Is there career advice for creatives?
When mentioning the phrase ‘career advice’ to most people, they tend to roll their eyes in recognition of a paucity of the quality of advice available. Who better to take on the subject of c**p career advice than Samantha Hornsby and Mae Yip. Two lifelong friends that established their business to offer better advice in the form of a festival! Tell us more…
We start by asking them both what career advice they received. Sam’s response, “none basically, barely anything.” Mae tells us, “we were both creative, and that was missing in the career advice. There was career advice, however, it was mainly aimed towards corporate roles”.
Aligned to the lack of career advice was the frustration that they
“couldn’t believe career fairs hadn’t been updated” and this was the catalyst for ERIC.
“It reflects the creativity of the industries we are talking about, the companies that come to our events are the type that would never normally go to a career fair because they haven’t [previously] been represented in the way they want to.”
People are aiming for a lifestyle choice
We explore, in more depth, what career advice doesn’t cover. Sam says, “job-hopping for a period of time is credible” and “it gives you time to discover what works for you and what doesn’t.” Mae agrees that time to focus on “self-development is important”.
On the subject of employer branding, “we do find there are a couple of things that companies do that switch young people off immediately”. They advise focusing on the tone of voice a company chooses is fundamental. As both Sam and Mae have discovered, framing the conversation as a “friend talking to a friend’ increases engagement.
Mae then drops a real knowledge-bomb and reveals,
“if you are talking in a corporate language, then young people think that’s what you want to hear, so they are not actually being authentic about who they are”. Mic drop!
If that wasn’t enough, below you’ll hear Samantha and Mae talk about:
- Reimagining the careers fair
- Is career advice still gender-biased?
- Linear career path versus job-hopping
- Differentiate your branding for different generational audiences
- Making representation a priority
- Have you experienced your own application process?
Thank you to our fabulous sponsor EnterpriseAlumni
