Finding work as a creative can be challenging. What exactly are prospective clients looking for? How should a portfolio be positioned to demonstrate that you are capable of addressing a client’s needs? How do you know which pieces to include, and what formats and platforms should be used? Below are some tips, tricks, and tools to keep in mind as you create your portfolio, because finding work as a creative can be challenging...but it doesn’t have to be.

Each year, professionals and companies alike spend time closing out and reflecting upon the previous year and kicking off the next one. It’s a time for reflection and renewal, candor and celebration, learning and planning. And at no time was this truer than within our own organization during the past two months.

So, you say you’re a talented developer with experience in Angular, React, Node, and other hot technologies. And you’ve got a pretty strong resume that talks about your recent projects. While that’s all great, there’s one piece of advice that we offer to every developer seeking a great new position with a top tech company: take advantage of the amazing online development platforms to create a profile where you can SHOW examples of the work you have done.

When you think about trends in the marketplace, one of the most critical ones we’re seeing on the creative front is that healthcare companies – including everything from walk-in clinics to hospitals to health insurance companies - are doing a lot of hiring for user experience design. Up until recently, many of these organizations weren’t extremely concerned with the end user; just keeping up with HIPAA compliance and moving from a paper to a digital experience was challenging enough without adding this additional layer of design complexity. Getting healthcare professionals on board with the digital experience and getting patients “in and out” was of primary importance.

Do you have a little beach time coming up? Maybe a few flights scheduled? What a great time to catch up on your reading! With that in mind, we’ve got some fantastic suggestions for you from our diverse team of leaders and subject matter experts, including top notch business books, suspenseful novels and uplifting biographies. Check these out and let us know if you have other suggestions or thoughts about the ones below. Happy reading!

For years, companies have talked about and measured IT performance metrics. In fact, in a previous blog post entitled “How do you measure your IT department’s performance?” we highlighted the fact that in a 2014 study from Continuity Software, only 56% of respondents said that they were tracking software performance, and of those, a much smaller number had invested in analytical tools to help them measure their performance.

“How do we attract, hire and retain great talent – especially those Millennials?”

The ability to win the war for talent is based on a variety of factors, including:

The powerful combo of old school social skills AND technology

So 2016 was an interesting year for sure and it had its share of ups and downs. The world lost some extremely talented people this year and here in the states, we experienced a very contentious political race. But there have also been some bright spots, especially as it relates to the job market; unemployment rates have continued to lower and companies have recommitted to hiring great talent, both on a permanent and a contract basis, which of course is music to our ears! We’ve also seen the rise of a more data-driven, customer-centric approach to driving business results, with rising demand in agile methods and practices as well as within the creative services space.

If you are a current or former college athlete, you know that one of the critical keys to success is managing your time wisely and learning how to prioritize your schedule; the balance between your academics and athletics can be tricky to manage but it’s certainly a great introduction to time management that becomes so important when you start down your career path.

“Fear is the path to the dark side,” said Yoda in The Phantom Menace. If you’re in the market for a new career opportunity, do you fear the anticipated pre-holiday hiring slow-down? Well, then you are likely missing out. So, instead of hiding behind that Darth Vader mask, consider this advice from our Corporate Recruiter, Mark Paolini. In the following interview, Mark answers your top questions about seasonal - and particularly end-of-year -  job searches:

There is no question that having a mentor and/or becoming a mentor benefits everyone involved: the mentee, the mentor and the company. In this post, we will review some of the benefits on both sides, as well as some key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you to evaluate the strength of your mentoring program.

In part 1 of our series on Millennials in the workplace, Alison Guillaume shared some important career tips for employees who are just starting their careers. In this next post, Kaila Orn offers her insights about what Millennials need from their GenX and Baby Boomer colleagues to thrive in the work environment:

Millennials. The generation of lazy, narcissistic, self-righteous, participation trophy-toters. As one of those very Millennials, I can attest to the bad rep that we have. Gen X co-workers don’t know how to work with us and our Baby Boomer bosses struggle to understand how to connect with us. As of 2015, Pew Research Center declared that Millennials now occupy the largest share of workers in the American workforce. We realize there’s often a disconnection between the generations in the workplace so I’d like to help shed some light on what we need in order to thrive.

Welcome to our blog series, The Rise of the Millennial Employee! There's a lot of talk out there about Millennials who are entering the workforce in droves. And we believe there is much to be learned on both sides of the fence; Millennials have many great insights to offer their GenX and Baby Boomer colleagues and these experienced co-workers have career tips and advice to share. That's why we have brought together Alison Guillaume, our Resource Specialist Program Manager, and Kaila Orn, an Eliassen Group Consultant Liaison, to share their individual perspectives. Alison kicks things off with this piece on building your personal brand: