For my fourth workshop, I went back to CareerCake and found another video by the founder, Aimee Bateman, that discussed the hidden job market. She spoke about how generally people check job boards for their employment opportunities when realistically this is often the last place an employer would advertise the job after first looking internally or in their own networks to fill the vacancy. I think this applies to my industry a lot, being creative your artwork and portfolio can speak for itself and getting yourself out there with connections can be very beneficial.
The personal branding workshop was touched on a bit too, and there was also a career planning course that was mentioned that I may look into. I think being in my third year in Uni now it is getting more and more realistic that I need to be getting a good job that I want to keep for a few years and I suppose being completely out of education is still surreal to me.
Aimee mentioned how networking events are important, I attended one of these last year in Uni, and made some contacts and actually took part in a course in the museum where I consulted about a new photography exhibition. This was a very useful contact as when I then started my new module and wanted to photograph insects, I was able to reach out to her, and she put me in touch with the entomology department and I was able to come in and look around all the research stored insects and photograph them. I was also asked to do a blog post which did fall off my radar but I may reach out again to see if this is still something useful to them.
I think networking is important in art too because we all individually have a range of talents, so while I study surface pattern design, I can also photograph well and studied that at a-level, I can also draw and paint so can do commissions, and you never know what someone might want or who they may know if they can see some of your other work.
From this workshop I learnt that I definitely need to update my LinkedIn and post on it more often, posting my work would help me to get noticed and remembered rather than my fairly blank profile. I think doing a little workshop on this too might be a good idea so I know how to use this effectively, as I do find I am a little apprehensive about it because I do not have the experience that I do with other social networks.
I thought the idea of a video CV is very interesting, I am not sure that I have the confidence to do something like that but maybe that could be a goal to work up to. I never knew about recruitment agents either, and how to use them to your advantage. Information interviews could be interesting to help me understand different roles more as I do not know too much about how a surface pattern designer would work in a large company.
This video taught me the importance of being present and reaching out instead of waiting for something on job pages, and the best methods to do this and be remembered. Overall I found this interesting and I think this is definitely something useful I could put to work on my social networks.
Tahlia Paige 