How can you make your creative skills stand out to potential employers?

Career portfolios are powerful tools that showcase a job candidate's skills, accomplishments, and experiences beyond a traditional resume. We provide portfolio software to our candidates in our search firm and find that our clients, the hiring companies, welcome this approach as it gives them much more detail about the candidate and saves them time. Candidates can create their success stories and record videos within the software platform. They can also use a guide to help build their elevator pitch, which answers the question “tell me about yourself”. Since most candidates are not yet using this approach, it serves to differentiate those who do make the extra effort.

Crea un portafolio que destaque tus proyectos creativos anteriores. Incluye ejemplos concretos de tu trabajo, describiendo el contexto, tus contribuciones y los resultados obtenidos. Un portafolio visual y bien organizado es una poderosa herramienta para mostrar tu habilidad creativa de manera tangible.

Tips for Building a Portfolio: - Create a blog and share relevant content from your field of work. ?? - Offer your services voluntarily to small NGOs. ?? - Attend innovation and industry events, document your experiences and create content about them. ?? - Learn to use tools that companies in your sector utilize and create tutorials on YouTube (even if no one watches). ????? Beyond establishing authority on the topics, this will boost your confidence in interviews. ??

My advice would be to constantly update your portfolio with recent work & case studies. You don't want to leave it to the last minute - it's time consuming and you never know when you'll need your portfolio to market yourself (also save your work as you go - post redundancy etc I've seen people locked out of business accounts and unable to retrieve their work!) Remember your portfolio is an extension of your own brand - so use it as an opportunity to showcase your own personal aesthetic and design influences (outside of the brand guidelines you've had to stick to for various projects in the portfolio). Digital first would be my advice too, so that any interactive elements (motion graphics/video content) can be viewed in situ.

When it comes to your resume/CV think achievements over and above everything else. Short, bite-sized anecdotes about the impact your design work & creativity had (how it contributed to brand growth, website conversion, app engagement etc). We want to hear about how invaluable your contribution is as a designer, not just see a job description regurgitated.

Stop using PDF readers! Many creative CVs are skipped, great candidates lost, and confidence destroyed by more than qualified people not passing requirements, because their CV wasn't read properly by a machine.

Asegúrate de que tu currículum refleje claramente tus habilidades creativas. Utiliza un formato atractivo y destaca proyectos específicos, logros y habilidades relevantes. Personaliza tu currículum para cada posición a la que apliques, resaltando las experiencias creativas que más se alineen con los requisitos del trabajo.

In our search firm, we use software that guides our job candidates in creating their personal branding / elevator pitch in both text and video formats. A built in teleprompter helps candidates to practice, refine and record their messaging in video format which brings out their personality. They may also create cover or follow letters in video and conveniently upload into a portfolio with custom URL for each job opportunity. The software was specifically designed to help job seekers showcase their skills, differentiate themselves and stand out from the competition.

Permite que tu personalidad brille en tu presentación. Ya sea a través de una carta de presentación bien redactada o durante una entrevista, comunica quién eres y cómo tu personalidad influye positivamente en tu enfoque creativo. La autenticidad y la conexión personal pueden diferenciarte en un mercado competitivo.

The purest truth in a job interview: You don't have to be the best, you need to appear the best! Get ready! Learn about the market until you feel confident enough. Practice interviews with friends and professionals in your network. Also, we have technologies available today that simulate job interviews and provide feedback through Artificial Intelligence.

Demuestra tu disposición para aprender y crecer continuamente. Aprender nuevas habilidades muestra adaptabilidad y una mentalidad abierta. Esto puede incluir la adquisición de conocimientos en herramientas creativas digitales, participación en cursos relevantes o exploración de áreas creativas complementarias a tu experiencia actual.

Digital design is ever evolving, as are the tools that are being called upon by employers. If you're looking to broaden your horizons figure out which tools are in demand (mentioned in job descriptions, at interview etc) and get curious! I'm working with lots of candidates who are teaching themselves tools that they know are in demand but perhaps their current employer aren't invested in. It's a great way to stay ahead of the curve and make sure you're not falling behind in an ever changing industry.

Solicita retroalimentación sobre tu trabajo creativo. Esto no solo te proporciona información valiosa para mejorar, sino que también muestra que valoras la mejora continua. Incluye testimonios o comentarios positivos de colegas o clientes en tu portafolio o currículum para respaldar tus habilidades creativas.

It still astounds me that sometimes candidates receive little/no feedback for interview processes. Demand more of your recruiter or internal talent team - if you've taken the time to interview (and at latter stages, likely invested time in a design task) you should be given feedback whether the outcome is positive or negative. Yes creative hiring is in many ways subjective, but that doesn't negate the need for the hiring team to share feedback with you. Never be afraid to ask...!

Muestra iniciativa y proactividad en la búsqueda de oportunidades creativas. Participa en proyectos adicionales, colabora con colegas en iniciativas creativas y demuestra tu interés por contribuir de manera significativa. La proactividad indica tu compromiso y entusiasmo por aplicar tus habilidades creativas en situaciones prácticas.

It's been a tricky job market of late - in reality more supply than there is demand. So as a creative job seeker how can you stand out? Proactivity could mean engaging with your network (join in with online debates/forums), asking for recommendations or intros (no-one's going to promote you as well as you can!), or maybe refreshing your portfolio (I've had candidates setting themselves mock "briefs" to generate new work for their websites - some even leveraging the power of ChatGPT to set them a "design task" that will highlight key areas of their skills). Some clients ask to see personal projects outside of work (photography, illustration etc), to get a sense of candidates own aesthetic, so keep the creative juices flowing & self promote.