Author Archives: FreshGigs.ca Team

Have you heard the buzz around The Art of Entrepreneurship in Toronto on Oct 7th?

The Art of Productions returns with an all-star lineup, this time with five world-renowned Entrepreneurs and Freshgigs.ca has an exclusive offer for you!

This full day conference will feature five internationally renowned best-selling authors, thought leaders and entrepreneurs, who will share an exciting blend of cutting edge thinking and real world experience on today’s most critical business issues. You’ll have countless opportunities to meet, network and learn with some of the brightest entrepreneurial minds in the world.

This years speakers include:

ALEXIS OHANIAN – Co-Founder of reddit & Bestselling Author of Without Their Permission

GARY VAYNERCHUK – New York Times Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur, Co-Founder & CEO of VaynerMedia

DEBBIE TRAVIS – Design Superstar & Entrepreneur Behind the Largest Celebrity Brand in Canada

ERIC RYAN – Co-Founder & Chief Brand Architect, Method & Bestselling Author of The Method Method

CHRIS GUILLEBEAU – New York Times Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur & Modern-Day Explorer The regular rate to attend The Art of Entrepreneurship is $349

Members of the FreshGigs.ca community can register at a rate of $299 per person. Save an additional $50 when registering 2 or more people at the same time. Click Here to register online and be sure to use promo code: FG32

For more details on The Art of Entrepreneurship you can simply visit|
www.theartof.com/entrepreneurship-toronto-2014/

LUSH Vancouver Puts On Booze & Branding For Marketing & Creative Professionals On September 25th

FreshGigs.ca Team

The good folks over at LUSH Cosmetics in Vancouver are hosting a new night called “Booze and Branding LUSH Networking event” on September 25th from 6-8pm at their beautiful NEW Vancouver HQ.

This is going to be a great event with the LUSH marketing and creative team and other industry professionals.

LUSH told us to let you folks know so if you are in the marketing, PR, communication, design, branding, e-commerce industries with best practices to share and are open to learning some new ones come and meet the LUSH Brand Communications Team!

To sign up for free and to ask any other questions please email the LUSH team at: RSVP@lush.com

See you there FreshGigs.ca community!

The Art of Entrepreneurship Hits Toronto! Contest & Discount Pricing For FreshGigs.ca Community

FreshGigs.ca Team

Introducing The Art of Entrepreneurship

Well folks the good people over at “The Art Of” series of conferences are at it again. This time they’ll be hitting up Toronto on October 7th with an insane line up of visionaries, creatives, and thought leaders for The Art of Entrepreneurship.

If you’re part of the FreshGigs.ca family we’re sure this will be an inspiration filled event for you if you can make it. Whether you’re starting your own company, into business, marketing, or design it doesn’t matter as this conference is sure to get those juices going. Some of the key speakers on this day will include Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Guillebeau, Debbie Travis, Eric Ryan, Alexis Ohanian.

How Your Can Win A Free Ticket

If you’d like to attend this event and are part of the FreshGigs.ca job seeking community all you have to do is ReTweet the following and on September 19th we’ll choose 1 lucky winner that will receive a free ticket.

Tweet This: I’m itching to go to @TheArtOf Entrepreneurship in Toronto – Come on @FreshGigsca let me hit it up!

Guarantee Your Spot – Buy a Ticket Here & Get $50-$100 OFF (Only For FreshGigs.ca Community)

FreshGigs.ca has teamed up with The Art Of to offer our members $50-$100 off per ticket if you buy your conference tickets on this page:
http://info.theartof.com/et14/fg32

New Marketing, Creative, Design Jobs In Canada – July 18th, 2014

FreshGigs.ca Team

Manager of Inside Sales – Stephen Thomas Ltd – Toronto

Communications Officer – The Office of the Ontario Ombudsman – Toronto

Account Manager, Produce Sales – Fresh Direct Produce – Vancouver

Marketing & Events Coordinator – Petcurean Pet Nutrition – Chilliwack

Sales & Marketing Coordinator – Usability Matters – Toronto

Search Marketing Specialist – Graphically Speaking – Vancouver

Web Graphic/UI Designer – Graphically Speaking – Vancouver

PowToon Production Artist – Factors Group of Nutritional Companies, Inc. – Coquitlam

Move Like a Startup And Make Career Advancements

FreshGigs.ca Team

Do you feel stuck in your career? Looking for a new direction? Take a little advice from startups, and pivot!

“YouTube started as a video dating site called Tune in Hook Up. PayPal was a way to exchange funds on Palm Pilots. What, I wondered, can actual human beings learn from the lessons of great startups?” says Bruce Kasanoff in his article, Pivot Yourself! (Career Lessons from Startups).

Here are some ideas that Kasanoff gleaned from The Startup Owner’s Manual, written by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf. They can help you pivot your career and move toward what fulfilling your goals.

Startups fail, and fail often. That’s what they do. And it’s what you can give yourself permission to do, as well.

1. Change the Routine

Startups are known for doing things out of the norm. They seek out and listen to potential customers because they have to — they need them to survive and thrive. And you should do this, too.

“If you are dissatisfied with the course of your life, you have to break out of your routine and meet an entirely different collection of people. Hanging out with your old college friends is not the path to a successful personal pivot; to find new ideas, you have to meet new people, have different conversations, and gather new facts,” says Kasanoff.

2. Help Others

Startups don’t work because they get stuck on an idea and not on the problem the idea can solve. In other words, they forget the ultimate goal is not to help themselves but to help other people. This is also often a personal career issue, as well. For both startups and individuals to succeed, both need to help others more than helping themselves.

3. Test Quickly

So you hang out with new people, you come up with a solution to a problem others have and you are off to the races, right? Not so fast. Test your new ideas first, and test them quickly before you fully commit. Continue reading →

Weird Idea from your Boss? Handle it like a Pro

FreshGigs.ca Team

No matter your relationship with your boss, he or she is still your boss. So when ideas get pitched from the cushier chair at the end of the table, you are usually expected to respond.

Kill two birds with one stone. Asking for more information both gives you insight and gives you more time to come up with a response.

But what if that idea is a bit, shall we say, crazy? We are not just talking one of those “interesting” ideas that pop up everything once in a while. We are talking something that isn’t just out of the box; it blows the box to smithereens … and not in a good way.

According to Sara McCord, in How to Respond to a Crazy Idea From your Boss, there are a couple of diplomatic ways to handle a doozy.

Reframe the Problem and Response

You don’t want to be the one to tell your boss he had a bad idea, and he doesn’t want to hear it.

“So, put the cushion before the ax by trying to find a universe in which the idea could work,” says McCord.

McCord set up an example like this:

The problem: “I once had a boss suggest that we ask an organization we were renting a space from to host the event—in its inaugural year. Before I launched into why you can’t go from paying someone to asking them to plan your event, I first acknowledged the universe in which he had a point—in this case that it would be mutually beneficial for both organizations to be involved.”

Reframing the response: “Surely, that’s something that might be of interest to them in three to five years. However—first things first—we have to throw a successful event to show them that we can draw their crossover audience.”

Ask for More Information

Kill two birds with one stone. Asking for more information both gives you insight and gives you more time to come up with a response.

The key is to ensure you ask in the right tone. Continue reading →

Do You Have What It Takes To Get Noticed By Headhunters?

FreshGigs.ca Team

Call them headhunters, recruiters, executive search consultants or search professionals, they are all different names for the same job: people who find candidates for employer clients. You may have had them call you, you may wonder why they aren’t calling you or you may be considering submitting your resume to recruiting firms. Either way, it’s best to understand if you are headhunter material to decide if they are worth your time.

Many people will never even talk to a headhunter in their careers. However, this avenue can be a nice addition to your career search

First, according to Liz Ryan, author of Are You Headhunter Material, or Not?, you need to understand that headhunters do what they do to get PAID. The ways in which this happens vary; they may get an upfront fee and a percentage of a hire’s yearly compensation or they may only get paid once somebody gets hired.

Because of this headhunters are very selective on who they choose to talk to and even choosier about how much they will coach each candidate they do select.

Show me the Money:

How recruiters earn their fees really dictates the candidates they will be looking for. Ryan lays out the basic things to understand.

They aren’t career advisors – they don’t have the time to coach you unless they are really serious about a specific job opportunity. And even then, don’t expect much.
The job-seekers they are looking for are the ones that won’t be found through the usual methods. That usually means candidates that have specialized technical skills, specific experience or a mix of experiences that most job seekers don’t have.“Our client companies come to use when they want a very specific skill-set and they can’t seem to find the right candidate through their own efforts. When they come to use, they want us to bring them their ideal candidate – they don’t want us to send them candidates that are off the mark in any way,” says Hirestarter.com in its Headhunters – A Guide for Candidates.
Quirky backgrounds usually aren’t a fit. “When a hiring manager designs a job spec (however fanciful) and commits to paying 25% of a new hire’s first-year compensation to a recruiter, the hiring manager expects the recruiter to show up with a candidate who jumped right out of the job ad.”
According to Ryan, recent college grads and all-around marketing people, except for social media experts, are not generally headhunter material. Who is? HR and finance professionals with specific expertise (the expertise depends on what the employer is looking for), as well as IT and engineering gurus.

Continue reading →

Watch Out! Recognizing and Recovering from Burnout

FreshGigs.ca Team

We live in some stressful times. We are working, and often expected to work, more hours than ever before, and we are burning the candle at ends we didn’t know we had. So, it is more important than ever that we recognize when we are approaching creative and mental burnout.

Get ahead of the problem. Do what you can to fix it rather than try to put a Band-Aid on a problem after the fact.

Burnout not only is hard on us mentally, it takes a physical, monetary, time and motivational toll, as well, according to Tanner Christensen in How to Spot Burnout (and Recover).

It comes in many shapes and forms, but according to The 12 Stages of Burnout, there are a few common red flags to watch for:

The compulsion to prove oneself obsessively
Working harder without the ability to switch off
Neglecting your own needs (sleeping, eating, bathing, etc.)
Revision of values (putting work before everything)
Denial of emerging problems
Withdrawal and possible addictions
Odd behavioral changes
Depersonalization
Inner emptiness and/or depression
Burnout syndrome: can include total mental and physical collapse; time for full medical attention.

Continue reading →

6 Signs On When You Should Leave Your Job

FreshGigs.ca Team

You have a bad day at work, and you spend your commute home fantasizing about marching into your boss’ office and telling him or her, “I quit!”

We have all been there. But, there are other reasons to leave a job besides having a bad day (or a series of them). Sometimes, it just isn’t challenging enough, sometimes you feel like you are in a rut or you are just in an “It’ll do for now” situation.

If long-term employees are keeping their eye out for other jobs, something is probably wrong

You might even be asking yourself, am I content or am I complacent? Complacency is the “danger zone,” says Camille Cho in 7 Signs You Should Leave Your Job (Sooner Rather Than Later).

“Complacency tends to generate excuses … and leads us to settle. Worst of all, complacency will eventually lead to fear. And fear holds us back,” Cho relates.

According to Cho, here are some telltale signs that complacency may be creeping in, and you need to seriously consider looking for other jobs.

1. Just spinning your wheels:
If you’ve been at the same company, in the same job, without a promotion or advancement in the past three years (and you want to advance) — move on! You should have seen some sort of movement within that time frame.

2. You don’t get feedback:
It’s hard to learn when you receive only vague feedback or none at all. Research shows that asking for and receiving feedback, while not always easy to take, is key to becoming more effective at our jobs. In a study of 51,896 executives, those who rarely asked for feedback (ranking in the bottom 10%) were rated at the 15^th percentile in overall leadership effectiveness. On the other hand, leaders who often asked for feedback (ranking in the top 10%) were rated, on average, at the 86^th percentile in overall leadership effectiveness.

With the clear importance of feedback, managers should be engaged in your career development and offer guidance and feedback, especially when asked. Move on if this is not happening or if any requests have been denied or ignored.

3. The learning stops here:
No new challenges? Nothing new learned? It may be time to find a new job. You have to be proactive in finding ways to learn new skills in your new jobs, but if the opportunities to do so don’t exist, you probably are working for a company that doesn’t want to invest in your career development. The answer? You guessed it! Move on. Continue reading →

Making Your Resume Stand Out Among Other Job Seekers

FreshGigs.ca Team

There is no doubt your resume is the foundation of your job search. You have surely read the stats that recruiters look at the average resume for only 5 to 7 seconds, an average of 250 resumes are received for most corporate job positions and one spelling or grammar error and a resume will be dismissed immediately.

Because of these, you likely have spent many, many hours refining and honing your resume, making sure it will stand out above the rest so you can get the important interview.

Here’s a novel idea: Instead of bulleting your day-to-day duties, describe the project you’ve completed and/or results your work has achieved.

So, this might feel like a slap in the face … there are likely some common ways that your resume doesn’t stand out from your fellow job seekers at all. But, all is not lost, according to Lily Zhang, in 5 Ways your Resume is Just Like Everyone Else’s, there are smart fixes. Let’s look at the ways your resume could be improved.

A Generic “Experience” Section

Let’s start with the heading of the meat of your resume. Everyone, literally, labels this section something along the lines of “work experience” or “professional experience.” But instead, Zhang suggest labeling it something more appropriate to the position you’re looking for, such as “Marketing Experience.”

“Having a keyword in your section heading has a great branding effect on your overall resume,” Zhang explains. “This is especially useful if you have a diverse range of experiences, but really want to show off your experience in one particular area. You can have all of your relevant experience in one section at the top of your resume where the recruiter will first look and add an “Additional Experience” section for everything else.” Continue reading →