One Working Mom’s Perspective During COVID-19

Here we are, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, and I — like many of you — have a lot of “macro anxiety” about our community, our nation, our world as we know it. I’m freaking out a little on the inside (and sometimes the outside), but I’m also hyper-aware that I have to stay sane for my colleagues and teammates at work, and — most importantly — for my family at home, including my two young children.

My husband and I are now both working from home, full-time, and we are so grateful that we have the types of jobs where we CAN remain employed and work remotely. Many, I know, do not have this option. And there are two of us — those without spouses to help are in a far more difficult situation. While we are trying to keep our jobs as uninterrupted as possible, we are also expected to put on our homeschool teacher hats and keep our 1st and 3rd graders busy with enriching activities — overseeing schoolwork or setting them up on apps or websites to work through various parts of their curriculum. Like many of you, we are a little lost.

Don’t worry — this is NOT yet another well-meaning aggregation of activities and websites to keep your little ones busy, but rather a real perspective from someone who is also trying to adjust to this new way of getting through our days.

Here are a few of the things I’m trying with my family — who knows what will work and what won’t, but we can all figure it out together:

1. Minimize unnecessary meetings. It’s tough, but I’ve asked my team to hold off on scheduling phone calls where decisions can be made on Slack/email/elsewhere. It’s just HARD to have quiet in a house full of kids and a barking dog and the UPS delivery person — unless it’s ESSENTIAL to have a phone call, push to Slack/email. I’ve tried to be fully transparent with my team, so they can understand my work-from-home-reality, and so I can understand theirs. Dogs will bark. Kids will interrupt. Roommates will be roommates.
2. Start time blocking. My husband and I plan to review our upcoming schedules each evening, and figure out when one of us can be on “kid duty,” while the other takes calls/handles work that requires focus/gets to be alone in an office with the door closed. The minimization of meetings will help this, but we’ve also quickly learned that we can’t expect the kids to be patient and quiet when we’re on the phone. So, one person has to pay attention to the kids while the other tends to their work. It’s just reality.
3. Get outdoors. We’re making sure the kids go outside once every 2 hours. They can’t take walks or walk the dog on their own, so we have to join. We are trying to institute a no phone policy on these outings — just take the time, breathe the fresh air, let the emails pile up. It’s good for the kids; it’s good for us.
4. Give the kids a break. Speaking only for our kids here, but this is hard on them. They love school and they love their teachers and friends. This is a huge adjustment — one none of us wanted. They are going to be whiney, they are going to fight, they are going to frustrate each other and us. So, we’re telling ourselves (repeatedly, honestly) that it’s okay if they are upset or not perfectly behaved. This isn’t easy. This WILL pass, but we have to get through it day by day.
5. Do what you can! I am trying to force myself to accept that my days will be interrupted, truncated, unscheduled. This is reality. All you can do is what you can — as much as you can — during the day. Try to make yourself sign off at a normal time — be present in the evening/during nighttime routines. Speaking for myself, I will need to work after kids’ bedtimes and before wake-ups, but it will give me some peace of mind knowing that I’ve dedicated a few hours to uninterrupted family time so we can talk about all that we managed to do that day.

We are all figuring this out together, and some people in this community may have more experience than I do. But in the meantime, stay safe and remember that our Creative Circle family will keep working on your behalf. Even if our workspace is loud and sometimes messy.

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About the author.
Katherine Forbes is the VP of Marketing at Creative Circle. She is also now a part-time homeschool teacher to her 8 year old daughter and 6 year old son.

When many of us start thinking about working in advertising, we’re really dreaming about making Super Bowl commercials, seeing our name in Adweek, and all of the other opportunities that come with working at a name-brand agency. The good news is it’s an attainable dream! But whether you’re someone who’s just starting out or want to make a mid-career upgrade, getting in the storied doors of an agency like TBWA\Chiat\Day, Wieden + Kennedy, or Droga5 won’t be easy.

Creative Director Nick Liebeskind has spent the last eight years helping aspiring creative superstars tip the odds in their favor. In addition to having a career working on brands like Lexus, The Ritz-Carlton, and TrueCar, he’s also a student-turned-teacher at The Book Shop School for Ads, an intensive series of workshops designed to teach students how to do great work and build award-winning and job-winning portfolios. During his time as a Book Shop instructor, he’s helped nurture and advise talent that’s later ended up at shops like Saatchi & Saatchi, 72andSunny, Deutsch, and other big-name agencies. He spoke with me and shared his thoughts about what it takes to get noticed and get hired.

So how important is your portfolio?

Your book is your leverage; it’s everything. More and more, agencies at every level care more about your book than your resume.

How much does previous experience matter?

There used to be this Catch-22: to get into a big agency, you needed to have big agency experience, but then, how do you even get in the door? I think that trend has dissipated, and more people are being considered just on the strength of their book.

What else factors in?

It’s been my experience that besides your book, it’s also your connections, it’s luck, timing, and to some extent, it’s also having work in your book that might be similar to a piece of business an agency already has. For example, I had some students that had gaming work in their portfolios and were big gamers themselves, and I knew that AKQA was looking for people with gaming experience, so it worked out for them. It can be very serendipitous, with an agency having a specific need, and then the right book coming across the CD’s desk at the right time.

Also, it depends on the agency. For example, I’ve heard that an agency like 72andSunny tends to like people whose artistic interests and talents go beyond just advertising. They covet people with a more interesting background than just ad school. Even if those talents, like painting and photography, aren’t strictly related to advertising or what their career goals are, they add to a person’s value as a creative and that makes them appealing to that kind of agency.

Increasingly, companies value culture and want to promote the culture they’ve created. They’ll create content around it, and it becomes a recruiting mechanism, a way to find the right people that fit what they’re doing. For a long time, agencies have been the brand stewards, now they are becoming brands themselves.

What about mid-level creatives who are at agencies that aren’t giving them the quality of work they’d need, and so instead, they have a lot of spec work in their portfolios?

I’ve had quite a few students over the years come to The Book Shop because, while they’re already working in the business, they aren’t being given the kind of assignments that allow them to flex their muscles creatively. In this case, I don’t mind if they have some spec work in their book. But one thing I do ask them to look at is the work they ARE doing professionally and to build on it. Flesh it out, see if there are actual creative opportunities they’re missing.

It’s easy sometimes to get work and think it isn’t interesting or lacks potential to be book-worthy. Sometimes it’s true, but sometimes it isn’t. So again, I ask my students (or former students if that’s the case), to use what they ARE producing as a beginning and to get with their partner and dig deeper. True, this new, fleshed-out work might not ever be produced. But at least it’s your ideas and the work you would have done had the brief been more robust, and it’s for an existing client whose account you’re actually working on. It’s still spec, but more like “spec adjacent.”

Full disclosure: I went to The Book Shop, and while I don’t want to sound like I’m making an ad for them, the experience was invaluable in helping me learn advertising and define my career goals, and I can attest to the fact that Book Shop alums do end up at amazing agencies. As Nick said, your portfolio is everything and connections matter a lot, too, and participating in an IRL portfolio workshop or school is how you can get both.

However, it’s not the only way. The key is doing the best work you possibly can at every stage of your career, continuing to grow your network, and keep putting yourself out there. If you have the right work in the right place at the right time, you could get the opportunity you’ve been dreaming of.

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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.

On the surface, my roles as father and businessman seem unrelated.

I am an executive coach, and in my experience of being coached myself, I’ve learned that the two identities are intertwined. The strengths and learning edges that show up in my professional life are also present in my personal life.

Even though I’m more than 20 years into my career, lessons from my three years as a father of two have made me a more effective executive. I’m compelled to share seven of them:

1. Embrace the good with the bad.

I recently took a day off to spend with my 3-year-old son. I let him pick the agenda. Inspiration in the grocery checkout lane landed an inexpensive kite, and we spent a magical hour wading in the ocean waves while I taught him to fly it.

Before we continued our day with his first visit to an ice-skating rink, I took him for a quick pizza lunch. It was a disaster. He refused to eat, pressed random buttons on the soda fountain and made the experience unpleasant for everyone around us.

As challenging as the lunch was, though, it didn’t diminish the wonder of kite-flying or the joy of ice skating.

At work, few things are a complete success or an utter failure. Acceptance of this helps me see the bright spots in presentations that weren’t home runs. It also keeps me humble when the ratings from a workshop are glowing. A willingness to let the good and the bad coexist helps avoid black-and-white thinking and emotional roller coasters.

2. Clear feedback is compassionate.

It’s my duty as a father to let my sons know, kindly but firmly, when their words or actions are out of line. And because they’re so young, I know my words must be simple and clear.

At work, I used to think that softened delivery of feedback to direct reports was kind. I failed to realize that sugarcoating doesn’t help anyone. If I really care about a person, I owe it to them to be clear and honest. And I know I can trust myself to give this feedback in a caring way, just as I do with my sons.

3. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Raising my boys consistently presents new challenges. First, I had to keep them alive while surviving on two hours of sleep! Now, I chase little speed demons who don’t understand that running too far ahead of me isn’t funny or safe. Years from now, I will deal with the more emotionally complex situations of raising teenagers.

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in her book “Mindset,” presents two states: fixed mindset and growth mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe their abilities are a fixed trait, meaning they don’t have to work at them. Those with a growth mindset embrace lifelong learning through new experiences, ideas and challenges. In more recent years, in researching the collective mindsets of organizations, Dweck and three colleagues found that employees in companies with a fixed mindset pursued fewer innovative projects because of a fear of failure.

If my work isn’t making me a little uncomfortable, then I’m not pushing myself enough. I remind myself that my sons learned to walk by falling down — a lot. If I want to grow, I must embrace failure, knowing I will learn from it.

4. Avoid surprises.

Whether it’s changing a diaper or leaving the playground, my boys need advance notice. If I just spring something on them, they are likely to throw a fit. Such transitions are insignificant to me, but not to them. I need to keep things moving, but they need a sense of security and predictability.

Similarly, colleagues and direct reports need clear expectations. I explain what needs doing and why, and I set clear deadlines. I also explain the reasoning behind these plans. Team members, particularly millennials, value understanding how they contribute to the goals of the organization.

5. Adapt to the audience.

My older son is motivated by dessert and threats of closing his bedroom door at night. My younger son could take or leave sweets, and he is completely fine with the bedroom door closed. He responds to gaining or losing access to his toy cars. I’ve had to tailor my parenting approach to each of them.

Too often, managers issue orders and expect their direct reports to do all the adjusting. I find it more productive to meet in the middle. I see employees as customers, and I take to heart Peter Drucker’s questions “Who is your customer?” and “What does your customer value?” These questions are from “The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization,” and he used them in consulting corporate leaders.

Yes, employees need to adapt to my working style. But I make reasonable adjustments based on how they like to work and how they best receive feedback. This keeps them motivated and engaged, which makes my job as a manager much easier.

6. Build the team to round out strengths.

There was never a discussion with my husband about which roles each of us would play as parents. I naturally stepped into managing operations for the family. I plan meals, schedule lessons, keep up with immunizations. I was recently out of town, and my husband brought one of the boys to a swimming lesson on the wrong day, even though it was on the calendar.

He, on the other hand, is the dreamer and maker of magical experiences. He plans great vacations, makes sure birthday parties are original and fun, and chooses cute and unique clothes for the boys. While each of us can play different roles in other parts of our lives, it just wouldn’t work if we both tried to play the same role at home.

At a recent conference for Hudson Institute coaches, Todd Kashdan, professor of psychology at George Mason University, introduced me to defensive pessimists (DP) and strategic optimists (SO) in a talk on the importance of both in teams. I later learned that these terms originated in the research of social psychologist Nancy Cantor. The DP’s role is to anticipate everything that could go wrong. The SO’s role is to believe inherently that things will work out right.

A team exclusively of DPs would be paralyzed ever to move forward. A team exclusively of SOs would always be at risk for crashing and burning the minute something threw them off their trajectory of certain success. But when a team has at least one person playing each role, that’s a powerful combination.

When I introduced this concept to colleagues, it gave us all language to understand a dynamic we’d observed for years, and it allowed both the SOs and the DPs to see the value in their roles instead of feeling apologetic.

7. Set personal goals.

At 34, I was newly single. Too old to put off my dream of becoming a father and too young to give up on it, I set a goal of becoming a father by age 40, though I had no idea how I was going to make that happen.

Having a goal, however, gave me the clarity to make decisions that moved me in the right direction. I passed up long-term international assignments and avoided dating people who didn’t want kids. 18 months later, I met my now-husband, and our first son was born six weeks before my 40th birthday.

Goal-setting isn’t new to management, but few leaders think through their individual strategic plans. I’m not referring to career planning facilitated by human resources. I mean asking yourself specific, detailed questions: Do I want to be in the same company or career in three years? What information should I gather to bring clarity to possible paths? What experiences will prepare me for my desired future?

Having goals doesn’t guarantee that they will come to fruition, but why not increase the chances?

In closing, the lessons I’ve learned from fatherhood have been valuable in helping me become more effective in my professional life. My commitment to lifelong learning will help me embrace future challenges, and I will continue to look for connections between these two roles that are so important to me.

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Peter Gandolfo is an executive coach and founder of Gandolfo Group Coaching & Consulting. He’s passionate about helping men achieve professionally while being present fathers and about creating a more diverse workforce by helping leaders develop their authentic leadership styles.

In addition to individual coaching, Peter facilitates team workshops and gives talks on marketing strategy, listening to customers, effective communication and more. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband Andrew and their two sons.

This article was originally published on the Gandolfo Group blog.

As an executive coach based in Los Angeles, I often work with leaders in creative industries: content creation, entertainment management, marketing services, tech, and consumer products. While each of these fields is unique, they bring together teams of cross-functional leaders from marketing, design, development, finance, and legal, to name a few. Leaders from each of these functions arrive at their work with diverse education, professional experience, personalities, and working styles. Layer in the competing objectives of different functions, and it’s easy to imagine a group that struggles to get much accomplished.

Differences can be most pronounced between business leaders and designers. The formal education needed to secure roles in each of these groups is quite different. Business leaders are assumed to be focused on profit, while the creative process is much more personal for designers. Despite these differences, I’ve been part of many dynamic partnerships between business teams and design teams, and I’ve figured out how they work best.

1. They build on each other’s ideas.

The phrase “good ideas can come from anyone” gets thrown around a lot, but I’ve seen it in practice.

On a 2005 trip to Egypt, I was inspired by the elaborate details of the treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. I returned to my junior position in marketing for a toy company with the belief that this aesthetic — glitter, shine, elaborate jewelry — would appeal to the fashion doll consumer. I shared my idea with my design partners in a brainstorm session.

The design team easily could have rejected my ideas on the basis that creativity is their responsibility (and privilege). Instead, a year later, when they presented their initial concepts for the next season, I was surprised and pleased to see an Egyptian-inspired option.

And what they presented was so much better than I had ever imagined. By running with “yes and,” a key principle of both improv comedy and design thinking, they had opened their minds to an unusual idea and built on it to make it stronger.

The teamwork didn’t stop there. Once the dolls were designed, the packaging team created a logo, structure, and environment that brought the theme to life, and the advertising agency created new animation and music for a commercial that integrated Egyptian elements into a modern and aspirational world for children.

By the time the dolls landed on retail shelves, countless team members on at least three continents had contributed to the brand experience, and all of us could see the value of our contributions in creating something greater.

2. They use curiosity to build trust.

I’ve worked with two different types of creative leaders: ones who want to focus exclusively on being creative and ones who want to better understand the business. The latter use new insights about the consumer, the priorities of key stakeholders, and the state of the business to bring focus to their team’s work. By listening to what’s said and discovering what’s unsaid, they identify opportunities to address problems or build on opportunities.

Similarly, business leaders build trust with their design partners when they listen to those partners’ goals. Whether your partners want to build expertise in a new technology or expand a product segment to support the professional growth of their teams, understanding their goals invites you to help them make those goals a reality. This commitment to better understanding also increases the likelihood that your partners will be receptive to your goals.

I am not advocating for tacitly agreeing with your partners just to build trust. There will be plenty of times when you see a situation differently. That’s when, instead of clashing over who is right, you can listen to one another and work together to find the best way forward. For instance, a few years back, my team was developing an innovation segment for a classic fairytale toy brand. There were a few concepts that I just didn’t get, as well as one that I was far more excited about than the design team was. Rather than narrowing the list of options down to the much smaller list that we all could agree on, we committed to collecting feedback from parents and children through qualitative research.

To our surprise, the concepts that were more polarizing to the team generated the most positive feedback from our audience. The new insights about why customers were drawn to these ideas built support for the ideas throughout team, ultimately allowing us to bring to market a more innovative and successful product line.

3. They build in flexibility.

Any initiative — an advertising campaign, a new vehicle, a new product range — can originate within a variety of functions, often determined by what function is at the hub of the wheel of the cross-functional team. You can find advertising agencies where creative, account service or even account planning (strategy) takes the lead. In automotive, often the engineers have the greatest influence. Within the toy industry, the pendulum will swing back and forth between marketing-led and design-led cultures, often changing when the prior structure stops working.
From my perspective, a team’s success is not dependent on one function taking the lead. I’ve seen product lines grounded in sound strategies fall flat because they fail to inspire. Conversely, a great creative idea without a clear customer or strategy holds little value. In every environment I’ve worked in, the cross-functional team delivered better results when they didn’t cling to one process.

Tim Brown’s “Change by Design,” an introduction to design thinking, presents the “Ways to Grow” matrix. He organizes the innovation efforts within a team into four categories determined by pursuing existing and new users with existing and new offerings. While most resources should be allocated to support incremental innovations to the core business, this framework is flexible enough to make room for the unexpected and sometimes game-changing innovation that didn’t begin with an ironclad strategic insight.

The opportunity to create something new carries high risks, but you manage that risk by not depending on its success. Exploring fresh initiatives creates a halo of energy across the line and across the team. If one of these ideas sticks, it has the potential to create explosive growth. And even if it doesn’t, the team will appreciate that they had the opportunity to flex their innovation muscles.

Each of these insights on well-functioning teams comes down to communication. Truly listen to your customers and your colleagues to solve problems and build on success. Ensure that your colleagues feel heard, and enjoy the opportunity to talk about different points of view. Listen for opportunity. It may not always arrive the way you expect, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable.

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Peter Gandolfo is an executive coach and founder of Gandolfo Group Coaching & Consulting. He’s passionate about helping men achieve professionally while being present fathers and about creating a more diverse workforce by helping leaders develop their authentic leadership styles.

In addition to individual coaching, Peter facilitates team workshops and gives talks on marketing strategy, listening to customers, effective communication and more. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband Andrew and their two sons.

This article was originally published on the Gandolfo Group blog.

When I started in the world of digital media, I assumed that “creative environment,” “casual attire,” “snack room,” and “tech” meant future-forward, progressive, and all-inclusive.

Boy, was I wrong!

Like most industries, companies, and businesses, new media and creative professions operate as any 1960s, Mad Men-esque environment would; often leaving women who seek financial and professional growth up against a virtual glass ceiling shrouded in “Thirsty Thursday” Happy Hours.

As a self-designated Strong Woman in a creative role, I thought I was exempt from gender bias — assuming that other women just weren’t vocal enough or didn’t understand how to “work with men.” However, throughout my tenure at a renowned social publisher, I became #woke and had to remap my own journey toward being heard in a world where my voice was automatically less important prior to even speaking.

Below are some lessons I learned on my road to self-empowerment (and the empowerment of others) in a creative field.

Diction matters

I had been asked to take on a significant amount of responsibility in my role that was going to require double the work. In an effort to stand up for the work I had done, I created a proposal asking for a raise. To my surprise, someone in HR pulled me aside and told me my approach to this “responsibility” was both “hostile and aggressive,” and I was denied the opportunity that had been presented to me.

It’s not news that words like “emotional,” “aggressive,” “hostile,” “shrill,” and “intense,” are disproportionately used to make positive attributes negative as they relate to women in the workplace. I started realizing that I wasn’t hearing the same adjectives being applied toward my male colleagues; instead hearing words like “passionate,” “tough,” and “confident.” The list goes on.

Women are frequently pushed to doubt themselves in their approach to their everyday lives and professions, discouraged from being “too active” or “too participatory” for fear of being seen as “unladylike” or “too much.” When women do speak up during meetings, disagree with colleagues, or simply stand up for themselves or an idea on a professional level, they are often told they need to “tone it down,” “stop getting emotional,” or “reel it in.”

In order to stop the misperception of self, you have to first be aware of it. Oppression doesn’t necessarily happen in loud, poignant moments. It can occur in the small, passing conversations about others or even conversations about you that are playful. Look out for situations where people are unfairly using diction as a weapon for self-doubt.

Equally, consider how our own ingrained speech patterns reify the oppression of women. For example, women tend to apologize before speaking or find themselves needing to justify their reason for asking for something (i.e., “Sorry, I just wanted to …) so as to maintain a polite demeanor. As juvenile as it sounds, work on remapping your speech patterns to be direct, assertive sentences that speak clearly for what you need. More importantly, don’t be afraid to correct others’ speech patterns, as it helps re-wire the thought processes of women and men around you.

For example, most recently, I was referred to as “she” in a meeting when I was sitting right next to the person addressing me in the third person, and I stopped them afterward to say, “You can just call me Annie. You may not be aware of it, but ‘she’ is dismissive and dehumanizing.” Although it was an uncomfortable process (and I don’t know if this person understood what I was saying right away), it reminded me of my own power in the situation and that I always get to show up in the room.

Make your worth tangible

During review periods where people asked for raises, I saw many colleagues of mine confused as to why they weren’t getting an increase in their salary even though they said, “But I did all this work and I deserve it!” It was especially hard on a creative team, as the work was not directly (or obviously) tied to sales.

Even if you deserve a salary hike, with women making 78 cents for every dollar a man makes for the same work, you have to run that much harder just to get to the starting line.

Consistently manage a document that tracks your tangible projects and achievements in your job, whether it be business you’ve worked on, initiatives you’ve started, or client meetings you’ve attended. I always found value in taking screenshots of positive feedback that had been sent in any fashion, explaining why my work had been successful.

Most importantly, tie it back to the dollar amount. Even if your work is not directly related to revenue, it doesn’t mean that you are not engaged in the sales cycle. I started to inquire with our sales team about the size of the deals I worked on (pitched or won business) to highlight that my work was, in fact, tied to a certain amount of money that had benefitted the company.

And lastly, express the measurable things you seek to accomplish in either your current or desired future role to show that you are thinking long-term about the company’s goals and an action plan on how to execute these ideas.

At the end of the day, no matter how great your work may be, it must always benefit your manager, your team, and/or the company.

Talk about it

We are living in a causal time where gender, race, sexuality, politics, etc., are all on the table and constantly discussed. However, even with this new sense of openness and dialogue, talking about gender (and racial) politics in the workplace still feels like an unwelcome discussion. I learned quickly the awkwardness that ensued when I had to address inequalities at work with my male managers who took what I was saying personally or didn’t know how to respond tactically or empathetically.

In order to make the latent manifest, it is important to push past this discomfort and continue to educate your male and female colleagues. Building empathy, learning any new language, or developing a new way of thought are arduous processes, but they can occur through consistency and a desire to reach mutual understanding.

If you hear someone say something inappropriate or simply unhelpful about you or your colleagues, don’t be afraid to thoughtfully speak up to create awareness. Remember to praise yourself and your fellow female colleagues in situations where your/their work might be getting overlooked or spoken for.

With that said, men are not the only culprits in the gender struggle in the workplace — women can bring each other down as well. Using your best judgment (and trust) and being open with female colleagues about your experiences in the workplace not only allows for unification and camaraderie, but it also sets the stage for creating a collective set of solutions and advocacy in dealing with tricky dynamics.

As Lady Gaga recently sang on the track “Hey Girl,” “We can make it easy if we lift each other.”

If you have any advice on how we, as women, can continue to grow together as we grow ourselves in our careers, please let us know in the comments below!

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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.

Pencils down! It’s time to start thinking beyond the classroom with Creative Circle’s College Resource Guides.
It’s no secret that finding a job after college is hard — really hard. As a recruiter for creative and digital talent, I can tell you that the competition is tough even at entry level, which is exactly why I’m a huge fangirl of our College Resource Guides. They offer a simple, pointed timeline for every stage of your college career — freshman to senior — helping you to stay clear on what you need to do to land that dream job upon graduation. (And bonus: You might even be able to avoid moving back in with mom and dad for another year.)

Freshman year might seem awfully early to start considering your big career moves post-graduation. Guess what? It’s not. I’m willing to bet that the only strategic planning most of your dormmates, classmates, and dormmate’s classmates are doing right now is for Dollar Taco Night next Tuesday and not four years from now. And hey, we’re only hot-sauce-loving humans! But today’s reality for college grads, particularly in the creative and marketing fields, is that success starts early.

Beginning in the Freshman Resource Guide and carrying over to sophomore year with the Sophomore Resource Guide, you’ll notice that the word “resume” gets tossed around like magic dust — poof! Your own personal brand begins now. Be sure to keep updating your resume throughout your entire college experience, tracking everything you’ve done. Over time, and over internships gone good and bad, you’ll redefine your resume a hundred times, subtracting all the bits that no longer make sense and folding in the ones that do until you finally create an identity so relevant to your field that it could make even the coldest career counselor shed a tear.

Before you know it, the great divide will be upon you, and by that, I’m referring to your junior year. If you don’t have an internship lined up by then, apply, apply, apply! Just as the Junior Resource Guide emphasizes, it’s critical to start networking and interning at this phase in the game. This is where life starts to become much bigger than Dollar Taco Night. Why? Two words: safety net. You’d be surprised at how many students don’t end up in the career they thought they wanted. You might take an internship in a field like marketing and realize midway through what you really want to focus on is graphic design. This allows you time to retool your classes, and possibly even your major, while finding another internship to help you build a design portfolio. Trust me: You’ll need one.

Senior year sort of catapults you blindly into the lobby of the real world. It’s time to throw the stone as far as possible into the pond, rippling a call heard around your industry. Just as the Senior Resource Guide directs, you want to get a grasp on applying early enough for full-time positions, all the while avoiding “senioritis.” Reflect on all the working relationships you’ve cultivated during your internships and networking, and use those to your advantage by connecting on LinkedIn. If graduation has come and gone and you still find yourself jobless, take on some freelance work or even a post-collegiate internship.

Getting the career you want upon graduation can be done. But notice I didn’t say it was easy. It takes organization, effort, and above all else, diligence in staying ahead of the curve and your competition. When you get stuck or you feel like you don’t know where to start, keep these College Resource Guides handy and return to them every time you start to feel yourself wandering down the path of “this seems impossible.” They are designed to guide you through the hinterlands by targeting all the little pit stops you must take along the way. Among them, the most important are: Resumes, Portfolios, Internships, and Industry Networking. The ultimate results of treating these pit stops as actions over the course of your college career will yield results that are unfathomable in the best way.
Ok, you can have your pencils back now.

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Amanda is a copywriter-turned-recruiter who joined Creative Circle’s Philadelphia team in 2015. Her fascinations include, but are not limited to: good use of white space, just about anything animal related, TED Talks, and helping people find jobs they really want. Outside of playing talent matchmaker, Amanda spends most of her time scouting new locales in the City of Brotherly Love with her husband and jumping bean of a pup, Tuxedo.