By Erica Keppel

On meeting our up and coming creatives, the team at Artisan endeavor to establish a realistic expectation regarding the recruitment process and the potential for opportunities that each individual faces. As an agency – it is in our best interests to ensure we supply quality, experienced creatives to our clients. It is with equal importance that we nurture and support our more junior creatives with advice and suggestions for improving their industry prowess, gaining the skills and experience they need and offering an ear in times of frustration or confusion around just where one stands as a graduate or in experienced junior in the scheme of things.

Above all, one of the most important features of your professional toolkit as a Creative, is your folio. As a mandatory requirement to Artisan’s Registration process (for any hands on Creative), along with a resume – the folio has the ability to tell Artisan Consultants a visual story of a thousand words. With a candidates permission, a folio (or folio samples) is also used from time to time to showcase ability and flare to clients where necessary. Artisan’s clients rely on they’re consultants to provide a premium standard of talent, and on a regular basis place trust in our team to provide top notch assistance at the eleventh hour. This is why our Consultants require a candidate who is comfortable working in a high pressured environment, who is accurate in their work and confident with their skill set – and who has worked of real life briefs for real life clients.

A common “catch 22” situation many of our more junior candidates find themselves in, is the inability to present commercial samples in their folio, coincidentally lacking leverage to acquire paid freelance and contract (and often permanent) work from clients in an effort to work up the the required three years industry exp that Artisan prefer before allowing them to register as a FREELANCER.

Many talented creatives are snapped up, and nurtured by committed mentors around the city’s studios as soon as they finish their studies. This can be through industry contacts, working during study – or purely being in the right place, at the right time. This is often the best case scenario as one breaks into the work force after three or four years of study. The benefits a fresh, ambitious and motivated Creative offer to a busy studio are abundant, if there is time and a budget for such an addition. Any mid weight Designer will recall the transition from study into fully fledged working life as full of surprises – and frustrations, but strong perseverance and vision goes along way. Unfortunately, the reality is that many junior creatives find it extremely difficult securing work (permanent or otherwise) when they graduate. Feeling like the wind has been removed from their sails, some may approach an agency seeking assistance - though just as a direct employer may like to see “more experience” - an agency is in the very same predicament.

The are certainly ways around this however ...

Offering your finely tuned Creative skills to the greater community on a volunteer basis can not only be rewarding, but extremely beneficial for your folio of commercial work. Not for Profit organisations, cash short business start-ups and sports clubs are a great place to start looking. More often than not, the cost behind Branding and Advertising campaign roll-outs are more than these businesses can afford – but this doesn’t leave them without value to the community – and how else will they have an opportunity to get they’re message out there, and grow? Thanks to an incredibly competitive environment, any work a young creative picks up on a volunteer basis, a well executed branding project, or roll-out of promotional marketing material for local distribution requires a talented eye to reach the public effectively. Additional to great folio samples, is an increased confidence in dealing directly with your client, taking a brief, making changes and brokering printing suppliers for the job. The absolute cherry on the top of any job well done – is a glowing referral from a happy client.

Australia offers an organised solution in the search for volunteer work – in the form of goodcompany. This organisation is heralded as Australian’s most effective meeting place for volunteers and communities – inspiring up and coming professionals to make a positive difference.

goodcompany aims to match skilled professionals with community group needs, helping to reduce costs for users and feeding quality talent into fantastic causes. goodcompany has engaged a pool of corporate and other large employers, opening up the lines of volunteer employment for various measures, while supporting the business bottom line.

‘A single relationship with goodcompany gives access to a reliable flow of diverse volunteer opportunities from community groups in 15 social sectors. Program design, matching, monitoring, reporting and evaluation are all taken care of. Bite-sized volunteer projects match staff availability and skills.’ goodcompany

goodcompany balances a pool of strong, willing and qualified professionals with a surplus of projects and positions in need around the country. Unlike some volunteer organisations, the team at goodcompany focus on utilising the skill set each individual has, and coordinating appropriate projects as they come up. This arrangement is not just for junior professionals, but for the experienced of varied vocations. This arrangement is win win, offering a positive way of bumping up those commercial samples in your folio and your boosting professional confidence.

Whether you engage goodcompany as a provider of volunteer projects, or jump into you own networking campaign in your local community, live industry experience provides the perfect platform for polishing your craft. If you have a great volunteer programe you would like to share with our team, contact Erica today!