One Last Look

LIMF: Boy George

Over the past few weeks I've seen the posters round the city advertising the Boy George gig at St George's Hall as part of the Liverpool International Music Festival but I've just not been interested. Until about a week ago that is. I was asked, on request of one of the floor managers I worked with at IFB 2014, if I would be available to work for the gig. Well, yes. 9 times out of 10 I would much rather work for an event than attend it - that's what I feel benefits me the most.

On top of another addition to my CV, I got to attend the gig for free which is always a bonus!

REBLOGGED: Building Your Own Creative Business: Where to Begin?

For some creative professionals, working for yourself is the ultimate dream. There’s no big boss to answer to, there are no set working hours and you have complete freedom over the creative projects you choose to do. Yet going it alone can be a tough challenge, one that requires a lot of patience and perseverance if you wish to succeed. Having talent is ultimately the first step, but this will not be enough alone to start a successful creative business. Instead there are many important details to consider like where to find funding and understanding the legal obstacles that you may have to face. When starting something new it can seem impossible to know where to begin but to help you get a good beginning with your own creative business read our useful tips below.

Establish your business ideas

One of the first things you should establish is which creative services you plan to offer to your future clients. Do you want to specialise in one particular area of design or will you open up your services to attract a wider range of customers? Whichever you decide, it’s a great idea to get a portfolio together to showcase your talents and to give buyers confidence in your services. As well as this, create a website. Make it eye-catching so that you’re remembered and let your perspective clients browse through your body of work. Don’t forget to include clear contact details to make that all important sale.

Find funding

Creating your own business requires a certain amount of funding to get it up and running and you can find this from many sources. Although a legitimate option, it’s not always advisable to seek a bank loan as you may not want to be burdened by a debt in the early stages of your business set up. You could, however, apply for a business loan if you open a business account and have a clear business plan to show.

Alternatively, if you calculate exactly how much you need you could use your own savings to start the initial fund. As long as you have at least £1,500 in the bank, this could work for you. Borrowing from friends and family might be a better option for you instead, as long as you set clear deadlines for repayment. There’s always the possibility that you can find an investor for your company, and this would definitely help with getting the ball rolling, but you’d need to be able to prove that their investment is worthwhile and they’re likely to see a return on this.

Legal pitfalls to avoid

When in the early stages of your business, there are many traps ready to ensnare you that may make or break your new venture.

Insufficient capital. This is where finding the funding for your business really becomes important. By ensuring that the cost of all your necessary resources are covered, you allow your business to grow and to become profitable. This also lessens the risk for your creative business to fail in its early stages.

Lack of networking. Finding clients and securing work is one of the most important elements of running a business, yet if you don’t spend the relevant amount of hours finding jobs each week then your work will ultimately dry up. Dedicate at least a few hours each week to sending out your portfolio, pitching for jobs, and generally trying to build a rapport for yourself to secure future work.

Underselling yourself. It’s very easy to undercharge for your services when you’re desperate for sales and clients. However all this gains is a heavy workload and a busy schedule that isn’t charged for what it’s worth. Be realistic with your prices but give yourself the credit you deserve for the work you know you can produce.

Tie up legal ends

Ah, the law! You really don’t want to mess with it, so make sure you’re aware of all the legalities when electing to be your own boss. If you choose to go self-employed, you’ll need to register with HMRC so that you don’t incur any monetary penalties. You’re also responsible for paying your own tax and National Insurance payments and can stay on top of this by filling out an annual Self Assessment tax return form. Remember to keep records of your earnings during the tax year so you don’t get caught out. Invoices for sales and purchases, business expense receipts and bank records should be noted throughout the year to help keep your business running smoothly.

On another note, Copyright will be automatically assigned to you once you produce a creative piece of work but you can register your Trademark at the UK intellectual property to protect your business.

Whilst a lot of information has been given, it’s all necessary to help you make the most out of your creative business venture so that you can live the life you’ve always dreamed of. Good luck, and stay creative!


Written by Editor for Creative Digest
28th June 2013

Reblogging

Ok so I don't keep up with my blog like I know I should but I don't always get the time to do it as I would like to. In which case, I've decided that, instead of neglecting my blog, I'm going to try and reblog some posts from other sites that I find of interest. Let's see how that goes for the time being!

REBLOGGED: Five Simple Steps to Getting that Creative Job

It’s difficult to get a job in your chosen creative industry – difficult, but not impossible! The competition is definitely fierce though, so we asked Anup, Design Director at MOO, to give some words of wisdom – wisdom that’s coming at you directly from the type of person who’ll be doing the hiring! And here’s what he has to say…

So you’ve passed through college and graduated – phew! Now you can just walk out and score an amazing job hanging out in a cool space, with cool people, doing cool stuff and getting paid, right? Wrong, I’m afraid… now the hard work starts. And these days the competition is tougher than ever out there – so here are five tips for showing off your skills and nailing that first job.

1. Stand out

It may seem obvious, but essentially you need to be memorable. Your business cards for instance – they’re a chance for people take a snapshot of your work away with them! If I leave a show with a printed postcard sampling your work, I’m going to remember why I liked you. If your card just has a phone number on it, I won’t have a clue. And please don’t be shy, have the courage to approach people and say ‘My work is different, let me show you why.’

2. Get noticed
Social media is great for building your profile and network. Instagram your work, tweet your exhibition, link with your industry. Big brands do it all the time, so follow their lead. You can also hunt people down – find out the name of the creative director so you can post, call, and email them directly. It removes the barriers to getting your work in front of the right eyes. Think about using other communication vehicles too. A chap in New York was recently hired for creating a £4 pop-up ad that appeared when employers he was targeting searched their own names. Genius.

3. Your CV
You’re a designer, so please design your CV! I wouldn’t look at a CV in Word – remember, it’s part of your portfolio, too. Keep it concise and never, ever forget to spellcheck. You’d be amazed how many typos I see, which doesn’t say much about your self-proclaimed “keen attention to detail”. I’ve even had someone spell my name incorrectly – not a good first impression.

4. Network
Get out and meet as many people as you can. Go to industry events and socialise with other people in the design world. You’ll learn so much and you’ll build a book full of people you can approach for introductions too. Never say no to a meeting – you don’t know what it may lead to.

5. Make an impression
When you get to your meeting, event or interview, make an impression. Be interesting and interested in the person you’re talking to. Although it can be tempting to be humble, modesty doesn’t sell. You have 60 minutes to convince somebody that you’re the person they want, need, can’t do without. And don’t wear bad shoes (I always notice them).

So, now you’ve heard what Anup has to say, it’s time to polish up that CV, make those contacts, and dig out your very best footwear (you never know who might be looking). The competition might be fierce, but someone will bag that awesome job, so make sure it’s you!


Written by Anup
20th June 2014
The MOO Blog

REBLOGGED: How to Organise your Job Search

Job-hunting can be a challenge, especially if you are sending a large number of applications to a variety of employers. How should you keep track of what you’ve done, and what you ought to do next? The key to managing your job-search is to be super organised, which isn’t nearly as time-consuming as it sounds. Here are a number of tips you can follow to ensure an easy, streamlined and less daunting job searching process:

Plan before you start
Before you even begin, start by deciding what your goals should be: identify your preferred role, industry, type of company and any other factors that are important, such as whether you wish to stay in your university town or prefer to move. Once you have highlighted these, set some realistic targets. This can be how many applications you want to send each week, how much time each day or each week you want to dedicate to your job search, or how many sources you want to consult (websites, newspapers, job boards). Aiming for a goal will increase your motivation and provide a sense of achievement once you reach them. There are a number of apps that you can use to help with your jobsearch too. Why not use  Evernote to help organise documents such as your CVs, cover letters and references and synchronise them across all of your devices?

Find a consistent routine
The job-hunting process can be very fast-paced and so finding the best routine early on will be useful in the long-term. If you are more productive in the mornings then use this time for the more challenging tasks. The mornings are also a good time to make follow-up calls or send emails to the companies you’re targeting. Similarly, if you are evening person make the most of this time by filling in online applications.

Organise a system that works for you
This begins with choosing a good place to work. Do you work better at home, or in the library with less distractions? Use a big open space where you can readily pile up all of the notes and documents that you will need.  It’s also good to keep the workspace you have selected clear of everything that’s not job search-related, as it helps focus on the task at hand. If you’re in that space, that’s what you’re there to do. Once you begin the search, find your preferred technique to keep your status with each company up to date, for example a spreadsheet, mind map or colour coded system. Maybe use an app such as Jibber Jobber, which will allow you to keep all your numerous contacts in one place. Finally, categorise your email responses into folders according to the status of the application.

Keep track of your progress
Progress will change on a day-to-day basis so keeping an accurate track will be crucial. Using a spreadsheet for this will be useful as it can be used to map everything out. Make sure that as soon as a reply comes in, or a status changes – for example if you’ve been invited to an interview or assessment centre – this is updated as soon as you can. Another great tip is to label which companies need to be followed up on which dates, to ensure that no opportunity is lost. That includes sending a thank you note after each interview you attend.

Remember to take some down-time
With the pressure of job hunting it can be easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of work involved. Taking regular breaks, or the evening off to unwind will give you some time out to relax and enjoy some time with your family and friends. They are the ones that should be supporting you and have probably been through the process themselves at some point. The process can be long and quite rigorous but by putting our tips into practice and adding a little structure and organisation to your job search will ease the stress and help you land your job much sooner than expected. Look at the roles that we have on offer and use our advice to keep on top of your progress.


Written by Enterprise Rent-A-Car

REBLOGGED: Networking’s not so Nerve-racking, Promise...

I recently came across an article from the University of Manchester with the title 'Networking? I'd rather eat my own shoes...' Aside from being a very eye-catching headline, I think it sums up pretty neatly how most of us feel about networking: it doses us with feelings of dread, inadequacy, sweaty palms, eminent embarrassment and sometimes outright terror.

If it’s meant to be the ‘key’ to finding a decent graduate job then why do we all seem to hate it?

I think it boils down to the fact that many of us have little self-confidence and approaching strangers to talk business is just too darn intimidating. University work is actually very solitary; you get an essay question via email or a virtual learning environment and you sit in front of a computer and get on with it. Later, you sit in silence in a big hall with an exam paper and you just get on with it. Professional social butterflies we are not.

So how can we boost our confidence and work up the nerve to network? Well there’s an amazing TED talk on body language by Amy Cuddy who gives some great advice: fake it until you make it. She explains it much better in the talk but the basic point is: if you’re not the confident go-getter, act the part of someone who is. So you could do this by thinking of someone you know who is chatty and confident and do what they would do. Eventually you’ll realise that you can do it, it’s not that scary and you’re a lot braver than you give yourself credit for.

Another thing to bear in mind is that ‘networking’ is just a buzzword and not as scary as it sounds. Really, all you have to do is have a chat with someone new and who’s never done that before? In the first seminars of your degree or when you joined that society, you managed to keep up a conversation with people you’d never met before – you were networking even if you didn't know it.

Top tips for networking success:

• Join LinkedIn and make connections with the people you meet.
• Keep in touch with lecturers – they usually know many people in their field.
• If you go to a guest lecture, go introduce yourself to the speaker afterwards.
• Talk to recruiters at careers fairs as well as graduates who are already employed at the company.
• Join a professional body for your career area and get involved in events and online discussions.
• Remember that it’s not about approaching someone and asking for a job outright – it’s about making yourself known so that when you do apply for a job, people already have a good impression.
• People love to talk about themselves so keep asking questions and listen to what people have to say and you’re already part of the way there.

Written by Jess Jennison

Editorial Intern
4th August 2014

TARGETjobs.co.uk