the "web" aspect of their companies.

There were a lot of New York jobs, and some California jobs, but there were also a lot of "virtual campus" jobs that were based all over the place. Big surprise, working digitally from anywhere?