Passive talent – not as passive as you think

Although 80% of working professionals could be described as “passive”, these figures show otherwise:

• 44% of all working professionals are explorers – not looking for a job but willing to discuss opportunities with recruiters
• The number of ‘approachable’ candidates outnumbers ‘super passive’ – in some places such as Australia and the US by a factor of 2 to 1
• 47% of professionals with less than one year on the job are explorers
• Explorers outnumber ‘super passive’ – by a factor of 2 to 1
• When reaching out to passive talent – reach out to your candidate of choice and get to know the candidate

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Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent. We help employers and recruiters with the challenges of finding creative talent. We evaluate millions of creative portfolios so you can target the right candidates.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with our free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

The Cost of Hiring

Congratulations, you’re hiring! Now it’s time to write the perfect job post, wade through scores of unqualified applicants and spend valuable time on in-person interviews with the wrong people. There are many different tools you can use to simplify the hiring process but they can be time-consuming and costly. How do you minimize the hassle and cost of hiring, and still ensure you’re choosing the right candidate in the end?

(Click on the image to enlarge)

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Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent. We help employers and recruiters with the challenges of finding creative talent. We evaluate millions of creative portfolios so you can target the right candidates.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with our free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

How To Recruit Passive Candidates Online

 

79% of working professionals around the world are considered passive candidates. The other 21% are actively seeking a new job. In which group do you think the better talent is?

LinkedIn’s research shows that on balance, passive candidates care disproportionately more or less about certain factors than their actively job-seeking counterparts. Through that research, five factors stand out as major points of differentiation. These factors have a bearing on how you might approach passive candidates.

Passive vs active candidates takeaways:

• Passive talent are 120% more likely to want to make an impact
• 56% are more likely to want a corporate culture that fits to their personality
• Passive candidates are 33% more likely to want challenging work
• Passive talent is also less needy, 17% less likely to need skill development and 21% less likely to need recognition

3 tips to passive talent recruitment success:

• Leverage your entire team to find the right talent. Good employees know good people who could be a strong culture fit.
• Start the conversation right by being targeted and personal. Emphasize impact over skill-laden job descriptions.
• Listen. Invite candidates to talk about themselves, uncover their needs and motivations, and keep detailed notes at every touch point.

 

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Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent. We help employers and recruiters with the challenges of finding creative talent. We evaluate millions of creative portfolios so you can target the right candidates.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with our free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

How to Use Social Media as a Recruiting Tool

Recruiting quality staff is no longer a matter of placing an ad in the newspaper and then wading through a mountain of (horror of horrors) paper resumés. Today’s tech-savvy candidates expect to find jobs the same way they do much of their social interacting – online.

Smart recruiters are going with the flow, using all manner of techniques and media to find and reel in the candidates they need. In this four part series, we’re taking a look at how recruiting works in the online world.

First up: the place of social networking in business recruiting.

Jennifer Ricci, vice president of employee experience at Toronto-based Kobo Inc., knows the value of social networking in recruiting only too well. She was recruited for her previous job purely because of her LinkedIn profile; no resumé was provided or requested. Today, social media is a key component of her recruiting strategy.

“To segment and attract the attention of qualified talent to your organization you need to get in front of them with your value proposition,” she says. “More than likely, the most desired candidates are not searching job boards or reading job ads. They are networking with their colleagues, reading industry news and contributing to online industry discussions. Social media is the vehicle by which we can reach the top tier candidates by influencing them through their trusted networks.”

Those trusted networks usually include Facebook and Twitter as well as the aforementioned LinkedIn, and a lot of companies are taking advantage of them to promote their openings. Prove it to yourself by, for example, doing a Twitter search for hashtags such as “#jobs” and “#career”; dozens of opportunities will pop up.

For Ian Buck, vice president of High Road Communications, using social media was a no-brainer. “It really wasn’t much of a decision for us because everything we do in our work life – for our clients and for our own company – goes through the social media filter and recruitment is a natural fit.”

Both Kobo and High Road also promote openings on their company blogs, and encourage staff to do so on their personal social networks. Ms. Ricci points out, “We believe that employees who are referred by their friends are easier to assimilate to the organization and retain.” And that goes for all positions – even if an employee is not, for example, a software developer, he or she may have developers in personal networks.

Adds Mr. Buck, “Who isn’t out there on some social network or another? We like to use social media tools for all positions because it’s an effective way to spread the word and get a quick response to postings no matter what level.”

High Road also puts its own playful spin on good old fashioned person-to-person networking. At the 2010 Mesh Marketing conference, the company sent in a recruiting ninja, who somersaulted around the halls stealthily setting his sights on Digital Ninja recruits and handing them High Road branded Ninja Stars. It worked, according to Mr. Buck, resulting in what he calls “an amazing hire we never would have achieved via career websites.”

Applicant quality from social media leads tends to be higher, notes Ms. Ricci. “Social media allows us to target and deliver almost a custom value proposition message to each talent segment. Often job boards flood a lot of quantity and it takes a lot of resources and hours to sort through to find the quality. Who has the time?”

Mr. Buck agrees. “We’ve found that social media actually gets a much higher quality of applicant versus job boards and career websites,” he says. “By starting with our own network and that of our employees, it’s a quick way of attracting candidates with the right skills, experience and background. Even a three- or four-times removed connection on a social network is already a better qualified lead in general.”

Checking applicant credentials is easier too. High Road checks all of the major social networks and search engines for information on candidates and, perhaps most importantly, connections to current employees who can provide a sense of the candidate and whether he or she would fit in. Kobo, too, looks for connections to its staff and partners, as well as additional information about publications or other extracurricular activities that round out their picture of the potential employee.

One huge plus to social networking as a recruitment tool is its low cost, which makes it ideal for a small business. Ms. Ricci advises small businesses to define their own value proposition before attempting to recruit via social media, and to try to align with their consumer brand. “Social Media is viral and you don’t have a lot of control over the message once it goes out so the clearer you are the better,” she says. “The process of recruiting talent and customers can feed off of each other – driving both candidates and sales to your organization through word of mouth.”

“The only concern for a small business would be ensuring there’s a healthy starting network to kick things off; the smaller the starting network, the harder it is to drive scale,” adds Mr. Buck. “That said, the low barrier to entry means that no matter how many followers or friends you might have, it’s always worth putting it out there.”

And, added bonus, unsuccessful candidates can be added to your network so they’re part of the talent pool for future opportunities.

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Guest post by Lynn Greiner.

Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent. We help employers and recruiters with the challenges of finding creative talent. We evaluate millions of creative portfolios so you can target the right candidates.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with our free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

10 Tips to Get Hired at an Ad Agency

There are some obvious and not so obvious things you can do to get a leg up on the competition when you are searching for a new job in an advertising agency. I’ve pulled together some of the most important tips and insights for your reading pleasure.

Make a serious effort with each application. Tailor your cover letter and resume to match the role that you are applying for.

1. KNOW THE AGENCY’S WORK
There’s a certain amount of sleuthing that you should undertake before sitting down to your first interview. Research the agency that you’ll be interviewing at. Who are their clients? What sort of work has the agency done? Have they won awards? Which ones and when? Knowing this will show that you are interested, informed, and passionate – it could also quite possibly give you a leg-up on the competition.

2. TAILOR EACH COVER LETTER & RESUME
Make a serious effort with each application. Tailor your cover letter and resume to match the role that you are applying for. Use the agency’s name in your cover letter body copy. Tell them why you want to work for them, what you like about the agency, and why you feel you would be the perfect fit. Be sure to include relevant experience on your resume, and get rid of any superfluous content that doesn’t apply.

3. HAVE AN UP-TO-DATE PORTFOLIO ONLINE
Jennifer Kim, Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist at Blast Radius, Toronto shares this advice for those applying for a creative role:

“A portfolio will speak volumes over anything else. It will showcase your abilities infinitely better than just a resume or CV alone. When we hire for any creative position, we always ask for a link to a candidate’s online portfolio. If you want a job in digital, you need to know digital. If you are just starting out and don’t have much work experience, even a portfolio which showcases personal projects/work is a good way to show off your potential. Just make sure you don’t put work that you are not proud of or work that doesn’t showcase your skills in the best light just to fill your portfolio… better to have a portfolio with a few pieces of great work, rather than a portfolio filled with mediocre work.”

4. CLEAN UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACT
It’s 2012. Don’t be surprised if the first thing people do is Google you when you apply for a job. If there are photos of you dressed in some freaky Halloween costume, after one too many beer bong hits scattered all over the internet, it might be time to clean up your social media act.

GOOGLE: Find out what shows up when someone Googles you. Have your friends do a search for you as well because Google tailors results based on your previous searches.

FACEBOOK: Update your Facebook security settings. Only share things with your approved friends list, and never post anything that you wouldn’t want your mom to see.

TWITTER: Don’t tweet anything that could come back to haunt you. If you can’t control your potty mouth, then lock your account and only allow approved people to follow you.

LINKEDIN: Every day, thousands of recruiters and HR professionals cruise LinkedIn, looking for potential candidates. If your page isn’t updated, professional and accessible, you could be missing out. Fill in all of your experience, request endorsements from colleagues, and keep it current.

5. APPLY. APPLY. APPLY.
Don’t rely on trying to find somebody who knows somebody to get you an “in”. You need to take the first step and submit your application according to the agency’s process. Go online, fill out an application, or submit your resume and links to your portfolio. Get into their system, and then you can start working your contacts and your networks.

6. GO WHERE THE JOBS ARE
If you live in a province or town that doesn’t have a lot of advertising agencies, you might have to consider moving. The greater the number of agencies, the greater the number of job openings. Having variety will also lend itself to the ability to pick and choose, instead of desperately scramble for a job.

Start a blog, share your creative inspirations on Twitter, sign-up for industry publications, attend advertising events, and don’t ever give up on finding your dream job.

There are 2,928 advertising agencies in Canada. Give or take. The provincial breakdown is as follows:

• 1,477 Ontario
• 670 Quebec
• 330 British Columbia
• 220 Alberta
• 61 Saskatchewan
• 59 Manitoba
• 46 Nova Scotia
• 27 New Brunswick
• 22 Newfoundland & Labrador
• 12 PEI
• 2 Yukon Territory
• 2 Northwest Territories

7. VOLUNTEER
In most cities where there are advertising agencies, there are advertising associations. Find your local association and offer to volunteer. See what sort of programs they have and find something that interests you. Volunteering will help you to make new connections and expand your industry social circle.

8. NETWORK
Research and attend any industry networking events. Bookmark the local associations, find the Meet Ups, join the Facebook pages, follow industry Twitter accounts, and watch your social calendar fill up. Meet as many people as you can.

9. SCHEDULE INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEWS
Schedule “Informational Interviews” with people you meet while networking – or request them from various advertising agencies. Remember, they are not job interviews, but rather an opportunity to speak to professionals in the field to help determine which companies or work environment is the right fit for you.

10. BE PASSIONATE
Do you love what you do? Then show it! Start a blog, share your creative inspirations on Twitter, sign-up for industry publications, attend advertising events, and don’t ever give up on finding your dream job.

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Guest post by Jennifer Wallis.

Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with the free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

The Fight is On: Dribbble vs. Behance

The battle is open. It’s time to compare two of the most important design social networks on the cloud, Dribbble & Behance. While Dribbble is getting all the fame these days, Behance is growing uncontrollably more discreetly. So, I thought, why not comparing them in a proper way and showcasing the pros and cons of each one? That’s the article about. Let’s start, looking at the best things of each website, and then we will get into the cons, and telling how could they improve these things.

Dribbble is show and tell for designers.

Showcase and discover the latest work from top online portfolios by creative professionals across industries.

In terms of design, I must assume that Dribbble’s design is too basic and generic compared to Behance’s, which is very modern due to the last redesign finished a few months ago. Although Dribbble’s not that good, it’s really easy to use, and there’s no need to learn how to use this site. On the contrary, Behance is a little harder to use, so I will give this point to Dribbble, although the design is not as good.

Well, next think we should talk about is fields envolved on each website. Dribbble, basically accepts all related with Graphic Design, like illustrations, icons, interfaces, websites, logos, prints… even 3D Designs and renders. Behance, in return, is open to all kind of designs, such as drawings, photographs, architecture, and a ton of other design related things. Is true that if what we’re looking for is graphic design, we must go to Dribbble, but if what you’re looking for is inspiration, Behance is your choice. In my opinion, the second one offers a wider field of design. This point goes to Behance.

What happens when we want to share our work? That’s the main idea of both websites, so let’s take a look at what do they offer, and how to they offer it. Dribbble’s system is very basic: you upload a 400×300 shot (120.000 pixels), the community watches it, they like and give feedback if they want to. Simple. This system is oriented to receive a lot of feedback from other designers, rather than using it as a personal portfolio, which is the main idea of our second competitor. In Behance, they really want to showcase your work in a proper way, that’s why they invented Prosite™. What would you say if I can offer you an easy way to update your portfolio while you upload your designs to the social network, but it’s also displayed in a cool way? Seriously, this is people is really smart. The problem I’ve found on this website is the mass saturation of people uploading work. While every shot uploaded to Dribbble is soon watched by more than +1000 people, in Behance is hard to get your work visited by other people. Let’s jump into the next step.

In both websites, there’s an specific moment that decides the success or the failure of your design. When you publish it. People often check the new page for designs recently uploaded, and it’s the moment when you should get it promoted. If you don’t take advantage of this moment, I’m sure it won’t get any likes. Why am I telling you that? Because this system works on both websites. It’s a con against both sites. I think there should be another way to get your design featured for more time, because a lot of designs which aren’t promoted by the creator on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks won’t get any likes although they are extremely good. In this case, I may vote for Dribbble, because there aren’t so many people uploading designs, so it gets featured more time than in Behance, but it also gets forgotten faster than in Behance. Have you tried to find something on any of these sites?  Unless it’s one of the most famous designs, or it’s a unique one, it will be impossible for you to find what you’re searching for. That’s another problem happening in both websites. I’m here to talk about good things and bad things, sorry.

If you want to get clients and work, you should frequently use both sites, and share your work the best way possible. But always remember to not merge your work with social networks, or soon you will find yourself wasting your time wanting to get a like on your new design rather than finishing your clients’ projects. It happened to me more than once, and I hope you to not have the same problem.

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Guest post by Daniel Aláez.

Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with the free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

The “Do’s and Don’ts” When Contacting Designers

I receive quite a few messages from potential clients interested in working with me. And most of them do a horrible job of making me want to work on their project. I realize it can be hard to know what to say in that first message, so here’s a quick guide to help you approach a designer.

 

Introducing yourself

• Do use your real name. If the email comes from “1337haxorz@gmail.com” I’m not going to take it seriously.
• Do mention your company’s name, or any additional details that might make me want to work with you.
• Do tell me how you heard about me. It’s always useful to know how my clients found me.
• Do mention a specific project of mine that you like, if there’s one. It helps to know that you’re not just sending the same message to 50 other designers.
• Don’t make too many typos or grammatical mistakes. If english is not your first language (and by the way, it’s not mine either), say simpler things or have someone else proof-read your message.

Your project

• Do explain your project in enough detail. Just pretend I’m a potential investor and you’re trying to convince me to invest in it. After all, even though you’re paying me I’ll still be investing my time.
• Do explain who it’s for and why you’re doing it. There’s a big difference between “we’re building a social network” and “we’re building a social network to help pharmaceutical companies streamline the testing process for new drugs”, even if both descriptions are technically correct.
• Do tell me your project’s scope before asking me if I’m available. I might be available for a quick teaser site, but not for designing a whole social network.
• Do understand that just like developers, designers have their specialities too. Don’t expect a single person to do your app’s logo, icon, UI, stationery, and design employee uniforms as well.

Budget and estimates

• Don’t ask for an estimate unless you’re giving me enough details to make one. I can’t count how many times I’ve received messages asking me “how much would it cost to design a website?”.
• Do ask me for my hourly rate instead.
• Do ask me how much one of my previous project cost. There’s no wild guess involved, and you’ll get a good idea of my price range.
• Don’t ask for a discount. If you don’t have enough money, just scale back on your requirements until you can afford me (or find someone cheaper).

And the most important…

• Do answer back even if you don’t want to (or can’t) work with me anymore. You never know, you might need my services in the future, so you might as well end things on a polite note.

I would estimate that about 1 in 10 emails I receive meet these criteria. So just by doing these simple things, you can dramatically increase your chances of getting a good designer to work on your project.

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Guest post by Sacha Greif.

Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with the free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

You’re Hiring the Wrong Designer

What do you think of when you imagine the designer you’re going to hire for your company? Smart, creative, experienced, fast, risk taker, hard worker, obsessed, pixel perfect, great portfolio, codes too? Well, whatever it is, I can guarantee you’re imagining it wrong. It’s ok, everyone does it. Hiring a designer, without being a designer, is difficult.

Ok great, so it’s time to find your designer. What’s the first thing you do? Devour Dribbble? Hunt Behance? There are so many designers out there right now it’s insane. All types of skill sets. There area designers charging top dollar with little or no experiences. Then you even get these designers that call themselves “Product Designers” or “Visual Designers” and other trendy names. So how do you choose?

When looking for your new designer, don’t settle for a half baked pixel junky. If you do, you’ll have to hire 2 or 3 designers instead of just the 1. I guarantee your company has done this in the past. Mainly because you are in a rush to hire or you simply didn’t look for the right things when hiring your designer. It’s ok, I’m going to get you out of this jam.

The key to it all…hire a creative designer. They don’t have to be a genius at math or have read the latest book trends, but you do want someone that could pitch you the wildest movie in a matter of seconds. Someone whose mind is nearly uncontrollable (in a good way.) Someone that can design and think at powerful levels. Someone that can take an almost square 300×250 banner ad and turn it into a circle, thinking “INSIDE THE BOX.” Making things work with limited space. A creative problem solver. They key here is to hire a natural creative. Not a box artist.

To find the right designer, here are just 5 things you can look for:

1. Is this designer dedicated to the most creative design possible? If yes, then 9 times out of 10 this designer spends most of his time in Photoshop and away from code. Hiring a designer that can code as well is tricky. Normally, they’re both ok at design and ok at code. It’s not always the case but there are some rare breeds out there, unfortunately, that’s only 1% of them. You want to find someone that focuses on one skill set, and one skill set alone. You can hire any X-Twitter, Google or Facebook developer to do the code. Let your designer design. Coders code. If not, you’re doing it wrong.

2. Can this designer work creatively with unique user interfaces?Does this designer only make pretty boxes? Do they crave on pixel perfection? Is their portfolio filled with the same work, just different colors and placement? If so…probably not the hire you’re looking for. You want to find a designer that has a clear style, yet can do any type of work needed. They should be able to maniuplate photos to create the craziest mind blowing scenes. They should be able to create realistic textures and objects in PS. Look for designers that make crazy interfaces, it’s always easy to dial them back. It’s harder to make someone that can only create simple interfaces dial it up. Don’t forget that.

3. Can this designer creatively solve big user experience problems?For instance, are all of their iPhone app concepts in their portfolio representing the same old bottom tab bar with icon/text or have they concepted something different, i.e. Path’s “+” menu.

4. Has this designer ever worked with branding creatively? Not necessarily creating one, but working with one. For example, working with Facebook and only being able to use a specific set of fonts and colors. This is important because some many websites today have 1000’s of inconsistencies. You need a designer that knows how to keep things tamed when needed.

5. Ask where they get there creative inspiration from. They’ll probably say sites like Dribbble, Behance or something like Awwwards. But you should hope they say other things like from the outdoors, traveling, surfing, driving, walking downtown and people watching – something besides the internet. Heck, even magazines (non-internet related). Stepping outside of the computer feeds our creatives brains.

Here’s a couple things to be weary of:

1. Watch out for titles. Product Designer, Interface Designer, UI/UX Designer, Visual Designer, Art Director, Creative Director…blah blah blah. We all hate titles, but when you’re in the market to hire – be sure to take note of what the designer calls themselves.

For instance, a Product Designer. If a designer calls themselves that they probably know their way around an interface. They’ve hopefully actually made a few products themselves and know how to design pretty much everything from GUI, UX and yes, even branding. If they can only do part of that, they are not a Product Designer. The start-up space is swarming with “Product Designers” who merely only do UX with a side of GUI. Usually never touching a brand or knowing how to build a product based on one. Developers are even calling themselves Product Designers these days, it’s a very miss-used term so be weary of it. It’s probably the latest trendy word to throw around in the office. To help filter through the title, just ask the designer why they call themeselves that, hoping that the first response will be something like “I’ve created a few products like…”

Now, here’s the important one, Visual Designer. This is a very vague term. In the “design world” being a “Visual Designer” purely means one that can design. So if you are only wanting someone that can design you a box, pop on a gradient and sell it to you saying that it’s awesome…you’re probably making the wrong hire. Of course, this all pertains to the individuals portfolio and past experiences. They could just be down playing their skill set. When I sort through potential hires, most Visual Designers are not the best problem solvers when it comes to difficult UI descisions. Also, no designer today in the tech world would really ever call themselves a “Visual Designer.” It’s almost like us calling ourselves “Graphic Designers.” It’s not always true, but usually. So again, be weary.

2. The used car salesman. Some where along the way companies/agencies thought they should only hire designers that can sell. This is a really bad practice. Sure, it helps if they can chat about their work but do you really want them to sell you something you don’t want, like a used car salesman would do? Don’t hire a designer just because they can talk. Don’t hire them because they give great pitches. Hire them because they are talented. Hire them because their work is like no other you’ve seen. Some of the best designers out there are the quietest because they are constantly thinking. My favorite creativedesigners of all time are listeners, not speakers.

Final Thoughts

There’s a term I throw around a lot, “buy nice or buy twice.” I get emails all the time from clients saying they had to fire their designer, who they cheaply hired to save some money or that just couldn’t get the job done, and now they’re in such desperate need of a good designer to redo the work and get them out of their jam. Sadly, these companies say they are design focused. A new trend in the tech world which is just being thrown around like a hot potato.

So guys, don’t settle for less. Spend some time and hire the creativedesigner you want and need. Hopefully these little tips will help you along the way.

And don’t forget, buy nice or buy twice.

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Guest post by Dann Petty.

Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with the free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

What Makes a Good Creative Director?

In the design career path, there are few greater achievements than a skilled designer or copywriter becoming a creative director. It’s a wonderful promotion. Unfortunately, creative people do not usually make good management. Finding the right mesh of talent and interpersonal skills is a very difficult task, which is why good creative directors have been revered — there are so few people who can be creative and manage creative.

I suppose this post should be prefaced with a disclaimer. I have worked in one agency, four in-house design groups, owned my own business and worked with dozens of creative directors as a freelancer. My personal anecdotes tend to originate from an in-house perspective, though good leadership traits are universal.

I’ve been thinking about what it takes to head a creative group — the experience, talent, managing ability and self-confidence. The qualities it takes to gain respect from the notoriously rebellious mindset of a creative.

Experience

Experience is probably the most common trait among creative directors (though not the most important) and encapsulates several key ingredients.

Design and copywriting experience, of course, is critical. Years of working in the trenches, testing ideas, failing, succeeding, winning awards and leaving empty-handed have built a foundation of practical design application. Experience teaches what works on a website, what helps an ad pull, what makes a brochure get read. Experience provides a second level of intuition — “yes, it looks good, but will it work?”

When a creative director has worked in the same company or the same sector for a number of years, that practicality becomes even more refined. There are CDs who excel at creating sizzling consumer campaigns because they have been in that game a long time. That same person would fail in the healthcare market, where another creative director has learned what helps sell pharmaceuticals to doctors. And both of them would fall short in a technical B2B market, where yet another creative director has learned how to make companies connect and market themselves to each other though better design.

Age is related to experience, but only in the language of maturity. Life experience is directly related to maturity, and maturity is critical in managing a team of creatives (AKA, a herd of cats). Two of my past creative directors were more than ten years older, and they are the two I remember as being the most adept.

Acting as the Director

Designers and copywriters have the potential to make terrible managers, but who better to lead the team than a former in-the-trenches creative? Most creative directors get promoted because of their skill, not because of their leadership qualities, but technical skill has little to do with guiding the communication output of an organization.

These are the bigger qualities CDs need to worry about:

• Being OK with the fact that the time to actually create — writing or designing — will be less than a fourth of a non-managing creative.
• Being able to provide constructive, specific and intelligible feedback about work.
• Understand the specific ying-yang balance of copy and design. Creative directors who favor one aspect over the other will earn the scorn of the neglected party.

The skills of creative director need to expand from the finite world of colors and grammar to include the over-arching marketing direction. Yes, this text is nicely kerned, but does the piece accurately represent the company’s brand? It’s the “director” part of creative director.

Managing Ability

I recently saw David C. Baker speak at a conference, and his topic was “Managing Creatives.” His presentation was excellent, but he made one (self admittedly) controversial claim: that creative teams do not need any special management treatment. In other words, they should be managed like any employee — accountants, mailroom workers, salespeople, etc.

This means that creative directors must be just as effective as any other manager in the company. Since most have no formal management training, this can be a difficult but critical obstacle.

Being an effective manager boils down to one baseline theme: do you enable your employees to work to their full potential? You can’t make people work hard, after all, especially the naturally contrary creative species. In my experience, creative directors fall short in their management roles by any combination of the following:

• They try to be their employees’ friend. If a manager counts any of their best friends as one of their employees, they have failed at their job.
• They do not delegate responsibility. Instead of trusting their workers to get stuff done, they hoard responsibility, skewing priorities and placing unneeded pressure on themselves.
• They don’t produce. Creative people need to be reminded that their manager can create good work too.
• They play God. Good creative directors understand that they are nothing more than middle managers, halfway up the ladder, and the buck certainly does not stop with them.
• They micro-manage.
• They fail in their basic management roles — not providing timely or thought-out reviews, not making “executive” decisions at critical times, poorly managing projects, not recognizing employees’ successes and not shielding their employees from the fickle and harsh temperaments of Upper Management.

Confidence and Security

Beyond the above, a good manager needs the intangibles: confidence and security. They understand and exude the fact that they control the creative output, work education, and general business comfort of their team and act as such. Which means being a grown-up: confident in making decisions but secure enough to take suggestions.

I am sure I am leaving major points out, so please contribute if you see a glaring omission.

– – –

Guest post by Kevin Potts.

Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with the free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.

How to Recruit Top Talent

Hiring and retaining the best talent is as tough as it’s ever been, with projections through 2012 indicating that, for the first time in U.S. history, the number of younger workers entering the labor market won’t be enough to replace those who are leaving. Despite this workforce trend, it’s still possible to attract more talent than your company needs. Consider Southwest Airlines, which, according to one company insider, recently received more than 50,000 applications for 500 available positions! Cultivating a company culture that attracts top talent, such as Southwest’s, is just one of five best practices the top 10 percent of U.S. companies have in common. And it’s a practice your company can adapt.

Try following these four tips for creating a desirable company culture:

1. Put your employees first. Researchers agree that the best way to hire and keep top talent is to create a company culture where the best employees want to work, a culture in which people are treated with respect and consideration at all times.A classic, big-business example of someone who used the power of respect is David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Packard always showed unfailing respect for everyone who worked for him. He defined the HP culture and positioned his company as an enduring preferred employer. He also exemplified the pacesetting leadership style by setting high performance standards for himself–and his employees followed suit.
2. Maximize your best employees. Although you may not be able to fill every position in your company even if you have a strong corporate culture, researchers say that one sure way to maximize your best employees is to place them in positions of great influence.For example, when unemployment in the Washington, DC, area dropped below 2 percent, David Grissen, Marriott International’s eastern region executive vice president, met with his managers and decided to focus the company’s hiring efforts on front desk employees because of the enormous impact they have on hotel guests. The resulting “Front and Center” hiring initiative brought together managers of every Marriott hotel in the region to improve the company’s recruiting, selection and orientation programs for front desk positions. Potential employees for these positions must now undergo a minimum of four interviews and achieve a high score on a standardized evaluation metric.
3. Stay involved and use emotional intelligence. Research indicates that one of the worst employment moves a small-business owner can make is disengaging from the hiring process. After all, it’s your culture, your company and your leadership–why allow someone else to make your hiring choices?

And when you’re in the process of hiring a new employee, remember to carefully assess your applicants’ emotional intelligence (EI) along with their intellectual capability. Research shows that an IQ assessment doesn’t predict job success nearly as accurately when used alone as it does when combined with assessments of the cognitive and social abilities that comprise someone’s emotional intelligence. An EI evaluation offers a strong indication of how well an applicant may fit into your organization.

Staying flexible is also important. If an employee you hire proves to be a good fit for your company but not for the specific position filled, try moving them to another position that capitalizes on their strengths and experience. Employees who are a good fit organizationally can be hard to find.

While there’s no guarantee that putting your employees first, maximizing your best workers, staying involved and assessing emotional intelligence during the hiring process will fill every open position in your company, solid research of the top 10 percent of U.S. companies clearly indicates that it’s the most successful way to go.

ts top talent, such as Southwest’s, is just one of five best practices the top 10 percent of U.S. companies have in common. And it’s a practice your company can adapt.

Try following these four tips for creating a desirable company culture:

1. Put your employees first. Researchers agree that the best way to hire and keep top talent is to create a company culture where the best employees want to work, a culture in which people are treated with respect and consideration at all times.A classic, big-business example of someone who used the power of respect is David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Packard always showed unfailing respect for everyone who worked for him. He defined the HP culture and positioned his company as an enduring preferred employer. He also exemplified the pacesetting leadership style by setting high performance standards for himself–and his employees followed suit.
2.  Maximize your best employees. Although you may not be able to fill every position in your company even if you have a strong corporate culture, researchers say that one sure way to maximize your best employees is to place them in positions of great influence.For example, when unemployment in the Washington, DC, area dropped below 2 percent, David Grissen, Marriott International’s eastern region executive vice president, met with his managers and decided to focus the company’s hiring efforts on front desk employees because of the enormous impact they have on hotel guests. The resulting “Front and Center” hiring initiative brought together managers of every Marriott hotel in the region to improve the company’s recruiting, selection and orientation programs for front desk positions. Potential employees for these positions must now undergo a minimum of four interviews and achieve a high score on a standardized evaluation metric.
3.  Stay involved and use emotional intelligence. Research indicates that one of the worst employment moves a small-business owner can make is disengaging from the hiring process. After all, it’s your culture, your company and your leadership–why allow someone else to make your hiring choices?

And when you’re in the process of hiring a new employee, remember to carefully assess your applicants’ emotional intelligence (EI) along with their intellectual capability. Research shows that an IQ assessment doesn’t predict job success nearly as accurately when used alone as it does when combined with assessments of the cognitive and social abilities that comprise someone’s emotional intelligence. An EI evaluation offers a strong indication of how well an applicant may fit into your organization.

Staying flexible is also important. If an employee you hire proves to be a good fit for your company but not for the specific position filled, try moving them to another position that capitalizes on their strengths and experience. Employees who are a good fit organizationally can be hard to find.

While there’s no guarantee that putting your employees first, maximizing your best workers, staying involved and assessing emotional intelligence during the hiring process will fill every open position in your company, solid research of the top 10 percent of U.S. companies clearly indicates that it’s the most successful way to go.

– – –

Needle is a platform for hiring creative talent.

From web designers to UI/UX professoinals, the platform has a searchable database of more than 500,000 creative profiles filled with portfolios, work history, and personality profiles. Fill your creative position with the free beta today!

Visit needlehr.com for more information.