My Career Options Blog

Getting the job you want! Theresa Casarin and Jade Yourth of Creative Niche share their tips on resume writing and getting your online profile in shape for success. Theresa Casarin, VP, Talent, Canada theresa@creativeniche.com Jade Yourth, Digital Marketing Specialist jade@creativeniche.com Creative Niche is an innovative staffing, recruitment and executive search firm. Making connections since 2002 with over 14,000 placements. Recruitment is purely in the digital marketing, design and data innovation. Their clients include SapientRazorfish, Thomson Reuters, OpenText, Kinetic Cafe, Deloitte, RBC and MTV. A good exercise to do before writing your resume is the 16 personalities website test. It is recommended that you start with a clear head. Use the first answer you gravitate to instead of what you think you should say. Be brutally honest with yourself. You will discover your strengths and weakness. You will end-up in the right place to be. The Purpose of the Resume: • ...

There needs to be a balance between a great UX and making money for the business. Kaye Puhlmann Co-founder & Head of Growth at Storybird Inc. Previous work experience includes: VP Creative at Critical Mass Creative Director at Blast Radius Instructor, VFS Foundation Visual Art and Design at Vancouver Film School Instructor, Graphic Design at Sheridan and is also a former alumnus where she studied Graphic Design and Computer Graphics. Kaye returns to Sheridan College to talk about some of the challenges with Storybird Inc. A story in 3 parts - Design, Analytics and Design. She started work on this project 10 years ago. It started out as a publishing platform for children in schools. Inspiring students to write with the help of pictures and making a book. Some children jumped 3 grad levels by using this platform to write. It is now used by all ages for all different subjects. Storybird lets anyone make visual stories. It curates artwork from illustrators and animators a...

Muddita Shekhawat talks to us about FreshBooks. The accounting software designed for the serviced-based small business owner. Mudita Shekhawat , Business Development Representative at FreshBooks . mshekhawat@freshbooks.com Why FreshBooks? Mike McDerment, a self-employed designer did not have a very good system for tracking time, expenses and invoicing. One day after spending hours on writing an invoice he mistakenly save it over another invoice. He knew there had to be a better way. There wasn’t anything on the market that could track his jobs and invoices in a simple way. The inspiration for Freshbooks was born. Freshbook was started in 2003. Based in Toronto it now has over 275 employees and services over 10 million small business in the US and Canada. It is the #1 cloud accounting and invoicing software solution designed for small business owners. Today’s employers are hiring more freelancers and contract workers. Chances are you will be freelancing or on contract. Keeping ...

4 Simple rules to surviving this year and throughout your career Sean Patrick , President & Co-Founder, Patrick 2 Paradisi Inc sean@patrickparadisi.com Previous work experience include Instructor Web Design and Marketing at Sheridan College. VP Digital & Creative Services at Mosaic Sales Solutions. Sean started the presentation by asking us “What is Design?” Design is a process, it is about thinking, it is about planning. You will learn by struggling. Good or bad at least you will have learned something. A designer is not an artist. You are a problem solver. When done perfectly no one notices. Rule # 1 - Don’t be afraid to fail Failure does not define you. We learn from those failures. It is a necessary step in learning and creating great work. Try everything, you may find something new you didn’t know that you are really good at. Identify that fear of failure. You’re not getting it because of the fear of failure. Know your fear triggers. A good example is the scary bl...

How 3 young designers are changing the User Experience for Cetaris. Michelle Farley - Lead UX Designer , Yu Shin Was - Digital Designer and Demi Pinsonneault - UX Designer talk about the Design Process and Product Process at Cetaris. Cetaris is a Fleet Maintenance and Asset Management software solution for large enterprises. They record and track customer maintenance practices. The company was formed in the 1989 but has the heart of a star-up company says Demi. It gives juniors lots of responsibilities to learn and grow. They have team building events, out-door events, birthday lunches and are involved in raising money for charities and silent auctions. Design Timeline: 1989 Cetaris began. Used only developers. Did not know the value of design. 2015 hired first UX Designer. Needed to prove the value of design. 2016 hired second UX Designer and UI Developer. This improved quality. But did not necessarily shorten the release date. March 2017 new website launched. July 2017 hire...

"This is about how you think!" Ryan Farinas talks about his journey to becoming a Product Designer. Ryan Farinas, Product Designer at Facebook. Previously UX and Interaction Design at Apple. Lead Design, UX, UI at Glassdoor. Ryan did not go to design school. He went to 5 other schools and got 3 majors in 4.5 years. He studied everything from agriculture to atmospheric science to music. He has a degree in journalism. He toured as a professional musician during the 90’s following his passion. He owned a coffee shop in the food industry. Was an Audio Engineer recording symphonies, audio books, podcasts and bands. He has a lot of interesting experience outside of design. The important thing is that he uses this experience in design everyday. 3 Areas Where Ryan Learned His Craft: Street Art - Being a graffiti artist taught him about colour, craft and detail. Layering and scale. Everything that he uses is product design today. Letting go - The most important skill you ...