Just graduated? Here's my story and some tips to help you find a job.

It's coming round to that time of year again when thousands of graduates will be flashing their student card for the last time, packing up their student flat and getting all set to start their 'grown up job'. When I graduated two years ago I thought this would be as easy as sitting down at a computer, firing off a couple of CV's and waiting for the acceptance letters to pour in...because I got a 1st so that means everyone will want to hire me? Sorry, but I learned through experience that that's definitely not the case!

Here's how it went for me...

A couple of days before my actual graduation ceremony I started an unpaid 3 month internship at the Scottish Youth Theatre working on their new website. Obviously  the downside was that it was unpaid, but it was great experience and there wasn't anything else on the horizon (having had a couple of rejection letters from other full-time jobs) so I grabbed at the chance to work at such a well known organisation. 

After that finished in September, I spent a couple of weeks searching and applying for jobs - pretty much anything in Scotland with 'design' or 'marketing' in the title. I didn't have enough experience (most were looking for about 2-4 years) so this meant that I either received rejection letters or no reply at all. This meant I had to do the inevitable and sign onto Job seekers - Excuse my language, but I have to say this was pretty shit. I'm not going to go on about this (because I could write a book) and maybe not all advisors / centres are the same but they really didn't have a clue about helping someone look for a job actually relevant to their degree, that they've spent 4 years studying for - and were pretty keen on making you apply for any job you could feasibly do.

I landed my next job through no help from the Job Centre, my Papa actually spotted an advert in the local paper for the 'South Lanarkshire council Graduate programme' advertising various roles and that's how I ended up on a 9 month Graduate placement as 'Marketing and Media' graduate at Routes to Work South. Once again, not a full time position (but thankfully paid this time) which again was fantastic experience and without it I could no way be in my current role at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games working on social media within the Digital Team. 

What I'm pretty much saying is, don't be disheartened if you can't get a brilliantly paid, full time job right away...you might need to do a few shorter (possibly unpaid) roles to get the experience and build your skills to help you land a better job in the future.  

Some tips...

Get your CV up to scratch
Probably the most obvious but to most potential employers you're a piece of paper, so you need to do your best to present yourself, your skills & experience on 2 sides of an A4! Also work on your covering letter skills and make sure you actually tailor it to each role you apply for. Good advice here.

Populate your Linkedin profile 
Any potential employer is undoubtedly going to look you up online - so make sure they like what they see! Keep your Linkedin profile up to date with all your relevant information, actually fill in all the available fields and build a network by connecting with students/friends/lecturers...

Set up Indeed.co.uk email alerts
One of the most useful tools I found when searching for a job was automatic email alerts from Indeed.co.uk. You can input job keywords & locations to receive an email listing new relevant job vacancies, every morning if you like! Go to: Register > My indeed > alerts. (They also have an app now)

Check out Creative Scotland Opportunities
If you're in the creative industry then check out the Opportunities section of Creative Scotland which lists loads of types of opportunities from jobs to workshops. I found my internship at the Scottish Youth Theatre there!

Check out TalentScotland graduate placements
Their graduate placements are from 3-12 months and give you a chance to work with an established business or social enterprise - great experience! See what's currently on offer.

Get some experience
If you need to build up your portfolio, or real-life experience then check out sites like Gumtree where people will advertise jobs they need doing. This could be anything from designing a logo to building a fence. It might not be well paid, or it might be voluntary but if you've got nothing else to do it will help to make you more attractive to an employer! 

Get some business cards
You never know who you might bump into on the street so you should get some Business / contact cards made up. They don't need to be anything majorly fancy - just your relevant contact details and links to your Linkedin, blog, website...

Start a blog 
A good idea to keep your creative juices flowing while you're looking for a job is to start a blog or other type of place online where you can collate your thoughts/showcase your talents. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. If you're in finance you could write a blog about your views on current financial matters. If you're a designer then create Pinterest boards showing off your style. If you're musically inclined get a MySpace page up! (I hear that's cool again?) 

Get Networking
Meet some like-minded people though:
Networking groups - Glasgow Young Professionals, JCI - Junior Commerce International 
Networking events - New Media Breakfast ,  Communications Breakfast ,  Be Good Be Social

Stay positive! 
Everyone loves a good Brie, but trying not to be too cheesy  - the saying 'whats fir ye wont go buy ye' really does come into play here and just because you've been turned down 100 times, had no replies or can't see any suitable jobs RIGHT NOW doesn't mean ones not going to pop up next time you hit F5. 


What was your graduate experience like (or currently like)? Comment below!


Thanks for reading! Melissa.

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Improve productivity & well-being in the digital work place!

Working in the creative/digital industry in this day and age probably means that you spend quite a lot of your time sitting at a computer, tapping away on a phone or swiping on a tablet - at work and during your free time. Almost gone are the days when you'd get out and about for a meeting at work, or go out for a meal at the weekend without instragramming your macaroni cheese. Nowadays emails, calls, video chats, social networking and instant messaging have taken over. Most people probably find that once they've finished work and have plonked themselves down on the train home they head straight to their personal Facebook/Twitter/MyCatster to check out the latest happenings - I'm definitely guilty of this!

While we were at risk of getting 'square eyes' from watching too much TV when we were younger I wonder if we're now as risk of getting '1136-by-640px eyes'...or stylus shaped thumbs - eek!

In the office I tend to find it hard sitting in the one place for hours on end, unless I really am 'in the zone' when I don't notice time going by. This harks back to uni days when I could sit on Photoshop for hours working on a project and look up about 4 hours later and think 'Jeesh, is that the time?!'  

Thinking about the points above, I've been chastising myself recently for spending too much time online and have found myself making rash resolutions to delete my Facebook profile, chuck my laptop out the window and go live in a organic tree village........only to want to want to pronounce my new-found philosophy to the world via a tweet (dangit!)

Whilst I might not be changing my name to Sun-Beam Daisy-Love any time soon I've started trying to do a few things to save my retinas and general sanity which you 'digital folks' can do as well to help break up your working day, improve your general 'office health' and even increase your productivity. Some of them might be obvious but a few are definitely useful...


Stay healthy 9 till 5...

Sit up straight - It's the age old piece of advice but it really will make a difference to your back if you sit with your back against the back of your chair with your feet on the ground....not to mention stopping you having a posture akin to Golum in later life. 

H2OH! - Drink plenty of water throughout the day but if you have a big bottle only fill it up partly as this will give you an excuse to get up, stretch your legs and re-fill. 

Twinkle toes - Rock your feet back and forth (toe to heel), move up and down as if you're walking to keep your circulation going. 

Step away from the screen - Sometimes it might be hard but try to take lunch break and get out and about. Even if you eat your lunch at your desk then try to take a 10 minute walk around, or just go for a mosey around your office. 

Snack time - As well as having a proper breakfast try and have some healthy snacks throughout the day - things like fruit, yoghurt, nuts. 

Take a break - Try and take time away from screens. On the train home try reading a book or just listening to some music for a while. Turn off your phone an hour or so before bed so you're not lying reading tweets right before getting some shut eye. 

Improve productivity...

Get it out the way - If there's something on your mind that you want to do online, like buy THAT pair of shoes, or get tickets to the gig that have just went on sale then you're best to do it in the morning before starting your actual work. This way it gets it off your mind and will allow you to focus your attention on your work. 

Make lists - I have to say, I love a good list. I normally have a big 'weekly' to do list, and then each morning I split that into things I 'want to do today'. Doing this allows you to have a clear view of what you need to achieve each day and will help you prioritise tasks. It's a good idea to create a list for the week ahead on a Friday before 5pm - meaning you can come in on Monday morning and know what you have to do right away instead of trying to clear away the weekend cobwebs and trying to remember where you left off...

Reward yourself - Another good thing about making lists (above) is that you can reward yourself when you complete a task. This can be anything from getting can of juice to listening to a song...all these wee things will make you feel a sense of achievement and a feeling of "Right!, what's next?"

Keep all your ideas - Sometimes ideas for work or other projects can hit you at the most random times - just nodding off, getting your lunch, walking the dog...It's a good idea to have somewhere to keep these ideas which is more substantial than a piece of paper so I usually send myself quick emails with a couple of lines of text. You can also use the 'notes' or 'memo' feature on your phone to jot down thoughts quickly. 

Do you have any other tips for improving productivity or working tips in general - comment below!

Thanks for reading, Melissa x

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Using Facebook for business: Top 10 tips

Original article written for Lanark.co.uk

Facebook has taken the world by storm over the past few years and currently has a staggering one billion active members and over 40 million pages – four million of these are estimated to belong to businesses.

That’s a heck of a lot of potential customers and is one of the reasons that everyone from McDonalds to your local Butcher has probably set up a page for their business - or is thinking about it.

There are many reasons to set up a Facebook page for your business, but you shouldn't just do it because everyone else is and you think you should too.

All business owners will have objectives they want to achieve to influence the success of their business: Restaurateurs want to encourage people to dine with them; online companies want to drive traffic to their website and stores want to get people talking about their brand – having an online presence such as a Facebook page can help you achieve these goals.

Having a website is essential too, but in this day and age it’s not enough to just stick up a web page and hope that people stumble across it online – nowadays people want to be engaged and interact with you and your brand.

If you’re in the position that you’d like to set up a page for your business, but you don’t know your tagging from your poking then don’t fret – there is some great advice online about setting up your page online, and if you read on you’ll find some top tips for getting you started.

Facebook for Business: Top Tips!

1. Information is key
Head here  https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/ and pick what type of business you are.
When you set up your page make sure you fill in all the information fields with the relevant data, like your phone number, address and website - This will make it easy for your customers to find you and also allow people to ‘check-in’ if you have a physical location they can visit.
Once you get to 30 ‘likes’ you’ll be able to customise the URL of your page to something like http://www.facebook.com/mybusinessname instead of the numbers and letters gobble-de-gook.

2. Looking good

Once you’ve got the basic information sorted you need to make your page look good. You need a square image for your profile picture – your logo would work well here. You can also have a ‘cover image’ at the top – nice, visual, high quality images work best here. Check out this guide for the sizes of these images.

3. Facebook Features
Explore and make use of Facebook's features. Create events for special occasions, limited deals, offers, events in your business and invite people to them. Make use of milestones to populate your timeline with important and interesting dates from your businesses history. Also try out ‘pinning’ and ‘highlighting’ images on your timeline.

4. Advertising
If you’ve got some budget you can try out creating an advert on Facebook to promote your page, or specific posts from your timeline. You have a lot of options for targeting certain people and setting a desired budget so definitely think about it if you want to grow the size of your page fairly quickly.

5. Lay by the law
If you’ve got a personal Facebook page you’ve no doubt seen (and probably entered) one of these ‘Share to win’ and ‘like and comment’ to win competitions...these are actually illegal and although many pages do them, Facebook is starting to clamp down and if you’re caught your page can be shut down. Check out the Rules – Part E (you’ve been warned!)

6.  Gift of the gab
You want to be as responsive as possible on your page, and use a friendly tone of voice. People like to talk to someone who seems human! Try to respond to all comments and private messages and remember to @mention someone by name when replying and it will notify them you’ve responded.

7. Plan it out

Your posts will reach more people if you’re consistent in your posting. It helps to create a weekly plan to think about what you could do throughout the week - to start off about four main posts a week is good and you should try not to post before 11am.  Everyone will be different though and there are no set rules, it will be through trial and error that you’ll learn what days and times are best for posting and getting interaction from people.

8. Mix it up
It also helps to have a range of types of content to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible. Text based posts are Facebook’s favourite and these achieve the highest reach (are shown on most people’s newsfeeds). Photos get the most engagement and are shared the most. Links can be informative and videos can also be popular if the content is appealing.

9. Have a goal in mind
Always keep in mind your goal; what do you want people to do – come in to your shop? Eat at your restaurant? Visit your website? Hire you for a service?  Use your goal to form your key messages and write CTA’s (call to actions) in your posts such as ‘visit us now for...’ ‘Come in to get 10% off....’ ‘Call us now for...’ ‘Check out our new....’

10. Branch out
Facebook isn’t the only social network that could work for your business – there are many out there that can work really well for certain industries. Clothing retailers and Foodies/Restaurants should definitely check out Pinterest and Instagram for some visual marketing.

Thanks for reading.

Do you have any tips for using Facebook for business? Comment below!

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Ready, Steady......Draw!

Throughout my time at University, I found that although we worked on a fair amount of creative projects, few of them produced work that was suitable to include in a portfolio. They were either not visual enough or mainly essay based......or just plain cringe-worthy when I look back at them now (some efforts from 1st year are stuffed firmly down the back of my sofa) 


Seeking out a way to build my portfolio, I began to scour the internet looking for design competitions. I quickly caught the bug and to date have entered about 20 (although my friend's will say it's more like 2,000) and have been lucky winning a couple, you can check out some of my entries at the bottom of this post if you fancy. Just to clarify, I'm talking about actual 'competitions', not spec work sites such as 99 Designs - that people enter in their spare time because they want to, not as a way to subsidise their income. 

I've found that, although it's a nice bonus, entering design competitions isn't all about winning. There are loads of benefits, including: 

• A chance to build your portfolio.
• Raise awareness of your work & yourself as a designer.
• Joining in the buzz and excitement as the deadline approaches.
• A chance to expand your experience in different mediums / technologies.
• An opportunity to learn a new piece of software (Illustrator etc...)
• Your work can be spotted by professionals and could lead to further opportunities or even a job!
• A way to get your creative juices flowing / imagination working which could help benefit other projects you're working on.

If this sounds interesting to you, I've collated a list of some current design competitions, why not have a go at one! (or a few)


Worldwide
MINI space design competition
Closing: Friday, 15 June 2012.

Design a T-Shirt for Ed Sheeran
Closing: Wednesday, 27 June 2012.

Stereohpye Button - Design a badge competition
Closing: Friday, 29 June 2012. 

Beermat character design competition
Closing: Friday, 29 June 2012. 

Eco Bike Design contest
Closing: Friday, 29 June 2012. 

Poster for tomorrow design competition 2012

Closing: Tuesday, 10 July, 2012

Design the 'body' for LimoLand's Mr Limo
Closing: Tuesday, 10 July, 2012

Design an Ipad Sleeve with Papernomad
Closing: Wednesday, 11 July, 2012

Design for Adidas Eyewear
Closing: Tuesday, 31 July, 2012

Hiiibrand Awards 2012 - international awards honouring brand design

Closing: Monday, December 31, 2012

Tshirt Design Competition 
Closing: Ongoing


USA only
Design or Photograph for P!nk

Closing: Monday, 2 July, 2012

Other links for competitions, resources and opportunities: 

http://allartcompetitions.com/
http://www.contestwatchers.com/category/visual-arts/graphic-design/

http://www.studentdesigners.com/

http://all.worth1000.com/contests

http://www.talenthouse.com/creative
http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/multiple-disciplines/
http://opportunities.creativescotland.com/

http://thisiscentralstation.com/

http://38minutes.ning.com/
http://www.designophy.com/calendar/competitions.php

http://www.airwalk-design.com/competition/
http://www.dexigner.com/design-competitions
http://studentcompetitions.com/competitions/categories/graphics-design

Over the years I've entered my fair share of competitions:

Doritos 30 Second Advert Competition.

Rat Entertainment 10 Second animated logo Competition.

Good luck if you enter any competitions, let me know if you find any other great ones to enter and I can include them in this list!

Thanks for reading,

Melissa x

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Hey! teacher, Give that grad a job...

Writing this post has been a bit of a blast from the past! 


For a couple of months last year I was unemployed, having just finished my 3 month internship at the Scottish Youth Theatre, and graduating just before that. I found it really hard to even find any design jobs, that didn't state you needed at least 5 years experience and have mad skillz of every type of website coding - not what I was looking for at all!


Anyways, during one of my many job searches on the computer, I stumbled across a blog about graduate employment written on the 49th Floor, and it really struck a chord with me, so I emailed them just to tell them that, and ended up being invited to write a guest blog for the site! I decided to write about my experience of being a graduate, how University's really need to step it up a notch in terms of preparing graduates for the big bad world, and some tips on what finally helped me get a job.


Cast your minds back, to October 2011...(do do do do do chimey noise)

"Hi, my names Melissa Reilly. I’ve just graduated from Glasgow Caledonian University with a 1st Class Honors Degree in Applied Graphics Technology. So the next step is to get a job, which should be the easy bit, right?

So far this doesn’t seem to be the case. Despite working hard all year on group projects, industrial briefs, dissertations, it seems our lecturers forgot to tell us that all of that work, although it is very important to do well in, is not the ‘be all and end all’ when it comes to impressing potential employers. I am currently applying for numerous jobs, pretty much anything with ‘graphic, design, or creative’ in the title, and so far haven’t had much luck in even securing an interview (some don’t even bother to reply) This is apparently due to the fact that I don’t have enough experience within design agencies/commercial environments – and it’s true, I’ve never worked or set foot within a design agency during my 4 years at University, something which I’m kicking myself over now!

I have however tried to redeem myself for this by starting my own graphic and website design business during my 3rd year at University, called ‘247 Design’. Juggling client projects with coursework was difficult at the time, but it has been invaluable to me in building my portfolio, meeting contacts and in challenging myself to learn new software and technologies (teaching myself how to make a JavaScript gallery certainly took a few strong coffees!) 

Although I do love working for myself, the prospect of constantly working from my room with only my laptop and Photoshop to keep me company doesn’t fill me with the greatest amount of excitement. I want to be a part of the Design Industry, meet people, go exciting places and maybe attend the odd office party. So therefore my quest to find a job shall continue, while still working on projects for ‘247 Design’, and you never know, in the future it may be the 247 Design office party people are getting ready for (I wish!)

From my experiences of 4 years at University, starting my own business and beginning the hunt for a job I’ve come up with a few hints/tips or whatever you might call them that have been useful to me!

• During the long summer break from University, try and fill it with something useful such as getting an internship or placement within a Design Agency. This will greatly add to your experience, and may even lead to a job when you graduate!

• From my experience, most of my clients come to me from ‘word of mouth’ recommendations. So you have to do as much as you can to make sure people talk about you, in a good way of course. Get your own website to show off your portfolio and make it easy for people to contact you. Definitely have a Facebook group that you can update easily and regularly with new projects, work and more informal updates.

• Don’t forget the traditional business card! Lots of people like to have a tangible way to contact you. As you never know who you’re going to meet, always keep some on you, as it will be very frustrating to miss out on a potential client if you’ve forgot your card!

• Join Design Networks – such as Deviant art to meet like minded people and share your work.

• Enter Design competitions, two of my favourite websites for finding them are talenthouse.com and student-designers.com. They are a great way to build your portfolio and winning isn’t too bad either! Displaying your entries to competitions on your Facebook group is also a great way to show off your skills and extra work!

• Read emails from lecturers – sometimes they contain little gems of information! One I recently read (that most of the people in my class didn’t bother to) led to me winning a Black Bottle Whisky T-Shirt Design competition, getting a nice little cheque, exposure on the University homepage and a story in my local newspaper! – all extremely useful in building your reputation as a designer.

• Check out gumtree.com for people looking for design work. This may be in the form of voluntary work, so don’t be too proud to do this as you never know what opportunities or contacts it may lead you too! From working voluntarily on a Charity website I was able to meet many contacts, and if you do a good job the clients are likely to recommend you in the future"

Since writing that blog post, I have started working as a Marketing and Media Graduate, through the Graduate Jobs Programme, with Routes to Work South. I've also picked up a couple more tips:

• Set up a Linkedin profile, and actually populate it will information from your CV, there's no point setting one up if it doesn't tell a potential employer (who will probably try to look you up online) anything. Use the 'Behance' app to link in your creative work, and the 'blogger' app to link in your blog posts.

• Watch as many 'Webinars' as possible, they are a great source of information, and 99% of the time are free! One of my favourites from the past few months is this one by Mari Smith and Guy Kawaski -  http://www.marismith.com/7smtrends/

• Start a blog, It's a great way to get noticed and gets the old cogs turning! Use whatever works for you. Create more of a visual moodboard on tumblr, or write actual blog posts using blogger.

• If you get the chance, attend as many networking events as possible. There are some great industry specific ones happening all the time. Check out  New Media Breakfast ,  Communications Breakfast ,  Be Good Be Social - be warned, a lot of them involve getting up realllyyyy early. (but you usually get bacon rolls, so I'm not complaining) 

• Apply for your ILA - its £200 towards a course, which can help you brush up your skills or learn something a little bit new. I just completed a 'Get into Marketing' course with the Pitman Training Centre in Glasgow.  BE QUICK THOUGH, as of the 1st of July if you have a degree you aren't eligible to apply!  do it, do it now

Hope something in there was of use to any recent graduates, or anyone graduating this year! Good luck! :) 


Oh, Here's a a link to the original blog post on 49th Floor - http://www.49thfloor.co.uk/component/k2/item/51-young-design-talent.html



Thanks for reading!


Follow @_Melissa247


Melissa x