How to recruit new creative talent!

Jun 12, 2023 | Design and Production Support

The GCA have embarked on a project to support members looking to recruit new creative talent, and a graduate Open Call initiative to raise the profile of the greeting card industry with Universities and Colleges, attracting young creative talent into our sector. This project also explores setting the standard for recruitment within the industry.

Introduction

Launched in 2022, GCA member and industry creative leader Geoff Sanderson from Celebration Nation, explained how publishers can best utilise the incredible pool of talent in The Most Valuable Secret in Creative Innovation and Succession Planning

In this article Geoff and Eve Gray, Creative Development Director Future Squad at Hallmark, share the work they have done and their top tips. Both have been bringing new Creative talent into the card industry for many years, Eve in her role managing Hallmark’s graduate recruitment and the development process. This comprehensive guide covers all areas of working with Universities and Graduates

Why work with graduates?

The industry and most likely your business will require a constant pipeline of new design, whether brand new creations from scratch or re formatted from previous best sellers, archives, or back catalogue. Which all aims to ensure the variety and differentiation of each publisher, retailer and range as well as ensuring relevance and adapting to the changing consumer behavior and design trends over time.

The development and management of product ranges also requires a wide selection of design disciples, experience, and knowledge to create the desired mix whether experienced professionals or new up and coming talent. This could be in the form of in-house teams, contractors or freelancers as budgets, costs and scale dictates.

Hence, your creative talent pool needs to be wide and varied. For every illustrator creating a new page 1, there’s a graphic designer creating page 4’s branding, packaging, catalogues and print; web designers building e-commerce shops and apps; content creators making social media posts and writers, photographers and design managers linking it all together.

In short, it makes good sense to ensure that graduates form part of this flow in your range planning as not only can they play a creative part in making relevant and innovative design but also allow the tiering of studio salaries and roles, freelance fees and structuring of budgets to suit the need.

Engaging new design talent

So, how and where do you start with the process of engaging with new design talent?

The truth is, sadly many graduates and aspiring creatives don’t know the greeting card industry exists in the same way that we do, so in my eyes the emphasis is not just on the graduates to track us down but for us to find them.

There are no hard and fast rules to this process. I’ve seen many ways and models over the years, and everyone is free to do as they wish. But as an industry it makes sense, through the GCA, if we start to work towards some common messaging and credible standards – for publishers, creatives, and academia alike.

Geoff Sanderson

Geoff Sanderson and Eve Gray, Creative Development Director, Future Squad at Hallmark have put this comprehensive guide together on working with undergraduates and setting projects with universities.

Establishing a graduate project or placement strategy

  • Establish and agree a WHAT + WHY + HOW for Placements/Internships and University/College Projects
    • Each can bring a different benefit, outcome, and results
  • Work out the mutual benefit (business and undergraduate/graduate)
  • Is your creative need immediate, mid-, or long-term – or all three?
    • Immediate rarely works in this conversation first time around – you may have to do the leg work below for ‘immediate’ to be an option in 2nd year
    • It may also mean you need a freelancer rather than an intern short-term
  • Do you have time to dedicate to setting a brief with a college or working alongside a graduate i.e., mentoring and developing
  • How, when and on what financial basis do you want to offer work?

Setting College Projects and visiting Degrees Shows

  • This may be a brief or project you set with undergraduates during term time with your local Uni, which makes it easy for you to manage
  • It’s important to make your brief relevant to the course and fit specific learning outcomes (that the course leaders can assist in shaping – as well as engaging the undergraduate and meeting your own needs)
  • You may wish to attend to set the brief or do a talk online to set some background. You can visit to judge outcomes or have them sent to you and you feed back?
  • Do you have contacts at your local university? If not, a good start is to attend your local degree shows and meet the students and lecturers to build your own network
  • You may even simply visit just to spot talent – which if you wanted to develop could be an offer of freelance work or to jump you into the next set of options
  • Nationally there’s also the annual creative graduate New Designer and New Blood showcases in London (see links below)
  • Once relationships have been built with academics/universities, understand the role of industry collaboration within courses/modules and this will support how a brief can be written and subsequently interpreted by staff and undergraduates
  • Academic years are planned in such a way that you need to be aware of when semesters require industry collaboration, and this will dictate when the brief occurs
  • Allow time to brief, provide interim feedback and final critique of projects. Interim critique yields the best results
  • Unless work is purchased, all work completed belongs to undergraduates and all rights remain with them.

Welcome Graduates – GCA Open Call 2022

As part of this project to connect new creative talent with greeting card publishers, we worked with Birmingham City University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Nottingham Trent University and invited some of their recent graduates to our annual Conference and AGM in Nottingham, see the film below for more!

This initiative resulting in lots of interesting discussions and exchanges of information, supporting recruitment into the industry and raising the profile of greeting cards with the designers and senders of tomorrow!

GCA Open Call 2022, recent graduates attend the GCA Conference and AGM in Leeds

Considering Placements and Internships

  • Placements or internships generally happen post-graduation or during term holidays
  • Placements are generally a shorter duration (possibly from 2-3 days to 2-3 weeks) and are about a specific set project with a beginning, middle and an end.
  • Internships are generally over a longer time (4 weeks and upwards), possibly with a view to recruitment. In a sense, a trial in a role with mentoring and a chance for the graduate to work across your business
  • If a placement goes well it could lead to an internship
  • For all options we’d recommend you pay at least a living wage. An unpaid placement is not ethical and can affect the reputation of the business (and GCA if associated)
  • Develop a Welcome Pack (Virtual / IRL / Hybrid)
  • Overview of value of the placement/internship to the business
  • Information about the business (overview)
  • Names / details of key contacts during placement/internship
  • NDA (to sign + return)
  • GDPR Privacy Notice (for information)
  • Any relevant internal policies as appropriate: EG: Technology Policy
  • Safe Systems at Work – any relevant training: scalpel use / digital standards
  • Health & Safety Policy

The process of organising

  • If the placement is a result of University/College Projects, seek permission to obtain email details of intern/placement from academic tutor (GDPR compliance)
  • If the placement is a result of New Designers or degree show, request details
  • Email intern/placement and request written permission to keep email details for duration of placement and share with any team member who may be involved for the duration of the placement (GDPR compliance)
  • Keep written permission in ‘safe’ location (GDPR compliance)
  • Organise dates and working pattern (IRL, Virtual, Hybrid)
  • Send Intern/Placement Written Confirmation of Placement Letter (dates/pay)
  • Communication about placement expectations
  • Send Welcome Pack prior to internship/placement
  • Request signed forms to be returned for records
  • Organise internal access and training required
  • If hybrid working, establish suitable communication methodology
  • Make sure a rate is negotiated (hourly/daily) and set up as an External Asset supplier.
  • Contracts issued and completed prior to any work commencing.
  • Recent graduates may require a little more nurture as this may be their first project
  • Graduates are increasingly aware of their own IP and can be reluctant to comply with contractual requests and may seek a license agreement, especially if they have a very distinctive visual language.
  • This is of course a two-way understanding. To avoid a miss understanding an explanation about your own IP i.e., designs, content, brand e.t.c. maybe required as they could be working with it.
  • In short, a conversation to explain how you need them to help you respect and protect your IP i.e. not show on social media without approval, as well as how you will treat, respecting and valuing theirs, will help with context.

Placement Tips

There are many ways to organise a placement

  • Locationally – it may be all in-house, a hybrid mix or all external and online
  • Duration – you may wish to have someone working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week or a more flexible arrangement as the brief and graduate’s time allows. NB Most recent graduates are also working part-time to pay back their loans and rent and may have other placement or plans post-graduation. It’s good to check this in advance too
  • Briefing + Feedback – briefs should have enough leeway for flexibility and discussion enabling placement/intern to bring new perspectives and thoughts
  • Clarify expectations and attendance approach
  • Nurture – emotional intelligence and empathy are needed here. It does take time to work appropriately with placement/intern to achieve successful results. Success is dictated by answering the question why you wish to participate in this kind of connection/collaboration
  • Undertake any appropriate training if required
  • Develop file sharing methodology for digital submission and potential feedback
  • Organise final presentation and leave appropriate time to upload files
  • Request feedback from placement/intern

Help for university and college course leaders

Tracy Allanson-Smith, Visual Communication Employability Coordinator at Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts, has kindly written a blog, sharing her experience and thoughts on the greeting card Industry and the opportunity for universities and college lecturers and their students.

In Connecting Students with the Greetings Card Industry Tracy shares her experience and top tips for connecting students with the greeting card industry.

Help for Students looking to work in the greeting card industry

See Geoff’s blog, Graduate Opportunities in the Greeting Card Industry for useful links and information

Further Information and resources

This GCA Open Call project was launched in 2022, see the Secret to Creative Innovation and Succession Planning  for more information, and these links to see more about  GCA Open Call 2022 and the report on our annual Conference and AGM in Leeds

If you’re a GCA member keen to know more, or a student keen to learn more, read How to Get into the Greeting Card Industry . A project when we teamed up with the Illustration & Graphic Design team at the School of Creative Arts University of Hertfordshire. This includes a useful handout for schools and colleges which can be downloaded.

For GCA members wishing to visit their local school, college or University there is a presentation and toolkit in the members’ library that you can use – adding in your own slides to promote your brand.

GCA members can advertise vacancies for free on our website https://www.gca.cards/jobs/  

For latest greeting card industry news and events see our blogs

To receive our monthly newsletter Sign up for our newsletter here

If you’re interesting in Becoming a Greeting Card Artist see this blog, with lots more tips and information in our members library.

If you’re interested in Working with an Artist’s Agent, see this blog.

For further reading Geoff and Eve have shared links from quoted sources below.

If you’d like to share your stories, provide any help, advice, or feedback, require more specific information or any advice we’d love to hear from you contact us.

Further updates on the Open Call for 2023-2024 to follow soon.

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