Tag: freelance | Page 11 | Artisan Creative

Reflections: Meditation and Time Management

Thursday, July 19th, 2012|

If you’re at all like me, you’ve got a lot going on every day, all day long. You’re switching tasks, maybe even switching clients and projects from hour to hour if you’re lucky, or even more often. Those kinds of days can be very productive, especially if you make a schedule and stick to it, but a recent study found that there was another way to make your busy days go more smoothly: meditation.

Professor David Levy at the Information School at the University of Washington, who has many years of experience using meditation in his own life, wanted to find out whether meditation had any value to the workplace. Three groups of subjects were used: one group was trained in meditation techniques for eight weeks; another group was given eight weeks of body relaxation training; the control group was not trained at the beginning of the eight weeks, but received the same training as the other groups at the end of the time.

Each group was given a difficult multitasking test before and after the experimental period.

The group trained in meditation not only were able to focus longer without being distracted, they reported lower stress levels as well. The other two groups reported no reduction in stress until that third group received their meditation training. Then their stress levels were reduced.

Today’s economy has made a stressful, multitasking day a common experience for ever more workers, and companies are beginning to realize that their talent will work more efficiently, be less likely to burn out, and be more creative if they are feeling less stressed and some are even offering training in mindful meditation already.

Let’s do an experiment.

Stop. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Feel better?

Wendy Stackhouse for Artisan Creative

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Tax Tips for Freelancers—For Next Year!

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012|

Although you still have until midnight tonight to file your taxes (or an extension), it is never too early to think about how to handle your taxes better next year.

As we are neither tax professionals nor claim to be so, but rather a community of freelancers and freelance placement specialists – we can only recommend the following tips to help keep our freelance talent organized for Tax Time 2013:

• Track your mileage – Especially if you drive to pick up work or deliver it to your clients, keep a record of trips back and forth. You can’t count commuting miles, but if you work offsite, mileage to and from meetings can add up to a hefty sum.

• Create a dedicated office space – You can only take a home office deduction if your space is used exclusively for work. But it doesn’t take a lot of space to count as a home office. Dedicating a small area of your home to work can help with deductions for part of your rent and utilities expenses.

• Keep your Receipts – Depending on the nature of your business, there are often a number of deductions you can make for things like Equipment, Advertising or Entertainment Expenses. Save your receipts and work with a tax professional to help you determine what can actually be written off as part of your business.

• Save some money – Depending on your situation – you may end up owing some tax next spring. You don’t want it to be a surprise. Therefore, it’s always best to put a bit of each paycheck into a seperate account – just for tax payments in the following year. Worse case, if you have nothing to pay – you can always give yourself a refund!

• Make a list – If you work for a lot of different clients over the course of the year, it’s a good idea to keep a list of each client, their contact information and how much you made while working for them. There are a number of invoicing programs out there to assist with this as well. NOTE: If you go over $600 for anyone client, they should send you a 1099 in January 2013. This list can help you follow up with any late documentation come Feb or March.

These are just some things that have helped my family at tax time. Do you have any great tips? We would love to hear them in the comments!

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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Overqualified? Really??

Thursday, March 29th, 2012|

A friend of mine recently heard that she had not landed a job because she is “overqualified.” She was gobsmacked!

What does that mean? How could that be a bad thing? She wanted to know, and I’m sure there are many out there wondering the same thing – “How can anyone be overqualified for an empty position?”

With today’s poor, although improving, employment climate, there are many highly experienced but unemployed folks out there looking for work. Some of them are moving into freelance projects and entrepreneurship, but some are changing career paths and applying for entry-level roles in new industries, perhaps at a lower salary than they previously earned and with fewer or no direct reports.

I asked our team of recruiters what it means when a job seeker is told they are “overqualified” and what it might mean about their experience in relation to that specific position:

You may have more experience than the person that you will report to.
You may have a higher salary requirement than what they are willing to pay.
You may take a position and then be more likely to leave because you are working below your potential and are not challenged by the work.
The person you would be reporting to is intimated by your skills and knowledge.
Someone with too many years of experience may have work habits that are hard to break. The position might want someone more “green” so they can “mold” them to fit the company’s style and culture.

At the end of the day, turnover and training are both expensive. A company wants to know that the investments they make in new employees will not have to be repeated anytime soon. Most companies would prefer to leave a position vacant until the right person can be found, rather than hire and then lose someone who is overqualified who takes “the first job that comes along”.

If you are one of the highly-experienced job seekers in the market, here are a few ways to avoid appearing overqualified for positions, before you ever have an interview:

Edit your resume bullet points – Replace the accomplishments that don’t apply to this role with ones that do. Or simply remove them. Be sure to include keywords for the current position in your bullets.
Education – List any degrees or certifications that are relevant to the role, but leave out more advanced degrees. Your Ph.D. or MBA is an incredible accomplishment! But do you need it to get this job?
Cover Letter – A cover letter is really the only way to express why you would be challenged and excited about the role, even if you might appear to be further along in your career on your resume.

Remember that your resume is simply a tool for standing out in a pool of candidates. As long as everything on your resume is true, it doesn’t have to tell your whole life story.

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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Pinterest for Creatives

Thursday, March 1st, 2012|

I keep reading about Pinterest and so, of course, I started wondering…

Should I join?
What do I do with it?
Will it help me with anything or just be another social platform?

So I started my boards and took a look around, but found myself still a bit puzzled.

Pinterest is basically a photo-sharing platform. A place to “pin” images of things you like and are interested in. You can put a button in your browser’s toolbar that will put almost any image you see online on one of your pinboards, with the opportunity to make a comment on it. These could be your own images or those of others that you see when you are browsing. You don’t have to download and upload as you do on other platforms.

Pinterest is definitely great for businesses that sell products. They can add a “Pin It” button to images of their offerings and customers can add those things to their pinboards, which will be seen by everyone who is following them. That’s a lot of free advertising!

Pinterest is also good for service businesses which use a portfolio of work to increase their client base. Web design companies can certainly benefit from having a pinboard of their work available here.

For the same reason, Pinterest may be a good platform for freelancers and entrepreneurs. You can pin your latest work from all different sources into one board and use that as your online portfolio site. Web and graphic designers, photographers, and artists especially will benefit from having pinboards of their work available on this platform. You can also find other people on Pinterest with similar interests that you might want to connect with. Some people are also pinning their resumes, especially the new infographic styles.

Why might Pinterest be better than other photo sharing sites? In my opinion, the advantage lies in the board concept itself. Rather than looking one at a time at photos on Flickr, or a giant page of uncategorized photos, pinboards are collections of related items. Someone who is checking out your design aesthetic can get a good overview of your logos, for example, with one click. And knowing who else likes the same thing you like might be an excellent bit of information.

I’m still a newbie at Pinterest and have been pinning mostly knitting patterns so far. I would love to hear what you think of Pinterest and if you’ve thought of any great uses for creatives, so please let me know in the comments!

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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How to Choose a Recruitment Company

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012|

With so many firms out there vying for your attention, it’s often hard to tell which recruiting company is right for you. Here are a few criteria to consider when selecting the right recruiter for you or your business:

Types of Roles They Place
Some recruiters are generalists and some are specialists. At Artisan, we focus on Creative and Marketing roles, but not strict IT positions. If you are a back-end programmer, we are not the right agency for you. If, however, you are a User Experience Designer, Marketing Specialist, Copywriter, Production Artist, or Front-End Developer, submit your resume on our website. By specializing in only select areas – we have become experts in these fields and networks of talent.

Their Mission
Not every recruiting company will have a clearly defined mission statement, but if they do, it’s a good indication of what their company culture and focus is all about. Choose a company whose ideals and approach to business are similar to your own.

Artisan is committed to offering meaningful opportunities to our talent and to helping our clients achieve their creative goals using cutting-edge technology. Our Mission is:

To provide job opportunities for creative talent that has positive impact in their careers.
To provide clients with top creative resources to achieve their creative initiatives.
To be innovative, forward thinking, early adopters of industry trends as required by the market.

Their Vision
It is important to bring the proper vision into one’s recruitment approach. It’s so easy to lose the big picture in the day-to-day if you are not clear on your overarching objective.

What is Artisan’s vision? To bring creative thinking into staffing that results in innovation and a positive impact on our community. Being committed to having that positive impact on the individuals with whom we work and our community, helps us make decisions about how we do, what we do every single day.

Their Values
Often it is difficult to know the values of a company without knowing the people who work there. When working with a recruiter – keep these values in mind as you interact and work with them each day. Do they put profit ahead of every other consideration? Do they make you feel like an individual or a number? Do they do what they say they are going to do – when they say they are going to do it? Are they family-oriented? Do you feel like you’ve been treated fairly?

At Artisan our values are simple: Truth, Fairness, Accountability, Integrity, Engagement & Desire to Learn and Grow. There have been times when we have had to decline projects because they were not in line with our values. At the end of the day, our integrity is more important to us than sales. We will always be honest, scrupulously fair, and perform with professionalism. We feel success will come from these values.

Whichever recruitment agency you ultimately choose, you deserve to be treated both fairly and professionally. The lines of communication should always be open. Only that can lead to meaningful work, creative fulfillment, and tangible rewards.

If we seem a good fit for you or your company, we hope you will get in touch with us soon.

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The Creative Interview

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012|

Most of us have interviewed for many different roles in our working lives, from our first summer job in high school (where they needed to know if we could mop floors) to interviews hours of testing to prove our skillsets were as solid as our resumes claimed.

We’ve talked a lot on our blog about how to prepare for a typical interview – and even for a more atypical one – but we’ve never talked about how a creative interview differs from a more general one. Nor have we really talked about what creative recruiters are looking for versus their counterparts in another field.

I asked the recruiters at Artisan: “How do you think ‘creative’ interviews differ from ‘regular’ job interviews?”

The answers were pretty consistent.

- The portfolio is the number one factor during a creative interview. Whether the interviewer has already seen work samples via a website or a PDF, the design aesthetic and body of work are always the most important consideration. However, further explanation of that work is always required. Talent must be prepared to explain their portfolio fully.”Creatives must be able to walk us through their work, their involvement in producing that work, their challenges, their inspiration and the effectiveness the work had,” said Account Manager, Jess Bedford. “The finished work is only part of the whole creative process. Understanding how creatives work through that process, helps us better qualify talent for the culture and team fit.”
- Creative rapport is essential. As is often the case, initial interviews may not always be held with like-minded or department-based interviewers. HR, for instance, may not understand the full creative processes as well as a Creative Director. Therefore, establishing an interviewer’s level of understanding for one’s creative specialty is essential. Do it upfront, too. Therefore, when one gets to the portfolio review, you know which work will illustrate something relevant to their needs / interest, and how in-depth your review should be.

Past resume experience is not always the key factor. What’s more important than the clients you’ve worked for is being able to demonstrate, through both paid and/or spec work, a keen eye for design and the ability to push the creative envelope.” For so many of our clients – the resume is second to the creative work,” said Carol Conforti, Sr Account Manager, and Recruiter. “Many creatives make the mistake of only including work that’s been paid for and/or approved. Some of the best portfolios I’ve seen include both finished work and the other concepts that the clients didn’t use. Many even have concepts designers have ‘played with’ in their free time.”

What I take most from these answers (thanks, recruiters!) is how essential a portfolio is to the creative interview. And being able to review that portfolio effectively is just as important!

But that’s only part of it. Research, once again, turns out to be really helpful as well. Whatever you can find out before the interview about the company, about the job responsibilities, even about the background of the interviewer or their client, will help you present your portfolio in the very best light possible.

Wendy Stackhouse for Artisan Creative

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3 Ways to Avoid Looking Like a Job Hopper

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012|

In today’s tough economic times, many candidates have been employed by companies that eventually closed their doors, were bought out or underwent massive layoffs. Instead of the average two to five year-spans of employment recruiters are used to seeing, resumes of today often list recent work histories as periods of less than a year at multiple companies. You want to list that great experience on your resume, but a long list of roles with a short duration may leave potential employers questioning your loyalty.

How can you demonstrate your commitment to a company, without having to explain your streak of bad luck? Here are some ways to tweak your resume format to accommodate short-term full-time jobs or a series of freelance positions as you search for a long-term position:

Change your resume format—Instead of listing all of your work experience chronologically, use themes to bring your information together in a way that shows you at your best. Relevant Experience lets you leave out jobs that don’t apply to the current role. Contract Experience lets you list all of your freelance projects in one section, even if they are not long-term roles individually. Reverse Chronological Order is not the only way to construct a resume. Here are some others.
Leave it out—You don’t have to list every job you’ve had for every company. Instead just include your general responsibilities, companies, and brands in separate lists. Then, be prepared to discuss specific accomplishments or projects from your time with each company.
Volunteer—If you’ve been out of work for a while, offer your skills to a non-profit as a volunteer. Those experiences can go on your resume and LinkedIn profile, just as any paid work would. If you have long gaps in your work history these volunteer opportunities can provide recent stories to tell in an interview – where showing passion for a cause or a project can be a great way to sell yourself.

Wendy Stackhouse for Artisan Creative

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How to Say “Yes” Without Driving Yourself Crazy

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012|

Creatives, your skills are in high demand by many organizations, businesses, and individuals. Sometimes even by friends—if they need a website, advertising copy, graphics or other creative work produced.

Last Sunday a dear friend asked me if I could design a website for his new business. He doesn’t have a lot of money to spend and thinks of me as someone who could provide a good product. I’m very glad he has confidence in my abilities, and as much as I would like to help him, I don’t have time to do his project unless I take time away from something else that pays better.

When I do have time to add a project, however, sometimes I go ahead and say “Yes!” – even if there’s little or no monetary reward. What are the factors that help me decide?

Passion—If the project is for a cause in which I believe strongly, I will carve out the time. Volunteering our skills (or offering them for much less than the market rate) for worthy causes is personally fulfilling and adds value to any project.
Career Development—I will probably say “yes” if I think that I will learn something new from the project, meet or work with someone in my field who could be a good contact, gain a skill or client that could improve my resume or add to the strength of my portfolio. This type of work experience is also a great way to fill in gaps in your work history or get great references!
Respect—It is always surprising to me how often volunteers are treated disrespectfully as if they are only worth what they are being paid. Having worked as a professional with volunteers and as a volunteer with professionals, volunteers deserve more respect, not less. If you treat me respectfully, I am likely to help you out over and over again. Amazing how something that simple can create such loyalty.

Yes. It is hard to say “no” to a friend without feeling guilty, I know. But if you have the time, don’t need the money, and can think of some way that investment of time capital pays off for you, everyone can benefit from your talent!

Wendy Stackhouse for Artisan Creative

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Unlimited Vacation?!

Thursday, January 19th, 2012|

Good and Bad by vees via Flickr Creative Commons

Have you heard about the new trend in vacation policies? Unlimited vacation has taken off quickly, being put into practice at some major companies: Netflix, IBM, Morningstar, and Blue Wolf, according to this article at The Grindstone.

Sounds great!

Also known as a “results-only work environment,” for a self-motivated employee who gets their work done and finds themselves with time on their hands at the office, this could be a great part of a benefits package.

But is it for everyone?

US workers get fewer paid vacation days, on average than workers in any other First World country, with only 13 days. Here is a helpful chart I found on infoplease.com:

Italy	42 days
France	37 days
Germany	35 days
Brazil	34 days
United Kingdom	28 days
Canada	26 days
Korea	25 days
Japan	25 days
U.S.	13 days

Clearly, the US has a way to go to become competitive with these countries and there is no doubt that US workers could use more time off to spend unwinding and recharging, not to mention developing their creativity.

Of course, unlimited vacation sounds wonderful and for many workers, it is a great benefit—increasing productivity and efficiency, while boosting morale and reducing turnover. But there are some potential downsides:

If you are a natural workaholic, you might not ever feel like you are truly “off” if you can work whenever you want.
If you function better with more structure—and many of us do—you might find it difficult to get your work done without daily the daily accountability that comes with being in the office.
Employers save money on recordkeeping, but they don’t pay for any accrued vacation if you leave your job—use it or lose it for real!
Dynamics with co-workers can suffer if you get to leave when you’re done, but they can’t because they still have work to do. If you are very efficient, you could go home early every day while the methodical person in the office next door has to stay.

Unlimited vacation sounds to me like getting some of the benefits of freelancing without the disadvantages: work on your own schedule but still have health insurance and paid days off. Then again, I’m fast and disciplined about getting my work done.

How do you think you would do with unlimited vacation?

Wendy Stackhouse for Artisan Creative

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Work Harder and Get Less Done?!

Thursday, January 12th, 2012|

Did you ever have one of those days when you worked and worked hard for hours on end and still felt like you didn’t get anything done?
Yesterday?

Well, you may be working harder than you need to.

Wait! That doesn’t make any sense!

But maybe it does?

I read an article last month on the Harvard Business Review blog called “How to Accomplish More by Doing Less” and it really struck a chord with me. Combined with my New Year’s resolution to manage my time better (and have more free time for the things I enjoy outside of work), I wanted to think this concept through for myself and for you.

You might be like me and be juggling what seems like a multitude of freelance projects, each of which need attention every workday. What is the most productive way to get everything done?

Tony Schwartz’s idea is if we work intensely for shorter periods of time and then take breaks, we will get more done and be more creative. But if we multitask for long periods, we get less and less productive as the day wears on and those good ideas will never come to us.

You want the maximum time per day to be spent at your maximum creativity, right?

Schwartz says if you start your day at 80% of your capacity and take no breaks, your productivity will get lower and lower as the day progresses. By the end of the day you are dragging and not doing any good work

But if you start at 90% and take a break every hour and a half or so, you can stay above 70% productivity, even in the late afternoon slump time, and get a tremendous amount of work done.

I’ve tried days both ways—one day when I work as hard and as long as I can, but don’t plan out blocks of time for particular projects, and another when I plan my time, including breaks.

I like that second day a lot better:

• When I can focus on one task, I’m more likely to finish it and check it off my list
• Creative ideas come during my breaks and make it easier to get started on new projects
• I don’t get as frustrated by interruptions
• Since I finish tasks, I have a greater sense of satisfaction at the end of the day

The title of this post should really be Take Breaks and Get More Done. We can all make ourselves crazy trying to get everything done at once. But often that means we don’t get anything done at all. Try 90 minutes and then taking a break and let me know how it went in the comments!

[My son has interrupted me about 800 times since I started writing this post. Perhaps the real trick is making sure there’s no one else home while I’m working!]

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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