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The Big Move

Changing careers can be a daunting experience, especially if you are moving to a new city (or country, for that matter). There are many factors to consider. How do you decide if you’re making the right decision? Is it the job for you? Will you enjoy the new city? I recently moved from London, England to Los Angeles, California and…

Laura’s Report from Website Weekend

Tucked away in the center of China Town you will find Kleverdog Coworking, a shared office space for LA’s creative industry. This weekend it was home to Website Weekend LA, who were hosting their very first event – a hackathon dedicated to creating websites for non-profit organizations around LA. Always one to give back to the community, Artisan Creative sponsored…

Reflections: On Kindness

I started thinking this week about ways we can help our friends and colleagues when they are experiencing a period of unemployment. I came across an article with a list of things not to say to a friend who is unemployed and it had a lot of good points. We can certainly help with introductions and roleplaying practice for interview…

Networking After Networking Events

Going to networking events–or industry events where networking is appropriate–can make all of us nervous at times. We feel like we need to have the perfect elevator pitch, the perfect outfit. We need to be outgoing but not overwhelming, interesting but not self-involved. Passionate but not too intense. If you have managed to put all of that together and meet some…

Just Busy Enough

“How is everything?” friends and colleagues ask. If your answer is–like mine is often–” I’m super busy!” we hope it is for the right reasons. Perhaps we should be aiming for “Just busy enough, thanks!” Lots of projects It’s nice to be wanted and appreciated for your skills and innovative ideas. Having a lot of projects to choose from is…

Don’t Let the Fall Catch You Crying

The Autumnal Equinox has come and gone. Our eggs have fallen over once again and–hard to believe after the recent weather in Los Angeles–it’s actually chilly, at least in the mornings. Fall is here and with it can come a burst of energy reminiscent of the start of a new school year or a bout of anticipatory seasonal depression. Are…

Improving Your Non-Verbal Communication

We hope you are doing focused preparation for every job interview–researching out about the company, planning your stories, thinking of interesting questions to ask the hiring manager and roleplaying some typical job interview questions with a friend. Make sure to also prepare your non-verbal communication–it can be more significant than anything you say. According to UCLA Psychology Professor and communications…

5 Tips for Choosing Freelance Clients

As a freelancer, it is tempting to say “Yes!” to every opportunity that comes along, whether it’s a graphic design job or a long-term marketing contract. After all, there are dry spells in every career. You don’t want to take the chance of having created one yourself. There are, however, times, when you should resist temptation and wait for the…

Tweet Your Way to a New Job, Part 2: Companies

Last month we talked about using Twitter as a personal branding tool. We hope that you have set up a handle that gives people an easy way to identify and remember you and populated your profile with interesting and relevant information in case someone decides to find out more about you. We hope that you have also been Tweeting great…

For Creativity: Sound or Silence

A constant flow of creative energy is a goal devoutly to be wished. We don’t always manage to be as creative–or as productive–as we would like, but a small change to our working environment might make a big difference. Ambient Sound and Creativity A recent study showed that about 70 decibels of noise literally triggers the part of your brain…

5 Tips for Your First Day

Students of all ages have gone back to school in the last couple of weeks, their backpacks full of new pencils, blank paper, and uncracked textbooks and their stomachs full of butterflies. Sound familiar? Your first day on a new job is similar to the first day of school. You will have a new teacher training you on company policies;…

Announcing The Artisan Creative Weekly

We are publishing a newsletter! Artisan Creative invites you to subscribe to the Artisan Creative Weekly. We will be publishing links to stories about leadership, creativity, talent, job search, time management, design, marketing and entrepreneurship. Once a month, we will publish a newsletter on a particular theme. We are finding inspiration all over the internet and we want to share…

Labor Day or Thinking Day

As so many of the people around me are starting a new school year, the importance of having a clean start, with clear goals and benchmarks comes to mind. I, like the students around me, love an empty notebook, new pens, and a three-day weekend to take a breath before making a proper beginning. Most articles we read about time…

Leadership: They Will Do What You Do

Any parent knows: children learn from what we do much more than from what we say. The same can certainly be said for members of a team under your leadership. You can tell them how you would like them to collaborate, what you want from them in terms of respect for others, or the best way to manage their time,…

Think Like an Entrepreneur

Some of us are working for ourselves and some for others, but we are all using our skills to gain independence in our personal lives and striving for the freedom to do what we love, even if it is in support of someone else’s company. In years past, entrepreneurs were more likely to “live to work.” Their own success was…

Freelancers on a Job Hunt

At Artisan Creative, we often place people in contract and temp-to-hire positions, giving our talent a chance to test the waters, while giving our clients time to try out talent and find the perfect cultural fit. Freelance roles tend to be more short-term and a long list of them on a resume may make a job seeker who is also a…

Reflections: Being Inspiring

As creatives, we know that inspiration sometimes strikes when we need it and sometimes it stays away. There are days when we can’t write down our ideas as fast as they come to us and days when we sit staring at the screen, the sketchbook, the canvas, wondering if we will ever have another original thought. Whether it is getting…

3 Tips for Better Mobile Job Descriptions

Artisan Creative has gone mobile and since we announced the mobile version of our website last spring, the numbers of job seekers using mobile have increased astronomically. Polling on Glassdoor has reported that 65% of people on job search are using mobile devices to do so at least once a week–more than triple the number just a year ago–and 89%…

It’s Not What You Start, It’s What You Finish

Multitasking seems like a fact of life. Especially for entrepreneurs and freelancers, who are constantly both working on projects and building their businesses, it’s impossible to focus on one thing from beginning to end without interruption. We don’t have to let the necessity for keeping all those plates in the air affect our productivity in a negative way. Here are…

LinkedIn Is Watching You

I hope that you are using LinkedIn for networking and personal branding every chance you get. But you’re not the only one benefiting from your presence there–LinkedIn is, too. If you are on a job search, LinkedIn is the perfect place for hiring managers to get more details about you and find samples of your work–if you have been adding…

Privacy and Facebook Graph Search

Everyone is on social media and everyone needs to be. Whether you are on a job search, networking with others in your industry or region, or trying to become more influential in your field, no one can afford to be invisible. But since we are also using social media as a way to stay connected in a more personal way,…

Tweet Your Way to a New Job Part 1: Your Feed

Social media can be a time-waster or a great way to accomplish your goals. The tricks are using it thoughtfully and staying on task. You might think Twitter’s 140 characters make it less useful on a job search or that Twitter isn’t really a job search site, but there are ways to make Twitter a valuable partner in your process….

Where Are You Going?

When you land a new role, you want to tell everyone what it is and where. After all, it is exciting! It could be your dream job and, these days, if you are on a job search, you might have been looking for quite a while. Although you will give proper notice at your current job, however, you probably should…

Experience or Trainability?

Every job seeker wants to know the answer to this question. In trying to create the perfect resume and to choose the best jobs to apply for, there are ways to focus on one or the other. What is our answer? It depends. When Experience Wins If a company is looking for someone to hit the ground running, experience is…

Building Your Creative Muscles

We have reached the halfway point of our summer–hard though that may be to believe–and have been doing more outside activities than in other seasons. Swimming, hiking, and summer sports call us away from sitting in the office. Should we listen? Yes! There are quite a few reasons to listen to the call of nature, even during your workday or…