From HR to Pattern Design

From HR to Pattern Design Success Story > From: Job To: Solopreneur From HR to Pattern Design “I'd always wondered whether I would be better suited to something else.” * From HR to Pattern Design Komal Pandya-Rao worked in an exciting corporate role, butlonged to use her creativity,and have more say over her working day. When a home learning project became something she wanted to spend all her spare time on, she realised that it was time to make a change. Here's how she did it. What work were you doing previously? My most recent job involved working as a Product Management Lead at Barclays Bank PLC, lending my expertise to various HR Data Science projects. What are you doing now? In July last year, I launched The Design Palette, my own pattern design brand. I offer two main services â€" creating illustrations for licensing, and manufacturing my designs on products such as stationery and greeting cards. How did you feel in your work before you decided to make the change? I really enjoyed the projects I worked on in my role as a Product Management Lead. We'd only recently introduced the People Data Science capability, so it was an exciting time to get involved in the upcoming projects and influence strategy. Why did you change? Since the start of my career, I'd only ever worked in HR and had always wondered whether I would be better suited to something else. Although I really enjoyed working in Analytics, I was missing the space to get creative and have full autonomy over my day-to-day activities. When I gravitated towards Illustration and Pattern Design, it automatically felt like a good fit. I could see myself doing it day in and day out. When was the moment you decided to make the change? I started practising my drawing and digital art skills a lot after completing some courses on the Adobe suite. To get some initial feedback on my designs, I printed my artwork onto wrapping paper and wrapped gifts with it. I got lots of positive feedback, which gave me the boost I needed. How did you choose your new career? I love learning new skills and am always on the lookout for creative things to do. I came across a course on learning the Adobe suite and decided to sign up. My intention was that it would be something to do in my spare time. However, as soon as I discovered the world of pattern design, I found myself wanting to learn more. Soon I was reading and learning about it on my commute, and spending most of my evenings and weekends practising. I'd never really been interested in art, but I suddenly felt like I was missing out. I completed the course in a year, and it was at this point I started thinking of a potential career change. Are you happy with the change? Yes, absolutely. I've had a very steep learning curve since I left my role in HR Analytics, but it has been an amazing experience. There are skills that you learn running your own business that you just cannot learn in a corporate setting. You are very much in charge of the pace at which you develop and the direction you choose to take. It's still early days, but I'm enjoying the change to self-employment. It's an amazing feeling being able to realise my dream of running my own business. I find the idea of having complete autonomy in all decisions, from the direction I choose to take my business to more routine (but equally important) decisions such as the hours I chose to work, extremely freeing. What do you miss and what don't you miss? I do miss the analytical aspect of my job. Being able to provide insights on complex commercial problems that drive critical decisions was really exciting. That said, I have been able to take advantage of some of this analytical experience in my new role. It's important to understand my business data to be able to make the right decisions: for example, knowing which sources drive website traffic helps me in deciding where I should channel my marketing budget. How did you go about making the shift? I did the following to make the transition: Developed my illustration skills and technical capability to turn hand-drawn art into digital-friendly designs. This is a constant learning process! Arranged mentoring sessions with an experienced designer in the same field of interest. Carved out as much time as possible to research the industry. I was lucky enough to have a supportive line manager who approved my request to work compressed hours (this meant I was able to work ten days in nine, giving me one day off every other week). This gave me the space to work full-time and use my day off to further develop my design skills. It still meant that I had to work during weekends, but it certainly helped take some pressure off. What didn't go well? What wrong turns did you take? I think one of the biggest difficulties for small businesses is having a substantial marketing budget and knowing the most suitable advertising channels for your business. It's very easy at the start to spend money on advertising using the wrong channels or targeting the wrong customer base. When I began my business, I advertised via Google Ads. It did bring in a lot of traffic to my website, but it did not help increase my sales. I realise now that this was because I was targeting the wrong audience. Marketing is important, but you're throwing money away if you're targeting the wrong people! How did you handle your finances to make your shift possible? When I knew I wanted to make the change, my husband and I worked through our finances to see if it would be feasible for me to work self-employed. My husband was fully supportive of my career change and we planned for it by saving a year in advance. I've also been able to use some of my own savings to kick-start my business. What was the most difficult thing about changing? Starting a business can get quite lonely. I went from sitting in an open-plan office surrounded by people, to working in my flat on my own. I enjoyed working from home twice a week in my previous role, but I felt isolated doing it every single day of the week. I remedied this by traveling into London twice a week. The cultural shift from corporate to creative has also required some adjustment. Moving from a corporate culture where everything is deadline driven, to a more creative one where things are a little more fluid (especially when you drive your own deadlines) has been a learning experience. I find setting deadlines for myself helps create a sense of urgency and provides structure to my day. What help did you get? I paid for mentoring sessions with a qualified designer to fully understand what my day-to-day life would be like, and to learn more about the industry. In addition, I had my mentor review my designs so I could understand areas for improvement. I also researched online â€" Google is a treasure trove of knowledge! What resources would you recommend to others? Whichever career you decide to move to, make sure you spend some time beforehand researching how this change will impact your day-to-day life, both personally and professionally. It's very easy just to look at the positives (especially if you're not enjoying your current role), but it's important to be pragmatic. If it's a creative career you're looking towards, I would also recommend going to a couple of industry-specific trade fairs. The first one I went to was Top Drawer, and I learnt a lot just by walking around and talking to members within the design community. What have you learnt in the process? 1) Managing a business is hard work. This may seem obvious, but it can't be stated enough. No one tells you if what you're doing is right or wrong, so there's a lot of learning on the job. 2) Running any type of business requires you to be comfortable with uncertainty â€" you can do a lot of the groundwork and work tirelessly, but there's no telling if something will work out. Data can help to a certain degree, but there'll be a lot of trial and error at the start. 3) You need to be able to motivate yourself every day, all day. Even on the bad days. 4) Multi-tasking has taken on a new meaning. My skills were really tested when I started my own business. In the first six months everything I was doing felt new and unfamiliar. It meant that not only was I trying to learn multiple things all at once, but I also had to do it at high speed. 5) You need a supportive and trusted network of family and friends around you to celebrate your big (and small) successes, and to lean on when times get rough. My husband has been my biggest champion from the get-go â€" he's motivated me on my low days and celebrated my successes like they were his own. When I sold my first greeting card, he reacted like I had won the lottery! What would you advise others to do in the same situation? Keep a very open mind as to what your career change may look like. If someone had told me five years ago that I'd be running a design business, I wouldn't have believed them. Talk to people at different points of their career change â€" someone who's just made the leap, someone a year in, and someone who is fully established in their new career. Their insights will be super-valuable in understanding the good and bad bits of your transition. Talk to people in the industry you'd like to work in â€" find out what a typical day looks like, and even better, go and get some practical experience. Take baby steps â€" don't expect to transition overnight. Start by networking, try out the new role and see where it takes you. Most importantly, don't talk yourself out of it, there are always reasons not to change, but imagine the opportunities you will lose out on if you don't make the jump! To find out more about Komal's business, visit www.thedesignpalette.co.uk. What lessons could you take from Komal's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.

Make a plan to manage your success

Make a plan to manage your success I got a book deal. So this is, undoubtedly, the first of at least a hundred columns that will plug the book, which is not coming out until spring 2006. Far away, yes, but not too far for you to make a note in your planner: Buy Penelopes book. I got a big advance for the book. Not big like Bill Clinton, who received four million dollars. But big enough to buy a nice house (if I didnt live in New York City, which I do) and big enough to stop fights with my husband about money (no small feat, believe me). Yet for all my recent success, someone asked me last night, So, what do you do? and I didnt say anything about a book. Lame. Thats when red lights went off in my head. Experience tells me that one needs to manage career success as carefully as one manages failure. So I am making a plan to manage the book success. 1. Take time to be happy. In the past, I have been at points of great success and been too driven toward the top to see how far I had come. For example, when I was a professional beach volleyball player signing autographs and smacking a volleyball in Bud Light commercials, I was always unhappy that I was not in the top twenty players. Now, as someone who makes a living sitting at a desk, I am amazed at my former athletic achievements (and muscle mass). But I never enjoyed them when I had them. I focused too much on what I didnt have. So I am taking a month to bask in my book success. I am telling myself that my hard work and tenacity with my book proposal paid off. I am patting myself on the back, which I always tell other people to do, but rarely do myself. 2. Tell people about the success. One of the people I mentor amazes me with his diligence when it comes to telling me about his success. I dont have a very close relationship with him, and sometimes I think to myself, Why is he telling me this? Why is he sending me links to his stuff? but I always end up thinking better of him when he tells me his achievements. He has taught me that there is very little harm in letting people know what youre doing that is great. When it comes time for me to send emails to announce my book deal, my first instinct is to be hesitant thinking with each email, Does this person really want to know? Does she care? But my mentee has taught me that I shouldnt think twice. I should just send the email. If someone is offended by my announcement then they were probably never going to be helpful to me anyway. Being shy about my success will get me nowhere. 3. Draft a strategy to leverage the success. Too many times in my life I have followed up success with worries that I would not get to the next level, that the achievement would slip out from under me. My worries about leveraging success undermined my ability to do it. Take, for example, the time when I was running my own company and hiring all my friends and family and we had tons of money and great press. I spent my days so worried about where to take the company next that my hair started falling out. Really. I never even knew that women could lose their hair from stress until my shower drain clogged. This book deal has great potential for worries because really, a book deal is all about sales. I have to make sure people buy the book. Also, I cant help thinking about the next book deal. Writing is a business; theres no point in launching one product and calling it a day because a thriving business is a bunch of products. So this time, Im going to use my success as a starting point for strategic thinking instead of fearful thinking. And the first thing, in this vein, will be to craft a new answer to the question, What do you do? I need to get my book into the answer.

What Qualities Make a Great Recruiter

What Qualities Make a Great Recruiter Looking to enter a career in recruitment? Or perhaps youd just like to get better at your job? From finding it easy to chat with people, to the gift of the gab, there are a few attributes that a recruiter should have to succeed in the industry. Here are  a handful of the top qualities that make a great recruiter. Do you tick the boxes? 1) Confidence Theres a reason that the industry tends to attract extroverts. Working as a recruiter involves a lot of networking and interacting with a large number of people, so confidence is definitely beneficial.  Its not only important for the recruiter to have confidence in themselves, but also in the skills that they can offer a client and candidates. 2) Good communication skills Recruitment relies heavily on effective communication, so its important for the recruiter to be good at communicating both face to face, as well as via phone/email. The client and candidate expect to be kept in the loop throughout the recruitment process, so its essential that the recruiter provides them with frequent updates and works as a middleman between the two. 3)  Approachable demeanor Its essential for future business that recruiters are  able to build positive professional relationships with their clients and candidates and are likable. If they dont come across as particularly  personable, it can make the client/candidate  feel uncomfortable. By creating  a good rapport  with everyone  you work with, a level of trust is then built between you. These professional relationships  will, in turn, make future business a lot easier, as they are more likely to want to work with you in the future or to recommend you to others. 4) Good listener Recruiters have got a bit of reputation for being able to talk the ears off of you, but they must also be a good listener! Though the temptation may be to launch into a conversation by shouting about how great they are, its important to sit back and listen to the client or candidates needs and requirements first. It will be much easier to fill roles if you take the time to get to know what each party is looking for. 5) Strong sales skills Recruitment is basically sales. First, the recruiter sells their service to the client and then they  must sell the job to the candidate, explaining why it would be such a great opportunity for them to take. If you lack this flare for sales, it will probably be tough to get any clients on board and no clients means no business. 6) Target driven Recruitment is an incredibly competitive industry, so its crucial that the recruiter is driven and can work well under pressure. Recruiters often work on a commission or bonus  basis, according to their performance, so this works as an incentive to hit  their targets. If you are not willing to put the effort in to meet these targets, then your earning potential will drop significantly. 7)    Good at multi-tasking Recruiters will often be working on a number of jobs at the same time, from a series of different clients, so they need to be able to juggle the different projects alongside each other. Sometimes certain roles may need to be prioritized due to a higher level of urgency to fill the position, so they must also be good at managing their time effectively. 8) Patience Things dont often go to plan and the recruiter must be patient if interviews need to be rescheduled, or they dont find the right person in the first round. Though this can sometimes be frustrating, its important to keep your cool and be professional about it.

Architect Job Description Sample - Algrim.co

Architect Job Description Sample - Algrim.co Architect Job Description Template Download our job description template in Word or PDF format. Instant download. No email required. Download Template Using Your Template Follow these instructions to use your new job description template Step one: Fill out all details in your job description template using the provided sample on this page. Step two: Customize your requirements or duties to anything special to your workplace. Be sure to speak with team members and managers to gauge what's required of the position. Step three: When the census of the team has agreed on the description of the work, add in a Equal Employment Opportunity statement to the bottom of your job description. Step four: Check with your legal department, management team, and other team members to ensure the job description looks correct before creating a job advertisement. Choose a job board that's specific to your needs. Related Hiring Resources Architect Resume Example Data Architect Interview Questions Answers Software Architect Job Description Data Architect Job Description Enterprise Architect Job Description Architect Cover Letter Sample

7 Laws of Positive Leadership CareerMetis.com

7 Laws of Positive Leadership When it comes to leadership, it can be natural or learned. Some people are born being leaders while others spend much time and effort in learning what leadership is. But no matter which party you belong to you should know that being a leader doesn’t mean people love you or strive to follow.Sometimes being a frontman is just being the boss and employees follow you because, well, they don’t have any other choice. And not because you’re a role model for them. That’s why we suggest you overlook your leadership potential to present yourself as a number one which people would love to follow.evalPositive leadership is the trend that is gathering pace in the modern business community. If you are not positive about the team’s results, you are prone to gain the status of ‘evil’ or the bad cop in the office.Current leaders strive to build a positive culture that will motivate employees to demonstrate a thriving performance. They want to create an atmosphere where each worker would be able to show his potential and satisfy his ambitions. An environment which will help one and each to have a healthy competition.A front-runner wants his team to be competent but friendly at the same time. Scandals, gossips, and misunderstandings should be preferably avoided. If he can achieve productive but easy climate, he’ll be paid back in excellent results.So, what does ‘positive leadership‘ mean to you? How to remain positive even under stress and pressure? How to be an amiable leader but still the one people would listen to and fully honor? What are those dos and don’ts?We prepared 7 laws of positive leadership for you, which will explain how you can become the one who leads crowds.1) Shift Focus from Failures to SuccessNobody is perfect. Nobody can avoid making mistakes. They’re quite helpful and much needed. Errors are an ideal source for learning and practicing; they may help to improve the company’s future results.Do not expect your team to show excellent o utcomes all the time. Admittedly, there will be hard times when employees will not be able to cope with a considerable workload or cope with unexpected problems.evalYou as a guiding figure should support your team and convince them that going down in flames isn’t the end of the world.It’s healthy and natural to happen occasionally. You shouldn’t blame them for being unprofessional or ineffective. That may sound a bit mad you think, but every man has his faults.If you are a negative yelling front-runner, people won’t follow you. So learn to be patient and supportive. The best thing to do is to provide workers with proper examples or helpful tools to deal with challenges.2) Don’t Be Overly PositiveWhat does a ‘positive view’ mean to you? The majority of people would consider it to be the opposite of negativity. However, it is not necessarily true. Scientists claim that positive and negative emotions can co-exist. And they usually do.At the same time, there has to be a ba lance between them.Being a leader means being strong and confident but understanding and loyal at the same time.evalNonetheless, success is often overlooked since managers more intensely weight failures and mistakes. Therefore, employees, who are frequently criticized, tend to be less productive compared to their counterparts placed in a positive environment. The best option is to balance negative and positive feedback so that your employees will be inspired to move forward.3) Promote a Culture of LearningWhat do you do when you fail to deal with a problem? Probably, you look for answers, gain new experiences and start getting new knowledge. Apply the same approach to your office. Give thema jump start by showing own experience.You are the one to demonstrate the best illustration. When your inferiors see you learning something new even though you are in a managing position, they start reconsidering their own experience. Some people even begin to feel guilty for not improving their a cquaintance. When employees do not prove exceptional performance, encourage them to investigate an issue themselves.Let them think and make their own conclusions. Attribute them to understand that self-perfection is vital. Create a culture of learning where all workers will be able to explore new fields and learn from their peers.4) Encourage Commitment to the Company’s GoalsExtrinsic motivation proved to work well with the majority of people, but it is not the case with all employees. While one group of workers might stay because they like perks you provide or bonuses they get, others may lack team spirit. Remember that if something works for one, it may fail for others.People are different, and they have diverse mindsets and moral principles.Spread the right values in the organization:Communicate the company’s vision;Motivate employees to mirror your example.Establish an atmosphere where each will feel comfortable and relaxed.Try team building to establish a team spirit. A lea der has to create a team where everyone will contribute to achieving a common goal.5) Build Positive RelationsHow long can you work with a horrible boss? Nobody wants to work under pressure or in an atmosphere of constant fear and terror. A person would probably leave a company when finds a morefavorable environmentwhere he will be able to thrive. Trust and respect are the factors that build a successful team.Being considerate and discreet is extremely important for a leading figure. When you are positive about your colleagues, believe in their success and show your right attitude towards them, they are likely to surprise you. Surely, in a good way.6) Create a MeaningevalDid you know that living a meaningful life is one of the essential human needs? Meaning is something each of us lacks to be happy and satisfied. Your task as a guiding figure is to create sense. By that, you will make your company prosper.At the same time, you should prove that each process player is vital for the g eneral welfare of the company. The organization wouldn’t be that successful without his work.Employees should understand that they bring a contribution.They should feel their value. Everyone loves knowing he’s important and needed. When workers realize the worth of their job, they are prone to make more effort and show better performance. So, set smart goals, appreciate employees’ contribution and they will do the same in return.7) Constructive Criticism is Still ImportantWhen embracing the concept of positive leadership, many leaders mistakenly overlook employees’ mistakes, which often turns into a disaster. Workers do not take their failures seriously, which means they do not work on self-improvement. It’s essential for a worker to upgrade his skills and progress his knowledge continually. Constructive criticism is crucial in any field, but you should doze it.Tips for successful criticism:evalFind an individual approach and the right words to each employee;Be honest, but still positive;Provide people with recommendations;Motivate to perform better next time.Make workers understand that you’re not blaming them. Instead, you inspire and motivate them to try better.Positive leaders are better managers. They also have a way with people; they’re highly respected and loved. They know how to build long-term relations with their counterpartsfree of conflicts and misunderstandings.Real leaders are excellent psychologists. They know how to motivate workers and bring excellent results. They genuinely inspire and become a paradigm. If you want to become one described above, follow our laws and make a real difference to your team and help your organization prosper.

Jobs in Marketing Advertising Vol 1 - CareerAlley

Jobs in Marketing Advertising Vol 1 - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Jerry Della Femina Closing the sale. Thats what it is all about in Job Search, selling yourself, closing the deal, elevator speeches, etc. Intuitively, you would think that someone who is good at marketing and advertising would have an easier time selling themselves at a job interview than non-marketing types would have. And, that may just be the case. But it doesnt make the search process any easier and closing a deal for a product is very different from closing a deal on yourself. So what are the basics? Well to start, review some sites that focus on exactly this topic Market yourself. There are plenty of these sites (two are listed below). Most have similar information, although a few have a slightly different slant. This is followed by the Advertising piece. Sounds the same, but it isnt. The Marketing piece is getting all of the right material together so you can start your campaign (you know the deal resume, cover letters, etc.). The Advertising piece is letting everyone know who you (the campaign) one link for that as well. How to Market Yourself to Employers in a Recession This article, by resumebear.com, starts off with the same comment that I continually make What most job-seekers (during recessions and economic booms alike) dont realize is that applying for jobs is a marketing problem. That is exactly it. The article does an excellent job explaining how and what you should do to market yourself. How to Market Yourself A short article provided by Spherion, provides a high level view of marketing yourself. Taking a slightly different look (like using the SWOT method you must read it if you want to know) but providing some useful information on how to market yourself as well as other job search tools. Conducting an Effective Job Search Campaign The University of Michigans site offered this article which provides the basics for your campaign. The usual suspects get organized, self-assessment, targeted mailings and phone calls, etc. This particular link has a number of other links which will be of interest on the left hand side of the page. Onlinemarketingjobs.com The tag line for the site is Job Site For Online Marketing Jobs Careers. The site covers a broad range of jobs and careers (which is listed on the main page). The upper left-hand side of the main page has links for Job Search, Register, Jobs by email (alerts), Audio Interviews and a list of whos hiring. Featured jobs are listed on the main page with a quick search function as well. This is a global site, so you will need to set your country. Clicking on A-Z Whos Hiring revels a list of companies that are hiring. There were 115 job opportunities when I checked the site. Fristoe Carleton Fristoe Carleton is a search and recruiting firm that specializes in Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations recruiting. Their main page lists new opportunities and has links to Job Opportunities, FAQS, Resources and more. Clicking on Job Opportunities leads to a page that allows submitting your resume, job opportunities and career alerts. There were 11 featured jobs on their site when I checked. There is also a helpful link to Working with Recruiters and About Us provides Bios for some of the firms staff. Indeed.com Leveraging Indeed.coms advanced job search and entering Marketing and Advertising in the field with at least one of these words (click here for this search) yields over 216,500 jobs. Limiting that to employers only (should filter out recruiters but is not perfect), still yields over 200,000 jobs and further limiting that to Dallas yields over 4,900 jobs. The point is, you can leverage the advanced search functions of some of the job boards to focus your search to the the opportunities that suit you. Mediajobmarket.com The market place for media professionals is the sites tag line. The main page hiring trends with media news on the left-hand side of the page. The center of the page has mediajobvine which lists current and featured jobs. Top of the page has tabs for Search Jobs, Post Your Resume, Career Resource Center and more. Good luck in your search.

The Shortest Way of Writing Education in Resume

The Shortest Way of Writing Education in ResumeIf you are looking for the shortest way of writing education in resume then look no further. This is how I was able to answer my question about how to achieve that aim. Resume is the first place where a candidate gets a glimpse of what his/her career will be like. He/she is supposed to show his/her enthusiasm and drive to the best of his ability in that area.So if you want to improve your resume with a successful outcome then it is advisable to think in terms of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses as well as the areas of your qualification. By doing so, you are ensuring that the resume speaks for itself. The same goes to the other types of resumes too such as a cover letter, CV and even resume service letters.In order to boost your strengths and meet the required criteria you should include the facts about your educational background, your professional achievements and so on. In order to fill out your resume in the most beneficial way is to use a resume template. Here you can basically copy a resume.Copy a resume is a good way to make sure that you get an accurate transcript of your resume in the form of text. The copy of resume format is one such kind of template that allows you to put down your personal style and information that you want to keep or avoid. There are several types of templates available in the market. These templates are generally supplied by professionals who know that it is important for you to have a template to ensure that your resume is being treated properly.The easiest way of writing education in resume is to cut and paste the relevant parts of the resume. You can also combine various factors by using different fonts. Use lighter or darker colors to differentiate between the different sections of the resume.If you want to get the best of your prospects try to check out those student reviews online. These sites are mostly blogs, which have a large community of their members who give fe edback about different students. Even if you do not have a blog account, a membership can help you search for the ratings for a specific college.It is important to write in detail about your educational background so that it is displayed prominently. It is not necessary to mention everything about your academic achievements as you want to get a good impression from the reader. Before submitting your resume, you should always include the list of the skills that you can bring to the table for the interview.