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Advice, insights and stories from Nichers about our industry, our business and the Creative Niche culture.

May 10, 2013
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These days it’s not enough to have a great resume, you also have to have a strong and successful LinkedIn presence to really get attention. Even if you make it first the first round of interviews, hiring managers are more often than not going to pursue more information on LinkedIn. A good LinkedIn profile will convince your potential managers of your skills, relevance, and potential.

LinkedIn has over 200 million users, and is now the most successful and recognized business-oriented social media site in the world.

May 10, 2013
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When most creative professionals think of what it takes to build a successful brand, their minds naturally turn to considerations such as producing great creative graphics, advertising messaging, experiential promotions or any of the other elements necessary to build a globally-recognized name of the calibre of Coke, Apple or Google.

What many of these same professionals fail to realize, however, is that the same basic principles apply when trying to build their personal brands—minus the multimillion-dollar ad campaigns, of course.

May 9, 2013
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The 2013 IABC Ottawa Chapter Excel Awards are just around the corner and with this year’s strong field of entrants, it’s sure to be an unforgettable night.

April 26, 2013
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If you’ve ever tried to recruit top creative talent, odds are you’ve also taken time to negotiate fair compensation for that person’s services.

April 26, 2013
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Every now and then as an employer you may find yourself faced with an interesting recruitment challenge:  you’ll be presented with two creative job candidates who, at least on paper, have almost identical qualifications.

April 25, 2013
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It’s no secret that magic tends to happen when you put hundreds of the world’s leading visual communicators in the same room to share ideas and best practices. But the scope and sheer value of that magic was hard for our Recruitment Lead Sharon Alderson and I to fathom before we attended this year’s annual ADC (Art Directors Club) Awards in Miami.

April 16, 2013
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In an interesting video for Monster.com, contributor Emily Bennington makes a few great points about managing temporary contract workers. First, she notes that due to their relatively short stays with a company, temporary contractors need to be managed in a different way than full-time employees.  She cites a number of mistakes hiring managers make when trying to fill positions quickly using contractor help.

April 16, 2013
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Technology innovation is a great thing for the creative industry. It creates jobs, allows us to develop amazing new campaigns and breathes life into the industry on a regular basis.  

April 16, 2013
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It’s human nature to try to get more for less. In fact, we do it all the time.

We look for bargains at stores, search for deals online, and in the business world, we try to cut costs by doing things like negotiating better terms from suppliers and other firms we may be working with.

But there are times, such as when you’re trying to hire freelance creative talent that opting for the cheapest possible option makes little or no business sense.

April 5, 2013
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Ever heard the line about being a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none?

If so, you’ll likely understand a predicament I encounter on a near-daily basis. That’s because I regularly work with creative professionals who unwittingly present themselves as generalists rather than specialists, assembling resumes that are so unfocused they could theoretically be used to apply for virtually any position in the creative marketplace.