(Hopefully) Back From Hiatus!

Well well well... it's been a busy past month or so and there's so much to catch up on. To kick off this post, I thought that I would include a piece that I worked on in school with another aspiring art director, Creta del Llano for CHADD, an organization for Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

As you can probably imagine, you can only cold call so many times and it's probably a good idea to not post about it every time too. With regards to cold calling, I find that it's a good idea to keep track of who you're calling and when. In fact, that little notebook that I mentioned near the beginning of my blog? It's completely filled with my notes specifically relating to agencies and cold calling. While a few pages were used for interview notes (for jobs, informational, and reviews of my portfolio), a good 80% of the 70 pages are filled with agency notes. Most of the agencies got back to me and have a hiring freeze or are not looking for juniors, so I folded those pages in to retain the information, but so that I wouldn't annoy the recruiters again for another couple of months.

Some good did come from all that cold calling. I had a handful of job interviews and informational interviews which were all good to practice selling myself. Even if the job wasn't for me, it helped to put myself out there and really work at networking and honing those interview skills.

Since September, I have been freelancing for a handful of days every couple weeks with the Ad Council and doing a handful of other design work. This was through another networking opportunity - a friend's friend. Something that many of us seem to forget is that our friends' networks are excellent resources for jobs. In addition to this, I have been doing some simple design work for family members and getting the holiday gifts that I would design for them out of the way.

I've been fortunate to have been offered an amazing full-time job, which I will be starting in a couple weeks. How did I come across this opportunity? It was through professional networking, of course. Essentially, it was through networking with a creative director that I worked with at BBDO and the people that he was connected to. More on the job details later... (maybe)



On to what I have been doing outside of the job hunt spectrum:
I had to move this month, which is surprisingly difficult in New York City. Luckily, I've found a semi-permanent temporary housing situation that will do nicely until I am ready to deal with hunting again. I have also been taking trips back to California to visit family, friends, and my alma mater. As you can see in the picture above, I hit up the beaches while I was there. (I refuse to pay to go to a beach here in NYC, so I didn't go at all over the summer.) The reasoning for all of these trips is that once I start work, I certainly will not be taking half as many of these trips.

I spent a whole night making these "sushi" to complement my Halloween costume as a sushi girl. They were made primarily from socks and washcloths. Neat, right? Enjoy!