Social Media
It starts here. Because the first thing anyone will do before they hire you is Google you.
1. Show your best stuff in the right places
Resist the urge to share all the things all the time in all the places. Be consistently visible, sure, but consider sticking to a carefully curated selection of your very best. Also, think about which site(s) or app(s) will get the most mileage.
2. Show your process
Talk about your stuff. Share preliminaries. Show what goes into making your work, you know, your work. You'll get additional content out of this and you'll also stand out from the pack of the perpetually polished.
3. Show your personality... or maybe not
Let a little bit of you creep through, sure, but as a general rule, if you're going to share thoughts about things, ask yourself first whether you want said thoughts about said things forever associated with you and your work.
Job Interviews
This is big, but just take a deep breath and try to be the best version of you available that day.
1. Dress for the job you're applying for
Aim for the high-end of what you'd wear to work most days. Likewise, wear the personality you plan to bring to the job, as well. Which is to say, show what having you there daily would be like.
2. Ask questions of your own
Don't be afraid to answer a question and then toss back a related one of your own every so often. Or crack a joke. Or say something otherwise interactive. Show them you're interested and interesting.
3. Learn the art of the humblebrag
You're going to get questions about experiences at previous jobs, and for each one, have an example of some little-but-laudable way you were so much more than high-paid set decor.
Playing Nice with Others
Congrats-- you've got the job. Now you're in a room with people who may or may not have anything in common beyond their love of making the cool stuff.
The lot of you are going to pitch ideas, sometimes agree, sometimes butt heads, try things, break things, put things back together and zone in on what works and weed out what doesn't.
1. Go in with an open mind
Because if you enter into any situation where many egos are at play expecting a poopshow, you're going to get a poopshow.
2. Listen to the people around you
Because other folks might know a thing or two or ten that you don't, or at least enjoy feeling as if their ideas are worth consideration.
3. Be willing to let go
Because you shouldn't be too precious about your ideas-- not all of them are going to make it out alive.
4. Judge a thing by its whole
Because tough trek to the end result or not, if you manage to make the cool stuff, that's all that matters.
5. Get used to it
Because you will find yourself doing this again and again, and had best learn to love leaning on others and having others lean on you.
Flying Solo Successfully
We find ourselves in a time where the most common scenario is that we do business together without ever actually being in the same room.
1. Get on top of communication
Your clients should be reasonably confident you're alive and producing, so make sure you're more-often-than-not reachable via phone, text, email, carrier pigeon or, you know, something.
2. Get yourself organized
You've got lots on the go, no doubt. So know what day of the week it is, where you need to be on Zoom and who with, and what you need to accomplish to make the next day hurt a little less-- for both you and your clients.
3. Get humble about the work
It's assumed you're a professional, and that you'll provide your clients with what they've asked for, and go back at it as many times as it takes until it's as close to their vision as it can be.
You've got this.
Damien