Let’s do a little role-playing:

Imagine you’re the chef of an upscale restaurant – it could be a Michelin-starred restaurant in France or a Hollywood hotspot; entirely up to you.

Now imagine your customers are the hiring managers at companies you want to work at, and that instead of a meal, you’re serving up your resume.

Just like a nice meal, though, your resume should have a strong start, thoughtfully organized courses, and a sweet finish. You’d never serve your customer a plate full of empty, bland foods like potato chips or white bread, would you?

Yet, that’s exactly what you’re doing if you use empty, bland words like “highly motivated team player” on your resume or cover letter. It’s filler that won’t satisfy the recipient and casts an unfavorable light on the rest of the experience

A big difference is that, unlike a fine meal, which a customer seeks out and takes their time savoring, you’ll be lucky if a hiring manager spends a full minute on your resume. You’ve got to make every word count, which means getting rid of the junk and replacing it with meaningful, descriptive language.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a good starting point so get that red pen ready!

“Team player”

Why: What does that even mean? In theory, anyone who works at any company can be called a team player.
Replace with: Examples that spell out what makes you collaborative.

If you’re an art director, who’s worked directly with a copywriter and a creative director, emphasize the creative partnership and collaboration.

If you’ve actually led a team, call out your leadership skills with strong, action-oriented verbs: supervised, managed, drove, motivated, influenced, inspired, activated, propelled.

“Results-oriented”

Why: It’s too vague. And if you say you produced results, you better have examples.
Replace with: Descriptive language and actual results that show instead of tell, like the following:

  • Lead copywriter on a campaign that drove year-over-year sales by 12%
  • Planned a media buy that delivered added value of more than $75,000
  • Negotiated a contract that resulted in a 22% savings off annual printing costs

“Out-of-the-box thinker”

Why: If you’re a creative, this is especially problematic, since this is one of the things that you shouldn’t have to say.
Replace with: Displaying your skills with a well-designed resume and standout portfolio.

Even if you’re not a creative, you should still create an eye-catching resume. Creativity and the ability to see things from a different perspective are skills that are highly valued in account executives and strategists, too! Make sure your resume shows this without using the words “outside the box.”

“Reliable/dedicated/committed to giving 110%”

Why: I hate to sound harsh, but unless you’re a 10-year old applying for your first baby-sitting job, these are all things that are expected of you.
Replace with: Demonstrating your character and work ethic by including volunteer and pro bono work on your resume.

Volunteering doesn’t just say commitment; it shows it. Plus, volunteer work also suggests that you have good time management skills and care about something larger than yourself.

“Passionate”

Why: It either reads as a huge exaggeration or filler (and it’s borderline creepy.)
Replace with: Tailoring your job history and related experience.

If you’re really passionate about whatever role you’re after, create a linear narrative that shows your focus.  Even if the job wasn’t in the same industry, emphasize the duties and traits that make it look like you’ve been preparing for this job for your entire career. Now that’s passion.

“Rockstar/Superstar/Ninja”

Why: Even when used in the original job posting, it’s cringe-inducingly clichéd.
Replace with: Documenting your skills and training.

To play up your proficiency, rather than calling yourself a rockstar, outline everything you’ve done to get you to this point, especially if they’re technical or highly specialized.

  • Instead of writing that you’re an SEO superstar, highlight your experience using Google Analytics and SEMrush, and creating content with long-tailed keywords.
  • Don’t just be a production ninja: be a production professional who is Apple Pro Certified in Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Certified in After Effects.

What Else: Tell Your Story

In case you haven’t seen the trend, don’t turn your resume into keyword bingo, but instead describe the more specific and relevant skills or examples. Then after you’ve deleted and replaced all of these words, keep looking at ways to bring the information to life through data and results.

The more you make every word count, the more the employer will think for themselves, “Wow, this person is a total rockstar!” 😉


Lisa is a Creative Circle candidate and seasoned advertising copywriter who lives in Los Angeles. Her background includes both in-house and agency work on Fortune 500 and global accounts in the consumer and healthcare/pharmaceutical fields. She excels at words, fashion, and cats. If you want to work with Lisa, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.

Advertising is such a social and highly collaborative industry that it’s practically a job requirement for you to competently navigate relationships among a wide variety of people through networking. But for some of us, making new friends — or at least making new connections or workplace allies — doesn’t always come easy.

As a lifelong introvert, I am more aware of this than practically anybody. What I’ve learned from my 10+ years in the biz is that making connections is a long-term process. If you’re also an introvert, it’s important to remember the benefits, and remind yourself that it’s worth the work that goes into networking — even if it’s just inside your office.

Why Workplace Networking is Important

1. It can make your life better.

Having friends, compadres, confidantes, or whatever else you’d like to call them, is essential to having a long and successful career. In an industry where there are a lot of late nights, working lunches, and missed vacations, having work friends can take the edge off and help you avoid burnout.

2. It can make your work better.

You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but developing a few key strategic alliances can make it easier to do your job.  As a copywriter, I always make a point of trying to cultivate relationships with the senior account and strategy people for the brand that I work on. It makes my job easier, more fruitful, and less painful. When people know who you are and trust that you’re working toward the same goal they are, they’re more receptive to exploring boundary-pushing work.

3. It can make you better.

Friendly relationships can also reshape the dynamics of feedback and criticism. It softens the blow to hear criticism come from someone you perceive as a teammate (and conversely, they may be more sensitive about giving it if they’re friendly with the person on the receiving end). If you’re getting professional feedback from a colleague with whom you’ve forged a relationship, instead of listening with resentment and dismissing their words, you’ll hear suggestions for doing better work coming from a knowledgeable partner who has the best interests of the project in mind.

How You Can Improve Your Workplace Networking

It can feel like a fine line between making strategic connections and dressing up as an extrovert. Even if it doesn’t come naturally — and it won’t, at first — there are a few little things you can do every day that can make the process easier.

  • Smile. When you’re in an overwhelming situation, it may be difficult to crack a smile, but smiling can help you be less stressed. You don’t have to smile at everybody, but do think about it like it’s a welcome mat.
  • Speak up in meetings. It shows people who you are and invites the opportunity for conversation. Start small by making short statements or asking a simple question.
  • Network outside your office, too. Read about how you can win your next networking event and add more connections who can help you achieve your professional goals.
  • Challenge yourself. The objective isn’t to turn you into an extrovert; it’s just to make it easier and less forced when the right opportunities do present themselves.
  • Give yourself the time and space to recuperate. Expanding your comfort zone is hard work. Introverts get their energy from within so after doing something particularly challenging, make sure you block time out for yourself.
  • Pace yourself. There’s no need to get out there and do everything at once. Try one of the tips or all of them; the important part is to stay true to yourself.

Networking isn’t a “one and done” process

Any kind of relationship takes work and nurturing. You don’t acquire a new friend and then have that friend forever without doing some work. The same is true with business or workplace relationships.

You’ve probably heard that it can be more expensive for a business to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. Now think about that in terms of maintaining your network. Keep nourishing your new connections by showing value, whether it’s lending a friendly ear, providing key information, or offering to make an introduction.


Lisa is a Creative Circle candidate and seasoned advertising copywriter who lives in Los Angeles. Her background includes both in-house and agency work on Fortune 500 and global accounts in the consumer and healthcare/pharmaceutical fields. She excels at words, fashion, and cats. If you want to work with Lisa, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.

 

In a competitive job market, it’s become commonplace for companies to pad job offers with perks like gym memberships, meditation rooms, and free food — trappings that have little to do with the job at hand but are increasingly seen as necessary to attract and land top talent.

The jury’s still out though on how effective these perks are in retaining that talent.  Creating a comfortable and supportive office culture certainly helps to enhance employee satisfaction and motivation day-to-day. But what about down the road, once the snacks grow stale, or your competitor across the way just did you one better by installing a spa on-site?

Perks can be fickle, and change in-step with the latest trends. The padded extras that are desirable to new hires one year can be old hat by the next. What doesn’t change is the desire to learn and advance. Underwriting that luxury gym membership might help to land the best, but that investment can be undercut if the final offer doesn’t also come with additional opportunities for advancement or development.

Costs of a Short-term Workforce

Long-term training might seem like a risky investment for a new hire or early stage talent, especially for Millennial talent who, as a group, value flexibility over fidelity, and have made “job-hopping” a new norm. (A recent Gallup poll revealed that 21% of Millennials changed jobs within the past year—more than three times the rate of prior generations.)

This can lead companies to shy away from spending resources on the growth and development of their future workforce. Many choose instead to invest in immediate strategies like pipeline recruiting, to have an already-vetted pool of candidates on hand to draw from quickly when vacancies arise.

Those strategies can also involve significant outlays, to acquire resources that might not ever even be used. And, as much as retention may appear to cost (especially from the outset), replacement can cost even more. Apart from time and money spent recruiting and onboarding new employees, there is also a cost associated with losing the old one. That can vary by industry and role, but many measurements place it in the range of tens of thousands of dollars to 1.5-2X the former employee’s annual salary.

On top of the financial loss, there are also “psychic” costs from losing an employee which are often immeasurable. Disrupted team dynamics, gaps in institutional memory, erosion of trust: these can take an emotional toll on co-workers who are left behind and have a negative impact on productivity that can’t easily be captured in a standard balance sheet.

Training to Convert the “Job-Hoppers”

Despite evidence that today’s talent is more prone to hop, statistical trends can’t measure the full arc of a career. Every employee grows up eventually, and as the top end of the generation nears 40,  there is mounting evidence that older Millennials are starting to stay put. The 40s are also an age when employees begin to cash in on the technical and intellectual capital they’ve already accumulated, and those who’ve had access to ongoing training tend to give back more in terms of increased productivity and leadership.

Also bucking the job-hopping trend are studies that show this group does perceive the value of loyalty — as long as it’s returned in kind. After all, Millennials, for the most part, entered the workforce during a time of corporate cutbacks, with the impression that businesses considered their employees an expendable resource. So, all things considering, it’s understandable they evolved into a generation that was hesitant to commit.

But regular training is a sure-fire way for employers to overcome that hesitation—and easily gain some hard-won loyalty in the process. In the recently-published Motivating Millennials, 90% of those polled said they would stick with a job if they knew that steady raises and career advancement were part of the package.  And, sure, not every employee can advance to the C-Suite. But provided with access to opportunities to learn, improve and grow, every employee can still progress.

Of course, it’s not a smart strategy to cover the cost of an MBA for brand new hires, but a business class or two in the first year wouldn’t hurt. There are also plenty of reputable and cost-effective online or onsite education options that, from an investment standpoint, would likely still cost less than that gym membership.


Kate is a Creative Circle candidate, a senior copywriter, and a seasoned corporate communications consultant based in New York. If you want to work with Kate, contact Creative Circle New York.

You never forget your first boss. Especially if that boss was a frog…

Ok, full disclosure: the frog was actually made of cloth. But does it help if I said his name was Kermit?

Early in my career, armed with a degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Southern California, I was hired by Marvel Studios to work as an Associate Producer on the brand new TV series Muppet Babies. The concept was inspired by the beloved characters sprung from the mind of Jim Henson, the visionary artist/puppeteer who birthed Kermit more than 60 years ago from little more than scraps of his mother’s old coat and two discarded ping pong balls.

So, sure, maybe it’s a bit of a, um, “leap” to say that Kermit was my first boss. But anyone who ever had the privilege of working with Jim knows that the distinction was irrelevant. When Kermit was in the room, Jim let him own it — even when being grilled by the great Johnny Carson!

Jim’s willingness to play second fiddle to a frog was part of his charm, as well as the key to his tremendous genius. Like all good parents, Jim empowered his puppet progeny — and their human caretakers — to explore, even if along a path that might ultimately hit a brick wall… (Sort of like Kermit and Miss Piggy’s relationship, right?)

Jim’s success did not just stem from his skills as an artist, but also to the unobtrusive ease with which he was able to breathe a distinct energy and personality into each Muppet character, and then step back to allow them to, in a sense, find their own voice.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 40 years since I worked for Jim. Entertainment was an entirely different industry back then, and the fact that Jim’s handmade cloth characters are as popular as ever in a post-Pixar landscape is a testament to his legacy — and to his leadership.

If it weren’t for Jim’s influence, I doubt the arc of my own career would have been half as interesting. Emboldened by his lessons — taught directly and by example — I’ve gone on to launch iconic lighted shoes, install the first Jumbotron on Sunset Blvd, run my own advertising agency…and even place TVs on gas pumps (you’re welcome)!

Jim left many lessons on leadership, a few of which I’ve outlined here. Now, in my current role as CMO for the nation’s leading creative recruiting and consulting firm, I’m in a place where I can put into practice Jim’s most memorable lesson of all: The key to creative success lies in how well you trust and treat your team.

Be Open to All Ideas

With Jim, there was never a bad idea — just concepts that needed to evolve. He was a master at creating a collaborative environment that allowed a safe space for evaluation and growth. At all levels, Jim encouraged openness and what I’d like to call “radical consideration,” a willingness to include everyone in the creative process from the most junior associate to the buttoned-up executive whose job was to keep production on track and on budget.

This gift of Jim’s was apparent to me from the earliest storyline ideation sessions for Muppet Babies. Whenever a writer pitched something containing even just a kernel of interesting, Jim would push it down the schedule to allow more time for incubation. If the idea never quite made it to script, Jim would simply say, “Let’s keep it for next year,” never making the writer feel judged or that time had been wasted. Jim always went out of his way to make things work — and more often than not they did.

Allow Space for Creativity

Early in the series’ development, a debate was raging around the idea of combining animation with live action scenes — a technical challenge that, at the time (early 1980s), had never been done at the volume and speed required for weekly TV. Most business staff balked at the cost, but Jim was persistent — then looked at me to find the solution. This was certainly not a skill set I had learned in college, but Jim shielded me from the bottom-line pressures of the “suits” in the room, and granted me the permission and the space to figure it out.

And, as any child of the 80s who can recall the show’s catchy opening credits will know, in the end, it worked out rather seamlessly…

Don’t Settle

After the Muppet Babies successfully launched in 1984, I sometimes found myself playing the naysayer — and Jim would turn it into a teaching moment. Once, during season two, Jim wanted to include footage from Star Wars, and I expressed concern that clips from the most popular film ever released might not quite fit our budget. (This was pre-internet when Hollywood studios still controlled copyright with an iron fist.)

I should’ve known better though than to underestimate Jim’s tenacity, and also how admired he was in the industry. Without skipping a beat, he responded, “Hmmm, let me just call George and ask…” And that did the trick. With one call, I learned not to take no for an answer – there’s always a way. George Lucas gifted us clips from his blockbuster, and we used them in multiple episodes — at the time the best stock footage deal in the history of Hollywood!

Embrace Resiliency

My tenure with Jim ended not long before his unexpected death in 1990, and perhaps the timing of that event did serve to internalize his lessons even more powerfully. But it wasn’t just me. Everyone was blindsided by Jim’s loss; even the eternally optimistic Fozzie Bear wondered if the family could go on.

But, just like Jim, the Muppets persisted. To this day, the franchise remains as entrenched as ever in the national imagination, and continues to thrive by adhering to its founding ideals of leaving no angle unexplored, yet still evolving with the times to entertain and inspire an entirely new generation.

Kermit was onto something when he said it’s not easy being green. It’s not always easy leading a team either. In the end, though, the greatest ideas and dreams persevere and eventually find their own path. And the adventure that comes from nurturing an idea and helping it grow is what makes it all worth it.


Adam Bleibtreu is an award-winning producer, creative director, entrepreneur and marketing executive. Adam’s eclectic career dates back to the analog age and has evolved over three decades to touch upon almost every aspect of media, advertising, and creative services.

Since 2013, Adam has applied his talents and inspirational leadership as Chief Marketing Officer for ASGN Incorporated, a global recruiting firm, and Creative Circle, the leading provider of skilled creative professionals and consulting services nationwide. As a result of his storied career and first-hand perspective of a historic era of media innovation, Adam is also a sought-after speaker and well-respected thought leader throughout the industry.

We rely on technology to make everything in our lives more efficient. Need food? Get it now. Need a date? Swipe right. Need a job? There’s an app for that too!

In making things more efficient, however, we’ve lost that which connects us to each other – especially when it comes to the job search and hiring process. With companies like Google getting upwards of 50,000 applications per week from all over the world, we’ve started to rely on automated hiring systems to keep up. But these automated hiring systems only work with a finite number of keywords. If candidates don’t describe their professional experience with the exact words needed, the system might not recognize their value, and you might lose out on a viable candidate.

Online recruitment tools make it easier for people to apply to jobs, but they do not make it easier to discern who actually has the human qualities necessary to thrive in a work environment. In fact, the impersonal nature of online recruitment systems can deter quality candidates who succeed in nurturing environments, seek long-term growth, and add to dynamic cultures. A human touch is needed to find candidates like these, and to bring them to the front of the queue.

So how can you sort through hundreds or thousands of resumes? Keep your hiring human.

Minimize reliance on job posting sites.

82% of potential hires say their ideal interaction with a company is primarily human-to-human, with tech operating behind-the-scenes.

Practice responding one-to-one versus one-to-many.

With over 63% of open roles being newly created roles, hiring managers need to find nuanced ways of communicating what they need so avoid templated emails or auto-replies. Use the phone. Talk it out.

Use your network.

As the saying goes, it’s about “who you know.” Employee referrals make up the top source of new hires, but are often not thought of as the first line of recruitment. Pay attention to the humans you already love to work with to find more like them.

If you find that you need hiring help now, expand your network to include staffing agencies like Creative Circle. To meet the most talented humans, you need a network of them and with an already established network of creatives, automated hiring robots need not apply.


Ryan is a Creative Circle candidate and freelance Content Director who enjoys reading menus. He got his start at BuzzFeed NY, and since has led content initiatives for startups, TV shows, and crowdfunding platforms. He’s now based in LA—but not in a suspicious way. If you want to work with Ryan, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.

“A leader doesn’t have to be dynamic and charming — just highly communicative and transparent.”
The Leadership Development Trends in 2018

It’s well established that leaders can be made, not just born. And in today’s climate, the ability to learn and to grow — in short, to innovate — is one of the most crucial commodities to ensure that businesses remain relevant and ahead of the curve. But innovation shouldn’t just happen at the technical/operational level. For executive-level management especially, personal innovation — while perhaps harder to quantify — is also now an absolute necessity for successful leadership.

Self-awareness is the cornerstone of any effort at personal improvement, and as such has also been called the “secret weapon” to developing great leaders. While authentic self-awareness takes time and reflection, there are a few broad steps executives can take to get the process started, and to ensure they’re on the right path towards cultivating the proper tools and mindset for purposeful and productive growth.

1. Don’t ignore the hard stuff.

“Soft skills” are universally considered the most important indicators of success for executives, but the ability to inspire confidence, and maintain loyalty at all levels is one of the most important soft skills there is. Technical teams are often the heart and soul of business operations and, understandably, they can be highly protective of their domains. No one expects you to become Coder-in-Chief, but taking some time to re-acquaint and/or immerse yourself with the people and practices that drive production will lend a more tactile understanding of new technologies and other operational advances in your industry, and also serve to shore up respect among a valuable business asset — the skillful gatekeepers of the day-to-day.

2. Sensitivity training is back (and more important than ever).

The recent string of high-profile sexual harassment cases placed gender discrimination in the workplace front-and-center, along with the need to re-calibrate outdated corporate training modules on the matter. But #MeToo was just the tip of the iceberg: the future is not just female, it’s also more diverse, more self-actualized, and more “woke” than ever before. As even more recent events have shown so clearly, businesses and individuals who remain tone-deaf to these important cultural shifts risk a potentially irreparable public reckoning.

Executives who wish to harness this moment — for their own good, as well as for the good of their company — should do more than just mandate updated training: They should also show that they are eager to take part. Attitudes among the C-Suite won’t adjust if they just stick to familiar circles, and authentic change starts with a willingness to listen and, whenever possible, accommodate. Participating in sensitivity training with those from different backgrounds, and at different points in their careers, can provide executives with valuable insight into how certain of their behaviors may be perceived, and shed light on the unintentional biases to which so many can fall prey. Opening up to new perspectives from different generations and social/ethnic groups will not only serve to create a safer workplace but will also help your company — and yourself — stay ahead of the curve.

3. Check your communication.

Communication is one of those all-powerful, all-encompassing skills that can make or break a career, and it’s also one of those skills that many executives have already mastered. But mastering is not the same as refining, and not all messages will stick over time. This is not just about embracing new technologies and platforms. Sure, podcasts or Twitter can help spread your word, but if your words don’t resonate, neither will you.

Improving how you communicate can be as simple as changing who you talk to. Putting yourself in unfamiliar situations — via travel, meet-ups or other networking events — is a great way for executives to vet their messaging and delivery with those outside their standard sphere of influence. Engaging in less conventional training like acting or improv workshops can also help; sometimes working with the words of others is the best way to ensure that your own don’t fall on deaf ears.


Kate is a Creative Circle candidate, a senior copywriter, and a seasoned corporate communications consultant based in New York. If you want to work with Kate, contact Creative Circle New York.

As we all know, a gold-star resume is just one facet of finding the right candidate. Here are four important soft skills to be on the lookout for when meeting with potential candidates to fill your upcoming creative roles.

Curiosity

People often think that curiosity is about the quantity of questions one can ask. But it’s actually more about the process of deducing.

When meeting with potential hires, look for someone who asks thoughtful questions. In the same way that a good storyteller illustrates a narrative with an end in mind, a curious person seeks a conclusion with the questions as their roadmap.

Is your candidate curious about your path? Do they want to know about your daily work environment? Are they curious about the business foundation and its revenue stream? They should be as interested in finding out about you/your company as you are about finding out about their experience.

Communication

There is an art and a tact to how people connect to others. In the workplace, the ability to get along with anyone is key to an efficient workflow, increased productivity, and impressive output.

If an employee is not articulate or thoughtful in how they communicate, there is the potential for misunderstandings – which only serve to block the best / most collaborative work from being done.

A desire to communicate is a desire to reach understanding, which makes any strong communicator a really great cooperator and team player.

Humility

Someone who shows humility and self-awareness is a candidate who likely seeks purpose – looking to foster an environment for others to do their best work, regardless of their own power. This is a mindset that can’t be taught. And in the words of Pulitzer Prize winner, Kendrick Lamar, “Sit down. Be humble.”

Do they need recognition? Are they seeking validation? Ego is problematic because it blocks most people from seeing what others need. In the workplace, the work and company mission, must come first. Be aware of someone who seems more concerned with their own personal goals over how their role feeds back into the company’s bottom line.

Inquire into how your candidate feels about ownership of their work, how they talk about their past work experiences and accomplishments, and how often they use “I” vs. “we.”

Creative Problem-Solving

When interviewing, look for someone who is not only solution-oriented, but also solves problems from an a-linear perspective. Inquiring into how your candidate thinks by asking them specific questions that engage their other human skills (communication, self-awareness, curiosity, etc.) will help better highlight how they think on their feet vs. when they tactically solved a problem in the past.

These are just some (of many) soft skills to help guide your search. Great interview questions can help you figure out if your candidate has what it takes beyond their years of experience.


Annie is a Creative Circle candidate and freelance creative strategist/copywriter working and living in Los Angeles. She knows digital media as well as she knows her own horoscope (she’s a Virgo), having worked at the likes of BuzzFeed and Mashable. She has created branded content strategies for the top Fortune 500 brands, which means she knows the true meaning of “going native.” If you want to work with Annie, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.