There’s no shortage of sites out there to help you put together an online portfolio, all with their inherent advantages.

Read more at Mathys-Potestio.com

In our third clip from RUNT presents CORIZONTAL, Lewman describes the atmosphere at Freestylin’ Magazine, the essential nature of improvisation, and how taking risks with the company copy machine accelerated his career trajectory.

RUNT. never underestimate.
A professional development series from The Creative Party and Mathys+Potestio, RUNT is about positioning creatives for success in their careers by providing tools and knowledge to excel. Often the only thing holding people back is themselves. From this series, you’ll gain insights that lend you the confidence to achieve your professional goals in the creative services world.

Anyone who has been in staffing/recruiting for awhile knows the feeling when a prospective client asks to see your pricing structure. They not only want to know your profit margins, they want to influence them. You feel invaded and disrespected. What other industry allows the customer to dictate pricing? Clearly there is a gap between the value proposition of staffing firms and client perceptions. It’s time for change.

The industry’s obsession with quotas and making numbers has bred an atmosphere that rightfully draws skepticism from the talent we hope to represent, and the clients we aim to service. We’ve taken on the reputation of used-car salespeople, and are asked to wear badges at networking events like some recruiter scarlet letter. The industry has lost respect, but we have only ourselves to blame.

Circling companies that are hiring and aggressively recruiting talent like sharks with blood in the water communicates an air of desperation. We’ve been pursuing whatever business is available in the market so aggressively that it’s weakened our value, and given way to poor business practices like not vetting the talent we represent (not meeting people face to face? Really?!), pitting competitors against each other in price wars, sending resumes to companies without candidate knowledge or approval, and just generally acting desperate. Now staffing companies are resorting to tactics like sign twirling to attract talent and using roller skating biblical characters to promote themselves. We’ve become the fast food of the employment industry.

I’ve been in and out of the staffing industry since 1993, but my exposure goes even further, having worked through staffing agencies in administrative, light industrial and creative capacities. My first job in staffing was as an outside sales representative for a large national brand. Later I worked inside running a full desk. I’ve worked for four staffing companies and have owned two. With a few exceptions, I’ve seen every company make decisions motivated purely by sales and profits. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Over the years, I’ve met so many great people working in the staffing industry. If there is a common thread of discontent with these people, it usually revolves around their desire to provide relationship-based solutions to their clients, and frustrations with their organization’s resistance to any activity that does not lead directly to sales and profits. We have to strike a balance.

Some might read this and think it’s written by someone who’s out of touch with the realities of business. A history of incredible revenue growth, happy clients, rising talent, strong relationships and motivated employees says otherwise. There is another way.

Want to hire the A-talent? I’ll tell you how: treat the D-talent better.

The typical strategies to hire the best talent? Offer more money, amazing benefits, provide office perks like free food and foosball, and hope for the best. D-talent may be great talent for somebody, but not for your company. They are someone else’s A-talent. So, you ignore them. Wrong. Treat everyone the same during the recruitment process.

Read more at Mathys-Potestio.com

A clip from RUNT presents: CORIZONTAL with Mark Lewman of Nemo, part of Design Week Portland 2014. Mark describes his favorite reading material, getting hopped up on Mountain Dew, and how writing an endless stream of unsolicited letters got him his first gig in publishing.

RUNT. never underestimate.
A professional development series from The Creative Party and Mathys+Potestio, RUNT is about positioning creatives for success in their careers by providing tools and knowledge to excel. Often the only thing holding people back is themselves. From this series, you’ll gain insights that lend you the confidence to achieve your professional goals in the creative services world.

I hit a professional low in the summer of 2010. I’d graduated from college six months earlier with a BA in journalism and some pie-in-the-sky aspirations of what was supposed to come next.

Read more at Mathys-Potestio.com

A clip from RUNT presents: CORIZONTAL with Mark Lewman of Nemo, part of Design Week Portland 2014. More to come!

RUNT. never underestimate.
A professional development series from The Creative Party and Mathys+Potestio, RUNT is about positioning creatives for success in their careers by providing tools and knowledge to excel. Often the only thing holding people back is themselves. From this series, you’ll gain insights that lend you the confidence to achieve your professional goals in the creative services world.

Most companies suck at hiring. Follow these steps and you’ll be immensely better at it. You might even hire someone.

Who are we hiring and why?
Something has happened in your business to cause you to initiate the hiring process. Make sure to evaluate all aspects on how this hire will affect your business. Are you addressing increased workflow? Is this an investment to acquire more business? Are you filling a recent staff vacancy? Once you understand the dynamics of what is propelling the hire, you can begin to define the role. Start by writing a proper and realistic job description. Include others in your organization, if need be, to gain their insights into the requirements for the position. Whether you are hiring for a new role or reacting to a desirable candidate on the market, you have to map out their role clearly. Clear expectations rule the day.

Be realistic. What responsibilities will this new hire have? How will these affect others on your team? Make sure you think this through and prepare to potentially adjust the roles of others. What skills and experience must they have? Try to separate the “good to haves” from the “must haves”. Be clear on this, and be willing to give on skills and experience that are less important. Look for potential too. Companies often get stuck on laundry lists of skill and experience requirements, trying to find someone that has it all. Don’t discount the more junior candidates or those who match the majority of your requirements, but not all of them. Sometimes you need them all, sometimes you don’t. Don’t be close minded.

It’s not all about the role. Laundry list job descriptions are not only boring to read, they only cover one aspect of what it’s like to work for your organization. Take time to explain what it’s like to work for you, or tell a story that illustrates your culture. Make the laundry list just part of the overall story you are telling. What is most compelling about the opportunity with your company?

Recruit. How are you going to get the message out about this opening? Examining why you have an opening may help answer this question.

Some Pros and Cons about common avenues for recruiting candidates:

Job postings

Pros: A great way to get the word out to a large audience. There are also relatively affordable options for this. Job search website aggregators expose your listing to an even larger audience and geographical reach.

Cons: You may only be reaching those actively looking for new opportunities, or candidates who are not currently working. You miss what is called the “passive candidate”. Your posting needs to be compelling and well-written to attract higher level candidates. Receiving a large response from unqualified candidates can be taxing on your process.

Network

Pros: Your network is often comprised of people within the same industry as yours, so you may be able to connect to qualified candidates. Your network will usually only refer people that they feel strongly about themselves.

Cons: It’s not your network’s job to refer people to you. Your contacts may not know anyone qualified who’s also available. It takes a lot of social engineering to get the word out. Your network is often busy.

Social Media

Pros: Promotes openings to a wide and active audience, creating opportunity for a great candidate, or someone who knows one, to see your post.

Cons: Social posts may not have a long shelf life, and people have short attention spans. Followers of your social media feeds may be friends or fans of your company, but not necessarily job seekers. Reach is only as large as your social network and posts can get lost in all the noise.

Recruiting firms

Pros: Recruiting firms, by their nature, are constantly recruiting talent. They can also tap into their large networks to search on your behalf. Firms save you the time of running your own search and also act as an unbiased champion for your company and the role. If they’re doing their jobs correctly, they’ll only introduce you to the best possible candidates.

Cons: You pay fees if they locate someone that you eventually hire. Sometimes you can find the same candidates on your own.

Proactive Searching

Pros: You control the search and pursue candidates that fit your requirements.

Cons: Takes a lot of time and effort. Your employees are not trained on how to be an effective recruiter. Someone might look good on paper (or LinkedIn) but you can’t accurately determine their viability until you meet them.

Once you’ve established a strategy and gotten the word out, the candidates will come pouring in. Hopefully.

You gotta have a process

Make sure they all experience a consistent, centralized intake and communication process. Every successful search needs not only a system in place for capturing candidates, but someone to own the process as well. Keep in mind, this process leaves candidates with a lasting impression of your brand, an impression that’s every bit as important as your overall brand marketing. They are intertwined–your recruitment experience can set the stage for your company’s overall performance.

Whoever you put in charge of this process needs to capture each submitted resume, including candidates who come to the company proactively. Empower your managers to do their own recruiting, but make sure these efforts fit within your established process, all under the careful management of the process owner.

Categorize each resume you receive as a Yes, No, Maybe, or variations therein.

Yes – These candidates will be brought in for interviews. Under manager’s direction, either schedule these appointments for them, or allow the manager to schedule their own.

No – Inform these candidates via e-mail that they have not been selected for the role, making sure to thank them for their interest. One way to avoid this step is to program a standard reply along the lines of: “Thank you for your interest. We will review your background and qualifications and be in touch if we would like to meet with you. If you don’t hear back from us, we’ll keep your resume on file and review it again as new opportunities become available.”

It is the direct manager’s responsibility to personally call each candidate who is interviewed but not hired. It is the process owner’s job to keep track of this and make sure it occurs. The manager need not share details as to why the candidate was not selected, to do so opens up the opportunity for litigation.

Depending on the potential fit with the candidate, they might be designated a Maybe, and you can indicate a desire to keep in touch. Send these potential future candidates to the process owner for safe keeping.

Anytime your company advertise an employment opportunity and collect resumes, you must keep them on file for a period of one year. It is a good idea to keep the “maybes” on file categorized by role. Doing so may save you valuable time in the future.

When a hire is made, close the loop–make sure everyone has been communicated with and the process is complete.

Then the direct manager and your HR Manager (if you have one) take over the process. The manager makes a verbal offer to the individual. HR will follow up with a written job offer. Once accepted, the process owner is re-engaged to assist with the on-boarding process. If the offer is not accepted, some form of the above process is re-engaged.

Once your ideal candidate becomes an employee, you shift into another gear. Now it really gets hard, but you’ve already set the table for success.

One of the most misunderstood and reviled aspects of employment in the State of Oregon is the Non-Compete Agreement. They scare individuals and present employers as paranoid, though there is a strong business case for them. I have been under strict non-competes as an individual and I have had to enforce them as an employer. In Oregon, non-competes are legal and until recently, pretty strict.

Read more at Mathys-Potestio.com

We’re discussing the wide array of continuing education options for creative industry professionals with Bart Cleveland (founder, Job Propulsion Lab), Trish Carey (Assistant Director of Digital Strategies, PSU), and Cris Kelly (Director, Portland Code School).

Creative Party Live is a recurring web video series that explores pressing topics facing creative industry professionals. It brings together experts in the field, in a panel format, to introduce varying perspectives and foster a wider discussion.

Despite its positive points, email drains us. At work, we sit at our computers with glazed eyes and crank through hundreds of emails a day. It leaves little energy for personal email or other fun digital pursuits (not you, Candy Crush) and zaps us of the attention we could better put toward face-to-face interactions with human beings, and being creative.

Read more at Mathys-Potestio.com

I know everyone gets news online now, or has been for a while. So have I. No one under 30 reads the newspaper, and the rest of us have had to adjust. But until recently, I still reveled in one blast from the analog past. I read the newspaper Sports page every morning with my coffee. On work days, I read it at the dining room table, as it seemed more formal and more business-like. Saturdays with my lucky college football mug and a spot on the couch. I deserved this moment after a week of work. My dog always joined me on my lap. Sundays? The couch again, this time maybe with some music and more formal of a breakfast than just cereal.

But all that changed a week ago and nothing has been right ever since. My local paper kept cutting back on content. Adding links to “read more” online and putting some stories and features primarily online. Box scores? That has always been the bastion of print. You need to sit and read them. Study them! Who went 8-20 last night with 20 points and 8 rebounds? Who went 3-4 at the plate? What’s your favorite player’s batting average now? These are things designed to be scoured in the printed word spread out in pages in front of you. Yes, sometimes even sitting on the can! When my local paper cut not only the content, but the design and size of the paper, that was the last straw as a Sports page reader. It was their way of saying, we’ll just keep shrinking this thing and taking away your fun until you join us on-line. Well it worked. I cancelled the paper and opened my laptop.

Now Saturday mornings are spent on the couch with my laptop open. I have to log onto numerous sites to find my news. Sports over here, local news and business news here. Box scores? I don’t really read those anymore. Haven’t found them and it’s just not the same. The dog? He’s still on my lap but he doesn’t really have a good space now either. He’s shoved down onto my legs somewhere having been replaced on my lap by the computer.

We’re adjusting but not happy about it. Some things, Sports pages and dogs, should just remain analog.

We’re discussing the ins and outs of building a copywriting career with Amber James (founder, Copywriter Conclave of Portland), Freelance Copywriter Extraordinaire Jaye Davis, and Page Jensen-Slattengren (producer, Tequila Mockingbird).

Creative Party Live is a recurring web video series that explores pressing topics facing creative industry professionals. It brings together experts in the field, in a panel format, to introduce varying perspectives and foster a wider discussion.

The Creative Party has major growth plans for 2014. I’m currently growing (mostly outward) but come Independence Day, mine will be the second tiny Creative Party member added to the crew this year. Very exciting of course, but as a good designer friend of mine once said, “babies is hard!” Babies PLUS work can be an even tougher feat for some.

Read more at Mathys-Potestio.com

For this, our inaugural episode, we’re joined by Steve Potestio, Ashley Diehl and special guest Erin O’Brien to discuss parenthood, and the workplace policies that make it just a little bit easier to manage.

Creative Party Live is a recurring web video series that explores pressing topics facing creative industry professionals. It brings together experts in the field, in a panel format, to introduce varying perspectives and foster a wider discussion.