LAUIL502: Careers Fair Important Dates

Visit to Careers Guidance

I visited the Careers Guidance team to have a chat and find out what is available, hot on the heels of Employability Fortnight. I was told ahead of time that Skin for Skunk Anansie will be visiting in early March as well as Imogen Heap with be visiting 28th April through Creative Networks! I used to listen to both so this is quite an incredible opportunity to be able to listen to both talk about their experiences in the music industry. 

IMPORTANT DATES

• Startup Wednesdays 5th February 1pm - 3.15pm until Easter

• 5th February 2020: 1pm -  Costing and Pricing Work

• 19th February 2020: 1pm - Customer and Competitor Research

• 26th February 2020: 1pm - Marketing; How to devise a marketing strategy

• 4th March 2020: 1pm - Costing and Pricing Work

• 11th March 2020: 1pm - How to Market and Sell

• 18th March 2020: 1pm - Marketing; How to devise a marketing strategy

• 25th March 2010: 1pm - Freelancing First Agencies and Organisations

• 25th March 2020: Networking, How to Freelance

• 28th April 2020: Imogen Heap Creative Networks

LAUIL502: Study Task 1 - Employability Weeks Review

During Employability Fortnight at Leeds Arts University, I found the presentation, networking and CV workshops all to be the most beneficial to my bespoke toolkit as an emerging practitioner and professional in the creative industries.

In the first week, the presentation skills workshop taught me a variety of new and exciting skills that I would never have considered before, or even noticed before when listening to others, to make a speech more immediate, impactful, powerful to the audience. While I already have no fear of public speaking and genuinely enjoy connecting with people on a larger scale, "hidden" knacks like involving audience members, using universal language to provide a sense of camaraderie and level footing, bookending to tie things together all had me smiling with anticipation of what I can potentially do with future presentations to make them memorable!

These skills were then transferrable to the networking workshop in week 2, allowing me to get to know a variety of level 5 students across the university on different courses in my cluster - which I thought was a much better way of doing things than last year where we stayed within our own course feeling isolated. I used eye contact, universal language, facts and jokes to get to know people better. The huge speed networking session at the end allowed me to make connections through social media, reaching a slightly bigger audience with my illustrations, and giving me a platform to talk about my practice and personal life experiences as a severely sight impaired illustrator. I even got to now some people better on my own course!

Finally, CVs are essential for anyone choosing to work and admittedly mine was incredibly outdated with everything thrown at it to somehow make it look good. I now know to tailor my CV and make it bespoke to who or what I am applying for, selling myself in the best way possible, with a cover letter. Having the opportunity to have my CV looked at, for free, with feedback was truly invaluable too.

Employability Fortnight was truly instrumental to bettering myself and my mental health at the start of this academic year, giving me a whole set of new skills and a sense of accomplishment. 

LAUIL502: Notes From Session 1

• Passion and purpose. Individual. Your future.

• What is a job? Do you want to get up every morning at 6.3, have a bath, work for someone else while they get the benefits? Or do you want to work for yourself, set your own prices? 

• Be individual, be unique!

• The grades will come, forget the degree. Just do the work.

• Module information: deadline week commencing 20th April 

- Presentation

- PDF format of Presentation

- Blog with Study Tasks

• 21st April onwards are the presentations

• Module aims: business toolkit, CVs, set briefs.

• Workload is light, point is important.

•Presentation is 15 minutes. People have done performance, rhyming couplets, fun things.

• We will be looking at marketing and marketing tools, competitors to analyse own business

• Audience

• Networking skills and communication

• Understanding career opportunities and how you approach them

• Colours May Vary will be visiting to discuss managing the business. We will exhibit work (can be zine, can be print, can be existing work, can be new), produce SWOT analysis. 

• Everything will be contained in one day; morning session at 9:30 and then the session afterwards to do the task. 

LAUIL502: Studio Brief 1 - Class Notes for CMV Visit

 9th March Visiting CMV in two groups 

Scope it out as a customer. Important for SWOT tools

Jon - PP3. Making connections. Make use of Jon's time

Down to you to take ownership of your own future; both portfolio and contacts 

Who you are, who you want to be, who is important right now and who will turn your business right on

Who would be important to you right now. Which online services. Which publications 

Why are you doing it? 

Just because you're a caterpillar doesn't mean you're a butterfly. You can be anything. You don't have to be an illustrator, you can be an agent, curator, educator.

Contact report - who are you going to be talking to and why? 

First port of call is usually email

How do I stand out from the herd? Ways and means, sending a stamp addressed envelope with a portrait on to grab attention 

Hand delivering milk

60-70 percent of emails are spam now. Why would mine be looked at?

Looking to make those connections. Not a class exercise, all about you. This is where it starts. 

A form being handed out to start making commitments. 

Think about the work you like, the audience. Can you bring something there? Can you liven it up?