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Are you headed to SXSW this year? The Filterati are initializing to enter the grid of South by Southwest and hosting a Tron-esque party! 

Transporting into the interactive arena with us are the ultra-modern humanoids from Knoll furniture. Together, we will be inside the SXSW system to transport YOU, dear users, into a digital playground. Get your game face on and breach some walls with us!

P.S. YOU MUST HAVE A SXSW BADGE TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE DIGI-FUN! 

Date: Sunday, March 10, 2013

Time: 9:00 pm to 2:00 am

Location: Cheers Shot Bar

                  416 E. 6th Street

                  Austin, Texas 78701

Want to have a VIP EXPERIENCE and receive your very own EL wire accessory that gets you unlimited trips to the bar (ON US)?! In addition to flashing your SXSW badge at the door, you will need a special PASSWORD — and there are two ways to receive it: 

1. Reach out to your Filter contact (i.e. Talent Manager, Account Executive, or any other Filterati) and ask them for it!
2. Follow us on Twitter and send us a tweet at @FilterDigital to ask for it! 

So, don’t be a null unit and get ready to party till it’s the end of line! 

NEW INFO:

In addition, TWO Seattle DJs (who also work in the interactive space) will enter the grid with us to spin a circuit of pure energy that will have you purging away the craze of the day!

• DJ Nostalgia B —  Brian Rauschenbach of Add3 and co-founder of Seattle Interactive Conference @rauschenbach 

AND ... 

• DJ Zapan —  Zach Huntting of Crown Social @zapan
  

In Part One of this article, we discussed how being sought after is a good problem to have — and how to avoid turning it into a bad one. We continue our discussion with Talent Manager, Trish Chua, on how to avoid stumbling when juggling multiple job offers by being a pro-active and transparent job-seeker.

Question: What are some of the more common mistakes you have seen when a person is juggling multiple offers?

Trish: The most common mistake is when a candidate is working with us, a second agency, and searching on their own — but not communicate any of that to us. Anytime you involve multiple parties that are investing their time on your behalf, it’s important to communicate with everyone. For example, if a talent manager offers you a position to consider that is of interest to you — you should respond that you are open to being considered for the job, but that you do have other interviews scheduled. We want to see that the candidate is really invested in a specific role rather than frantically seeing what sticks because they just need to work. The lack of communication and not being honest about any change in your availability is where things get sticky and mistakes happen.

Q: What if a person is not actually juggling multiple job offers. Is it ever a good idea to lie and say that you have a competing offer in order to make yourself look more desirable, or to use that tactic to negotiate a higher salary?

Trish: If you are honestly looking at two job offers and you’ve been communicative about your needs, there are times to negotiate a higher rate. But, you should never leverage two job offers against each other and worse, you should absolutely never fake that you have a competing offer. It’s usually transparent that you are being deceiving. You aren’t fooling anyone so it’s not a good move to make. Transparency, honesty, and mutual respect will get you hired — not faking it till you make it. A talent manager represents a person best when they are representing their goals honestly. Honesty is really the best policy.

Q: You just said not to, but is it ever helpful to leverage two real job offers to negotiate a higher salary? Would you tell Job A that Job B will pay more?

Trish: They salary should be something that is helpful for a candidate to determine which job offer to accept, not something to use to volley back and forth between the two. You can be honest about the pay. If Job A is the one you really want, but Job B will pay more, you can express to Job A about negotiating more pay. Ultimately, however, you should decide on the job that is right for you. Screen the job that you are really looking for and just go after the one you want. It seems like an obvious thing, but really qualify the jobs you want to begin with, and then focus on the ones you want to interview with.

Q: Have you seen where a person made a decision based on a verbal offer rather than a written one, and it backfired on them?

Trish: The beauty about working with an agency like ours, it will never happen because we deal strictly with written contracts.

Q: Can you give an example of how a person has handled multiple job offers with finesse?

Trish: I had a candidate interview for a long contract, but what he really wanted was a direct hire position. He said he would consider the offer and was honest with me about what he wanted — which I was able to communicate to the client. It took the client some time to determine how they wanted to handle this situation, and in the end, the client made a full-time, direct hire offer. If the candidate hadn’t been proactive about communicating his needs, he might’ve accepted the contract as it was, but not have been fully satisfied. Or, he could’ve turned it down and the client would have missed out on a great opportunity with this talent. The candidate set the expectations and checked in with me consistently, and it was his proactive communication that helped me seal the deal for him. This kind of mutual respect for the time of everyone involved makes me want to work with a candidate in the future.

Q: In the creative and digital space specifically, do you think that working with an agency could be helpful having a talent manager be your negotiator and mediator?

Trish: It depends on where you are in your career track. How much experience you have in dealing with the scenario of juggling multiple job offers, or dealing with in house recruiters and HR managers is important because it can be overwhelming to manage all these details. Having an intermediary helps to focus and track the details, and be an advocate for you. We screen our clients as much as we screen our candidates, so you can trust that we are sending you to legit places to work. Those kinds of things can be helpful in working with an agency since we’ve done so much of the research for you.

Q: Have you seen a situation where a candidate has handled multiple job offers badly?

Trish: Unfortunately, it happens often. It’s kind of like dating and you are not exclusive — you feel that you need to hide the fact that you are dating other people. That’s what can happen with some candidates. They feel they need to hide the fact they are searching on their own or working with competing agencies. But that shouldn’t be the case. You should be open about the fact that you have other options you are exploring. We don’t need to know the specific details, just the simple fact that you are looking at all your options, or if you are close to accepting an offer elsewhere. We just want to know that you are in exploration with other opportunities; we don’t need names of agencies or people. But, if I am championing for you because you’ve implied you are exclusively working with us, and out of the blue you dump us and move on — that can impact how we work with you in the future because of the lack of transparency. If you are honest about other opportunities, it gives us the opportunity to represent you best and to give you what you need. It can also help speed up the process by encouraging the client to make a swifter decision if we are able to communicate to them that the candidate with super marketable skills might not be on the market long due to looking at other options.

Q: What happens when a candidate has two job offers that both look appealing? What should guide them in their decision process?

Trish: The candidate needs to identify what are the most important things to them. Is it the culture of the company? Is it the hands-on work they are doing? Is it the salary? Is it the location of the office? Trust your gut about where you will be the most successful. It’s a great problem to have when you have marketable skills that lead to multiple opportunities — there’s just a graceful way to handle the process. It’s where you will be spending the majority of your time, so choose your job wisely.

Q: How do you gracefully turn down a job offer without burning bridges?

Trish: It’s okay to say it’s due to another position, or what the key deal breakers were — as long as they weren’t glaringly obvious things you should have considered from the beginning, like location. Depending on how long the interview process was, a quick note to the hiring manager to thank them for their time spent interviewing you, is a nice touch. Going back to the dating reference, don’t feel like you are dumping them — just that you have graciously accepted another opportunity.

As much as having multiple job offers can stroke the ego, it can also cause great anxiety.  Reasons vary for the root of this stress. People will often court a variety of job-seeking sources on the down low. A person might want to hold out for something better instead of settling on the first offer that comes. A fear of commitment might stall a person from taking pro-active action. Being sought after is a good problem to have, but if you don’t know how to play the field appropriately, your reputation could end up in the dog house and you might just let the best opportunity get away from you. Here is Part One with talent Manager, Trish Chua, who offers advice on how to best navigate the waters when there are plenty of fish trying to bite your line.

Question: Where are you specifically seeing that there is not enough talent to meet demand?

Trish Chua: Since we focus on the creative and everything that touches it, we are seeing an uptick in demand for usability — user experience designer, information architect, and even in some cases, user research. We are also experiencing a big demand for developers. Mobile is really hot right now. Everyone has a cell phone or a smart phone. A person who can design for mobile, the UI designer, or can code for iOS or Android is really in demand. The demand continues to grow in this city while the pool of talent gets narrower. 

Q: How should one juggle potential job offers versus actual written job offers? Meaning, you’ve been offered one job, but the one you really want says they’ll get back to you in another week.

Trish: What we tend to have happen with our candidates is that they may be juggling a couple opportunities, but haven’t actually interviewed for them yet. For example, when a hiring manager has expressed interest in the candidate and the candidate is considering the position. Or, when they are working with an agency in addition to searching independently for work. It’s in this space where things can get complicated. It feels counterintuitive, but when a candidate is looking at a couple of opportunities, or in the interviewing process, or close to accepting an offer — it’s really important that you keep in touch with your Talent Manager. Transparency is really important when working with an agency like ours.

Q: What if a person has accepted a job offer, but the job they really wanted finally reaches out with a job offer. How should this be handled?

Trish: Once you’ve accepted a job offer, you need to honor that commitment. If you are at that stage where you receive an offer, but you know there’s an opportunity you are waiting to hear back from — you should be honest about that, especially if you are working with an agency. The Talent Manager could actually help communicate to hiring managers for you if you are still interviewing for other jobs. Don’t accept an offer unless you are completely sure you want that gig. A candidate should never accept a job offer and then go back on it because it could come back to haunt you. Even if you handled the situation gracefully, hiring managers remember those experiences and could impact that company’s decision to work with you in the future. You also never know where that hiring manager could go next, so you could burn bridges because you didn’t have honest communication.

Q: Would the outcome be different if a person accepted an outside job offer, gave notice to their current company, to which they counter offered in order to keep that person. Is it understandable to back out of the outside job offer, or could you suffer the same repercussions?

Trish: We’ve run into that before where a candidate decides where they currently work is no longer a good fit for them, or that they want to look for a higher rate. They start looking for a new job, and then a counter offer will come through. It happens, and depending on how honest you’ve been through the process, you could possibly leave that situation unscathed. The key is to be forthcoming. Being able to communicate is the most important factor in your job search. Whether it’s a specific company, job function, company culture, or salary — it’s really important to share that information with a recruiter or Talent Manager you are working with so that you don’t find yourself in this situation to begin with. It’s important to weigh the factors when you are considering a move so that you make the right moves, and stick with your commitment. 

Stay tuned next week for Part Two as we cover some of the more common mistakes candidates make in juggling multiple job offers, and how best to turn an offer down without burning a bridge.  

A special message from guest blogger, Jan Drake:

Recently, we gave a presentation at the 2012 Seattle International Conference on creating gloriously unpredictable outcomes.  We’ve posted that here for you along with some perspective we couldn’t fit into the time and format we chose for the presentation. It’s good stuff.  Read on to find out about the three essential elements of Gloriously Unpredictable Outcomes, why they’re the future, and how to create them!

Why should you read this?

The Train Is Leaving…

Because we’ve got a first-class ticket on a bullet train via wormhole to the future!  And that train isn’t stopping for you.  There’s no station stop.  It’s already in motion.  It’s accelerating around you.  And if you aren’t aware of that and the larger context around you, you’ll miss it… and always wonder what happened.  Instead, we invite you to run alongside us for a bit, pick up speed, and hop on for a future of creating gloriously unpredictable outcomes!

Because if you don’t, those that do will outperform you.

Think on this:

• A Russian billionaire has announced AND FUNDED a goal of fully uploading the human mind by 2045!
• Interactivity is accelerating like mad! The separation of ourselves with devices and applications will disappear!

Science continues to enable more Technology, Technology enables amazingly creative opportunities and enables new Art.  Art continues to be the driving force in delivering the delightful, the unexpected, and the amazing! 

It’s going to take a LOT of Gloriously Unpredictable Outcomes to get us there… and they are happening.  We’re hoping you’ll be creating them!
 
What are Gloriously Unpredictable Outcomes?

They’re the multi-dimensionally disruptive innovations, the kind of ideas that burst through assumptions and preconceptions as if they were tissue paper; the kind of creative endeavors that create entire new markets and pop into existence totally new concepts in the minds of everyone; the kind of thing that turns “Oh fudge…” into “Heck YEAH!” in the blink of an eye. 

And Gloriously Unpredictable Outcomes are what power the bullet train.

How do I create one?

So, here’s the key.  The ONLY way to create a Gloriously Unpredictable Outcome is to combine together Art, Science, and Technology.  Every single Gloriously Unpredictable Outcome you can identify has all three of these components seamlessly woven together to create something larger than the whole.

ONE or TWO of these is not enough anymore.  You need all THREE!

You can’t do it alone anymore.  You need a TRIBE. 

The Trap (or “How to miss the train in one easy step…”)

When the three of us went through the process of creating our SIC presentation, along the way we realized a trap.  And the trap is that… each of us has a bias for ONE of these.  A bias that keeps us from challenging and exploring and throwing ourselves outside our comfort zone.  I call it the velvet curtain… it’s not really blocking your path, but it’s warm and fuzzy to lean against, and it’s safe here behind the curtain… you never know what might be on the other side that isn’t warm, fuzzy, safe, comfortable.  And THAT’S the trap. 

The Trap Is You (or, “There is No Spoon”)

Watch the presentation for more of this as we focus on it quite a bit and bare our souls a bit about discovering our own bias’ and how we work to get around them.

The Conclusion

You can’t ride this train, surf this wave, be on the leading edge of innovation, creativity, or interactivity without opening yourself up to focusing on bringing Art, Science, and Technology together.  It’s just not possible anymore.  Those that recognize this will soar… those that don’t, well, you’ll probably have a short run up a steep hill while never getting close enough to see where the top might be and what might be there.

The Challenge

Break out of your mold.  Challenge every assumption and preconception.  Intentionally think about your bias, why you’re less comfortable with the other two elements of Gloriously Unpredictable Outcomes.  Intentionally build yourself tribes with all three of these biases and work together!  Break down all the walls!  Jump the train… and we’ll see you at the top of the curve.  There’ll be champagne, cake, immensely comfortable lounge environments, and of course, the glory of having contributed many Gloriously Unpredictable Outcomes. 

Go Now!  Create!  A Gloriously Unpredictable Outcome Awaits!

There is so much to look forward to at Seattle Interactive Conference 2012. From the lineup of keynote speakers, the interactive activities, to the happy hours and after parties — there will be numerous memories and images to capture. Who better to capture the spirit of the conference than YOU?! Let’s share the SIC experience collectively by sharing images from YOUR point of view.

Filter will also have a very special booth set up that will both feed and blow your mind: The Intersectium!

Whether you are attending a speaking session, interacting with The Intersectium and other activities, and/or hitting up an after party or two — post pictures to Twitter and Instagram using hashtags #SIC2012 and #intersectium.  All images will collectively live on a virtual scrapbook here: www.letsgetsnappy.com/filtersic12.

A special thank you to Jason Lander for partnering with us on making this gallery of images possible! Let’s Get Snappy is an interactive fan-generated tool created by Lander's company. Use it for your next event to capture the experience from the point of view of actual attendees, or even to generate a social contest. 

Check our gallery during and after the event to see all the awe-inspiring images that we all capture together. Get to snapping, people!

“We believe that deep appreciation of the intersection of art, science and technology is the catalyst for all forms of game-changing.”

Put your inventor’s cap on and meet us at the corner of art, science, and technology! Demonstrate your mad science skills at the Seattle Interactive Conference by bringing to life an Arduino creation at The Intersectium with Filter.

On hand, we’ll have all the gears, knobs, and gadgets you will need to power your imagination. Once you’ve completed and named your gizmo, we’ll put your brainchild on display for people to vote on Twitter!  This is where you’ll want to encourage your social network to vote for you by tweeting at us at @FILTERDigital the name of your invention, with hashtag #intersectium.

The Intersectium Arduino winner will receive their very own Inventor’s Kit for Arduino and bag full of Filterati swag!

Look for our booth, The Intersectium, at SIC 2012 on both days and come create with us!

The process of writing a resume can feel so daunting and overwhelming to the point that you might produce something from an anxious mind, rather than from a clear and organized thought process. If you have read part one of this series, you may now be asking yourself whether your current resume is considered good or bad, and how you can ensure you are best represented on paper to lead you to your dream job. I sat down with Filter Talent Managers, Andrew Martin and Heidi Raynor, for expert advice on what makes a bad versus good resume.

Q: Why is having a strong resume so important?

Heidi Raynor: Hiring managers are only going to glance quickly at it rather than read it thoroughly. They need to be able to glance at your resume quickly and know the professional story you’re telling.

Andrew Martin: The sheer volume of resumes that come in will be in the thousands in one month. Hiring managers may be working with as many as four agencies, or on their own. So, the old adage of you only have one chance to make a first impression holds true to catch their interest in 15 seconds.

Q: What are the different schools of thought in writing a good resume — and, what is your approach?

HR: Two of the most common styles of resumes used are a skills and a timeline resume. Senior level people tend to lean towards a skills resume, but the drawback is that some of those individuals will do a mash-up of skills and timeline, resulting in a long and complicated resume. My approach is that regardless of your style, it’s important to have a narrative of your resume, a story that tells who you are clearly. A hiring manager should not look at your resume and not know what you do.

AM: Skills and timeline are classic styles, but what we’re seeing more with junior level or younger generation candidates are a social media inspired resume. In my opinion, this style is too much fluff, too much personal information, and too many images. I don’t need to see your picture.

Q: What key components should be on a good resume?

HR: It should start with an overview, not a mission statement or goal. Basically, a summary of you in two sentences, followed by skills, work history, and then education. For junior candidates, education and work history can be swapped. Skills are extremely important to call out, even soft skills, such as a UX Designer also having mobile experience. Just make sure to highlight soft skills in a measureable way.

AM: I don’t mind a mission statement if it’s on a separate page because I can use that as an additional resource if I need more information.

Q: Job seekers might view the cover letter as just an annoying step, or that it’s not important enough to make an impact. What feedback do you have about cover letters?

HR: We see so many cover letters that are not for the job that the person is actually applying for. Mistakes are made because they are using a generic cover letter to submit to multiple jobs. If you’re going to use a generic cover letter, don’t use it at all. Something where you can just swap out company names should be thrown away. I would rather have no cover letter than a bad cover letter. A mediocre cover letter is more damaging than having no cover letter at all.

AM: A generic cover letter tells me that a candidate is just randomly shooting in the dark. You don’t really want this job, you want a job. We’ve all been there — when you’re about to scream over another cover letter and another resume, but it will pay off in the end. When someone is in our position or a hiring manager, it will stand out that you really made an effort with the cover letter. The overall impact will be that this person has great attention to detail and will be impressed that you took the extra 15 minutes to speak to what they need.

Q: When is a resume too short and when is it too long?

HR: With junior candidates, one page is hard enough to fill, and if they have more than one page, they are likely putting too much on it. More senior level candidates, like developers, can have up to three pages, but I would rather see people keep it to two so that you’re not going too far back. As you go back in time, the older items can take less space in context.

AM: You can take skills learned from an old job without speaking about that old job. Rather than putting your years of experience spent working retail for The Gap in college, list the skills in that you can meet client needs and have relationship building skills. I’ve had resumes that were like 20 pages long, and if the meat of the resume is hidden, all that experience will do is prevent you from getting the job. Not every experience you’ve ever had is relevant to the job you’re applying for. Advice I got from Heidi that I have passed along to candidates is that if there is something you don’t ever want to do again, don’t put it on your resume. Finally, don’t list work that you have to make excuses for. Less is more. Don’t try to make up for content with fluff because all it does is distract from the goal.

HR: If you don’t want to file, don’t list filing as a skill on your resume. You shouldn’t go too far back in your work history because you most likely have other things you can talk about now. If you recently had a six month contract doing the type of work you want to do, listing that is more important than the thing you did for five years that you don’t want to do again.

Q: Besides things you never want to do again, what other items should not end up on your resume?

HR: Don’t list your hobbies, unless it directly ties to the job you’re applying for. If you’re a designer and involved in various design-related clubs, list them. If you have a blog about typography, list it. If you have a blog about kittens, that should not be on your resume. Related awards and accolades are fine, but do not list that you were your high school class president.

AM: Don’t use made up words or slang. Your resume is not a social network, so don’t use LOL or pictures of kitties and cupcakes. There are ways to speak to your personality through clubs, but generally, your personality on paper is irrelevant. Use the in-person opportunities to let your personality shine.

Q: Speaking of social networks, how should social media play into the role of job seeking?

HR: With new job seekers, social media is engrained in their daily lives and they assume it should reflect on their resume. I speak at schools all the time and explain to be aware that your social media profile is permanently out there. You could have blogged about something previously that is now offensive to a hiring manager. Do not put your Facebook profile on your resume, but a link to your LinkedIn profile is totally appropriate.

AM: There is a level of self-obsession that is greater than we’ve ever seen before because new job seekers are raised on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and more. It creates this idea that there is interest in that person specifically, but personality will never make up for a lack of experience or ability.

Q: What are some of the more outlandish things you’ve seen on a resume?

HR: Obscenities, like writing “I’m the shit”. I actually see this happen a lot. Don’t make a brand out of yourself on your resume either. Leave the design work to be showcased on your portfolio and keep your resume clean.

AM: Filling the content of a page with pictures of cutesy stuff that is not relevant to the job.

Q: What are creative things you’ve seen on a resume that were done right?

HR: I’ve seen designers do fun stuff with information graphics around their skills, or create a timeline out of years of experience. It’s graphical, but informational — gets across the information in a really beautiful way.

AM: I’ve seen developers who have multiple levels of skills rate themselves on a scale or star system — most fluent to least fluent or rating 1 out of 5 stars. It gives me a quick visual that helps me to communicate to a client the level a candidate can function at. The information you provide, however you do it, should elevate your message and not distract from it.

Q: How should job seekers go about receiving feedback on a resume?

HR: I think people tend to shy away from giving direct feedback, so they tend to focus on grammar errors and punctuation only. Tell people specifically how you want the feedback. Can you tell what I want to do? What are the top three skills you think I have after reading my resume? What about my resume would make you want to hire me? What’s the first thing your eye went to?

AM: Rather than asking someone what they think, ask specific actionable items. What are your first impressions about me from my resume? Also, consider who it is you’re asking. Try to ask someone who is in a position of seeing many resumes, like a store manager or recruiter.

Q: Are there ever candidates that refuse to take your advice because they are so invested in what they’ve done to want to hear your feedback and apply it?

HR: In the creative industry, handling feedback is so important. If they can’t handle feedback from a recruiter, how are they going to handle feedback from a client? A job seeker does not have to listen to us, but if you understand that we have your best interest and that we know what hiring managers will respond to, the process will work.

AM: Editing allows for discovery. You have to ask yourself what is more important. Applying feedback from someone who can get you hired, or having that extra few lines on your resume? If someone tells you that you will have more options by editing something out and your response is no, then you should be asking yourself what you are doing. It demonstrates that a person can take direction well if they can take the feedback and put it into action, returning with an edited version. It shows they are able to divorce themselves from the work personally, and reveal that it’s about the work and not about them.

Q: Any final thoughts you’d like to leave with job seekers?

HR: Try writing your resume backwards. Start by defining what your goal is, then work backwards in providing context that supports that goal because it is the goal that should be driving what you add and eliminate on your resume.

AM: Print out your resume for proofreading before emailing it out. It changes your perspective of your resume and allows you to edit if the font is too small, if the format looks right, and if there are extra paragraphs that can be eliminated. Don’t rely on spellcheck to catch all errors because even real words can be used wrong.

If you’d like further assistance from our talent managers to find work in the creative fields, register with Filter today to refresh your career path!

Who knew such a simple question as “What do you want to do?” could be so complicated to answer. That’s where I was a little over two years ago when I first met Filter Talent Manager, Heidi Raynor. I had what I thought were all these valuable skills to offer the world, but when I proudly presented my life on paper to Heidi for review, she placed it down and expressed that based on my resume, she could not tell what my end goal was.

“What is it that you want to do?”

I blankly stared back at Heidi like, what do you mean? Isn’t it clear that I have social media, marketing, writing and communications skills?! I have experience in all these areas, in addition to my extensive previous work history of retail, cosmetology, and office work that has clearly added tremendous character to what I can bring to the workplace. What do you mean by asking me what it is that I want to do when there is clearly so much I think that I can do.

“But, what do you want to do?” 

I was suddenly confronted with a question that I hadn’t honestly asked myself directly. I had graduated from college with a degree in Journalism at a time when print publications were starting to shut down and the environment for writers was taking a dramatic shift. I kept my administrative job while seeking some kind of relevant career related to my degree. That comfort zone of habit, even if you’re unhappy, is hard to break free from when you really can’t answer what it is that you want to do. That’s when the universe stepped in and forced me to look hard at and confront that very question.

I was laid off from my administrative job and found myself lost and insecure about what to focus on. What now? Do I keep looking for office work because I have extensive experience that would potentially lead to a new job right away, or do I take a leap of faith and chase after what I had studied to do, even if that meant having to completely reinvent my strategy. I continued to develop my writing skills in the environment of social media and the blogosphere, and felt something growing inside me. Did I dare admit that I was feeling inspired, ambitious, and possibly a calling? Even though I was unemployed, just as millions of other Americans were, I found happiness in pursuing what I loved with or without the paycheck, which is when I realized I was onto a little something called passion.

A friend of mine who was contracting through Filter introduced me to Heidi Raynor. After presenting my resume that I viewed as an extensive of my soul in bullet points, and she asked me what it was that I wanted to do for the second time, I finally answered, “I want to work in social media and I want to write for a social audience.”

Heidi smiled at me as if to say, “You’ve done well, young grasshopper,” and set to work at guiding me with her recruiting expertise to edit out of my resume what did not align with my social media goal, and to add what did. It was like unloading years of baggage that I didn’t realize I was carrying. I let go of listing every job I had held since high school. I let go of listing employment history that was work I never wanted to do again. I let go of feeling like I had to include everything that I was capable of doing in order to prove my relevance in the workplace. It was an emotional process for me to edit out what I had clung onto so personally, but in the end, I trusted Heidi’s feedback and realized her intentions were not to satisfy some sadistic need of hers to torment people. She wanted to help me because she was passionate about managing talent and had the experience and expertise to guide me along my path to get me focused.

“When you have focus, it changes your job search. If your resume is focused, your job search focused, then, suddenly you have a path.”

Heidi’s words have spoken volumes in my personal path since our first introduction. Two months after meeting with her, I landed my first professional and paid social media job. Two years after meeting Heidi, it has brought me directly back to Filter. My bad, hot-mess-of-a-resume lead me to discover my desired career path. I had a choice not to take feedback from Heidi and keep my word vomit on paper, but I am so glad that I let go of my ego and put her guidance into action. I am enthusiastic about being the new social Community Manager and resident blogger for Filter, and hope this reaches those of you who need to honestly ask yourself what you want to do in order to discover your own path, just as I did. Stay tuned for part two as I dive deeper into the specifics of what makes a resume good versus bad, with the advice from two Filter Talent Managers, Heidi Raynor and Andrew Martin.

In addition to being the Community Manager for Filter, Tina Gunn is a horror movie

hound, cheering spectator of Mixed Martial Arts, connoisseur of all things cute,

and an animaniac (of animals and animation). Connect with her on Twitter at @tinagunn.

“We believe that deep appreciation of the intersection of art, science and technology is the catalyst for all forms of game-changing.” 

We are now just a few weeks away from the biggest interactive and networking opportunity in Seattle where you will learn, engage, and be entertained! This year’s Seattle Interactive Conference (SIC) theme is “Game Changer”, and Filter is taking our industry game to a whole new level. Prepare to step into the light as we take you on trip through art, science, and technology that will feed your mind!

Join us in our special keynote engagement as we celebrate the creative mind and its ever increasing importance to every aspect of our existence. Come create with us at our interactive booth that will absolutely blow your mind! Finally, come mingle with your fellow Filterati and attendees over drinks at a Filter sponsored happy hour Tuesday night, October 30, at Barboza from 6 — 9 pm.  

If you attended the sold-out event last year, you will remember the long registration lines for those who waited till the last minute. Avoid a repeat of last year by registering early as the 3,000 attendee count is expected to double this year! As a further incentive to sign up now, Filter is the only sponsor offering an exclusive discount of $100 off your Gold or Platinum pass. To register, click here: http://seattleinteractive.strangertickets.com and enter the discount promotion code: FILTERATI.

SIC 2012 happens on Monday and Tuesday, October 29 and 30. The lineup of events will take place at the Conference Center at WSCC, 8^th Avenue at Pike Street, Seattle, WA. 98101. For a full schedule of events, click here: http://www.seattleinteractive.com/agenda. Watch the trailer that is sure to tease and excite you: https://vimeo.com/49257043.

From our CEO, Max Thelen:

A year ago October 5^th, the creative world lost its de facto leader, Steve Jobs. There’s been a lot happening this past year, and excitement has remained high with the launch of the iPhone 5 and new versions of Windows Phone 8, and the Amazon, Nook and other Android devices. While we eagerly await the launch of Microsoft Surface and other Windows 8 devices, it is clear now that we have lost a vital force for change in our world. The IOS maps debacle does not spell the end of Apple by any means, but it serves as a reminder of the high bar that Steve set for us, which we now miss anxiously.

Each of us has a moral obligation to advance Steve’s vision. For all the people.

When: Friday, October 5, 2012 at 9:30 AM