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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

How to Read Resumes by Creatives

While there is no single strategy for hiring the best creative talent, knowing what to look for in a resume is a good place to start. That’s the logic behind Creative Circle’s digital “interactive resume experience,” a free online educational tool for human resources professionals and employers. The L.A.-based digital and creative staffing agency, a subsidiary of On Assignment Inc. in Calabasas, added the feature to its website in late September. It can be accessed by anyone who visits through “Our Notebook,” Creative Circle’s blog. “There’s value for clients as well as candidates, but it’s primarily for clients,” Michael Weiss, vice president of marketing at Creative Circle, told the Business Journal. The website takes users through the different sections of a resume for a job candidate similar to the designers, developers and other digital talent that Creative Circle places. It offers suggestions for evaluating details that may be particular to creative talent, such as an unconventional educational background or freelance work. “We’ve made it interactive and fun to click through,” Weiss said. “It’s a simple tool.” The platform was built to help entry-level hiring managers better understand what to look for in a creative, he added. While the creative director at a brand or advertising agency may be comfortable with a freelance web designer’s seemingly “disorganized” employment history, for instance, a human resources professional without the same background may view overlapping work or gaps between jobs as a red flag. Creative talent work can often seem abstract, Weiss said. “Many people do not know how to evaluate a portfolio or creative work,” he added. “(They) may look at a portfolio and say, ‘I don’t like any of this work,’ when in fact the designer delivered exactly what the client wanted.” The digital platform serves the interests of Creative Circle by schooling employers on how they should evaluate the agency’s candidates, making the placement process more effective. Additionally, the tool attracts traffic to the firm’s blog. “We are treating it as a piece of content for clients – it’s part of our strategy,” Weiss said. “Our blog is our broadcast mechanism for content, so it lives there.” On Assignment acquired Creative Circle in 2015 to expand its digital and creative staff capabilities. The acquisition price was $570 million. Creative Circles’ clients are mostly advertising agencies and marketing departments, according to On Assignment’s 2016 annual report. True to its mission of finding opportunities that fit candidates’ skills, Creative Circle selected a designer and a developer from its own pool of potential hires to build the platform, Weiss added. “The ideas around it were in-house, but being a creative staffing agency, we always hire our candidates to do the work,” he said. – Helen Floersh

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