PORTFOLIO CREATIVE BLOG

By Kristen Harris Ever wonder what recruiters do all day? (Hint…it involves people, lots and lots people!) Chances are someone helps you hire for your team, whether it’s a third-party firm like us, an internal talent acquisition team, or an HR specialist responsible for internal hiring. Or maybe you’re responsible for the hiring on your own team, in which case you are your own recruiter. We’re about to pull back the curtain and share key steps of the recruiting process. Most importantly, we’ll highlight what you can do to improve

By Kristen Harris Over the last two years, we’ve seen a sea-change of acceptance and expectation for more work to be done remotely. While some companies and roles were already working on a remote or hybrid basis, COVID-19 pushed this trend forward fast. Whether you call it remote work, work from home, telecommuting, telework, or something else, basically we’re talking about working somewhere other than a centralized office. Your work location might be a home office, co-work space, satellite office, another city, a travel location, or garden office. You could

By Catherine Lang-Cline The American Staffing Association recently completed a survey asking both companies and candidates about their workspace arrangements. The results may surprise you. Their survey indicates that while 43% of companies are doing hybrid, 69% of employees want a hybrid. Regarding full office, companies are doing 38% and only 7% of employees actually want full in office. Out of curiosity, we conducted our own survey asking if candidates would take a job that did not offer remote or hybrid as an option and the results are very similar.

Catherine Lang-Cline Paranoia is defined by Merriam Webster, as “an unreasonable feeling that people are trying to harm you or do not like you.” The difference between positive paranoia and destructive paranoia is the word “unreasonable.” Positive paranoia is the reasonable tension we get when we sense something is not right. It’s a sense that comes with experience. It’s a sense that guides us to better business outcomes. Examples; “We did everything right, but we should think of alternatives to a bank loan” “There was something that the customer said

By Catherine Lang-Cline We are all familiar with internships. Many of us had them or at least knew about them in school. Companies take on interns for a wide variety of reasons and they are typically all good reasons. You are offering a potential kick-start to their career but you may not be getting a wide range of candidates because, for some, money really matters. Those people are like me, I could not take advantage of intern opportunities because while I needed the experience, I could not work for free

I’m a freelance Graphic Designer and aspiring cake taster for The Great British Bake Off. I dabble in witchcraft and also printmaking. Morning I begin every morning with an epic fight against the evil machine that is my alarm clock. Then the sweet sounds of Bowie usher me into the shower and to my first cup of tea. I hit the pavement and walk the 5 minutes to the newly renovated StewMac offices that still have that luxurious new car smell. After setting up my laptop I say “good morning” to my

By Catherine Lang-Cline I have often said that when I visit art museums, experience dance, hear people sing, my soul gets filled. Apparently, there is some truth to that. Researchers in London who followed thousands of people 50 and older for 14 years discovered that those who went to a museum or attended a concert just once or twice a year were 14% less likely to die during that period than those who didn’t. The chances of living longer only went up the more frequently people engaged with the arts,

By Catherine Lang-Cline I just read a delightful tweet by @JeffPKramer that read, “If the Millennium Falcon can be a piece of junk and fall apart continuously for decades and still be cool and kick-ass then so can you.” I don’t know about you, but that gives me a bit of “new hope”. One of the biggest hurdles that we have when starting anything is the fear of failure. It might also be being trapped in a routine. Maybe you are a bit beaten up and you are only seeing

By Kristen Harris In the U.S. there are officially more open jobs than people to fill them. Periodically we read some exciting stuff, like the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (snappily nicknamed JOLTS). Wait…before you give up on me, check out Chart 5: See that brown line crossing over the blue line, and then dramatically spiking upwards? This never happens. The report states “For most of the JOLTS history, the number of hires…has exceeded the number of job openings… Since January 2015, however, this relationship has reversed with

By Catherine Lang-Cline Odds are, being a good human in business will not make you number 1. Business is too often about the numbers, the profit, the margins, and how much has been delivered. Don’t get me wrong, we love a profitable year because that just means that we have done a really great job. It means we have marketed ourselves well and we have provided a lot of work for creative people. Our biggest return on investment is how much we have helped–whether or not we have been good