You're Hired! How to ace your next job interview

You're Hired!

How to ace your next job
interview
Richard Harrington | RHED Pixel

You're Hired!

How to ace your next job interview
Richard Harrington

Description
To land your dream job in a creative role, there’s nothing
more important than the interview. Job interviews showcase
your talent and expertise—and your ability to think on your
feet. So how do you make sure you’re prepared?

Agenda
• Networking for job interviews

• Cra
ft
ing an e
ff
ective resume and creative portfolio

• Researching the company and position

• Dressing for a job interview

• Bringing the right materials

• Knowing your long-term goals

• Asking about next steps

• Following up with the interviewer

• Staying positive and con
fi
dent

Richard
 
Harrington
I'm a visual storyteller exploring
 
the fusion of photography and video.
 
I also empower creatives with AI.

I'm a husband and father.

Vital Statistics
Business Owner for 20+ years

RHED Pixel – A visual communications company

Photofocus – An online publication

ThinkTAP – Strategic consulting

NCAC – Executive board member

Subject Ma
tt
er Expert
• Focussed on the fusion of photography and video for
past 20 years

• Evangelize that design and strategic communication can
work for most professionals

• Book author of more than 40 books

• Author of more than 150 Video Courses

• Past professor at Art Institute of Washington & American
University

Industry Speaker
• Industry speaker for 20 years

• Address both the photo and video industry

• Chair the National Association of Broadcaster’s
PostProduction World Conference

• Co-Chair Adobe Video World

Past Projects
• America Online

• American Diabetes
Association

• American Israel Public
A
ff
airs Commi
tt
ee

• American Red Cross

• Apple

• Children's National
Medical Center

• Department of
Veterans
Administration

• Drobo

• Federal
Communications
Commission

• Google

• lynda.com

• Microso
ft

• Skylum

• Smithsonian Institute

• Under Armour

• US Air Force

Advisory and Consultant Projects
• Television Networks

• ABC News

• CNN

• Discovery Channel

• Major League Baseball Network

• NASCAR

• Turner Networks
 
• Technology

• Adobe Creative Cloud
 
Advisory Board

• Apple

• Athentech/Eye-Q

• Pearson Education

• Skylum So
ft
ware

LINKEDIN.COM/IN/RICHARDHARRINGTON

Real-world networking for job interviews

Real-world networking for
 
job interviews
• Ask your mentors

• Ask friends and colleagues

• Professional organizations ma
tt
er

• Go to industry events

• Connect with a few people, not the whole room

• Exchange business cards

• Don’t act desperate

Virtual networking for job interviews

Virtual networking for

job interviews
• The creative space is a relatively small industry

• Good people know good people

• Look for connections of connections

• Join professional LinkedIn & Facebook groups as well as
industry forums

• Remember your online manners

Using LinkedIn to
fi
nd interviews

LinkedIn’s purpose
• Best known as business networking site

• Goes well beyond simply job hunting

• Build a list of business contacts of people you know and
trust

• This network drives all the features on the site

• Your network has important real-world results

• Connect with people you want to be associated with

• You can access the connections of all in your network
 
(termed second degree connections)

• Way to make a business introduction to a professional
colleague

• Search for business opportunities

• Invitations to speak at an event

• Job interviews

• Online Publication Contributions

• Join groups that match your professional interests

• Groups are a great way to reconnect with individuals by
joining alumni, professional, and other relevant groups

• Participate in LinkedIn Answers

• Ask questions for the community to answer

• Join in the discussion

• Stay up on the latest at the LinkedIn blog
(blog.linkedin.com)

Internship Interview
• Payment guidelines

• Paid or unpaid

• Stipend or hourly

• Credit guidelines

• Check with your school

• Ensure reporting requirements are met

• Check for duration of position

• Check the company’s reputation

Informational Interview
• Di
ffi
cult to get

• Make sure that the request is clear

• Very worthwhile experience

• Learn more about an industry, company, or a position

• Can o
ft
en be combined with an externship

Freelance Interview
• Easiest way in to a company

• Know your rates or ranges

• Be open to company se
tt
ing payment rates

• Organization is essential

• Certi
fi
cations and work samples ma
tt
er

Part-time Interview
• Be open to part-time work

• Quickest path to a full-time job

• Variability in schedule

• May be temporary or seasonal

• Hourly requires accurate record-keeping

Full-time Interview
• Usually an open position

• Sometimes used for surveying industry or building up
candidate pool

• Ask if the position is new or replacing an exiting
employee

• Ask on desired start time

• Be prepared for a trial period

E
ff
ective résumé strategies
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E
ff
• Know the purpose of your résumé

• Make sure to use keywords

• Use e
ff
ective job titles

• Proofread it at least twice

• Use bullet points

• Put the most important information up front

E
ff
• Pay a
tt
ention to typography

• Explain the bene
fi
ts of your skills

• Avoid a sense of negativity

• Avoid being an Expert in Everything

• Promote achievements instead of responsibilities

• Do not use pictures

E
ff
• Make one résumé for each employer

• Avoid discrimination

• Don’t include irrelevant information

• No lying or embellishments

• Analyze the available job and adapt

• Get someone else to review your résumé

E
ff
• One or two pages résumés

• Update your résumé regularly

• Make the design
fl
ow

• Remove old work experiences

Cra
ft
ing an e
ff
ective cover le
tt
er

Cra
ft
ing an e
ff
ective cover le
tt
er
• Customize the le
tt
er for each position

• Be careful with copy & paste as well as search & replace
errors

• Be speci
fi
c and to the point

• Express enthusiasm for the position

• Write the le
tt
er as if it were directed to an individual reading it

• Express why you want to work for their company and not just
why you want a job

Social Media cleanup
• Employers will look

• Have a pro
fi
le

• Keep it family-friendly

• Show your personality

• Don’t show your
fl
aws

• Don’t pad it

Your personal website
• Keep it clean

• Make sure it’s mobile-friendly

• Keep it focussed on work samples

• Be careful with a blog to not overshare

• Don’t mix personal and professional

• Keep it up to date

• Register a custom URL

Website platforms
• Wordpress

• Extremely versatile

• Extensive customization

• Adobe Portfolio

• Included with Adobe Creative Cloud

• Easy to build and maintain

• Squarespace/Wix/Weebly

• Easy to use platform with simple integration

Why a portfolio?
• If you want a job, you need a portfolio

• Sure a good-looking résumé with excellent credentials
and references will seal the deal, but employers or
clients want proof

• No one is going to hire a creative professional solely on
word of mouth (but that helps)

The essential portfolio
• A good portfolio is a personal statement about a
designer, editor, or artist

• There are no one-size
fi
ts all approach that will work for
each individual

• The best advice is to look at other people’s portfolios

The essential portfolio
• There is a wealth of online portfolios you can
fi
nd on the
Internet

• The key is to start looking well before you need a
portfolio so you can create one you like

Why use the web?
• Can showcase both work samples and contact
information

• This method is ideal for those who create in multiple
mediums

• Many services will adapt automatically based on
platform or hardware used to access your portfolio

Contents of a Portfolio?
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What is a portfolio?
• A collection of your work samples to show prospective
employers or clients

• It should represent your diversity, but not try to show
everything

• Be sure to consider all of the scenarios in which you’ll
need to present your work to those who want to hire you

What goes in a portfolio?
• Show your diversity with your portfolio

• Even if you only work on certain types of projects at your
current job, be sure you have variety

• For example, you might work for a manufacturing
company, but don’t only
fi
ll it with work samples from
your current job

What goes in a portfolio?
• You want several samples of work, ideally done for real-
world clients

• You may think that’s impossible to land ‘real’ clients, but
it is not

• O
ff
er to do internship or externship work, in exchange for
copies of the completed piece and a le
tt
er of
recommendation for your portfolio

What stays out?
• There is such a thing as “too much”

• It is important to screen out the less then stellar
examples from your portfolio

• This can be accomplished through peer review or
professional insight

• Ask a friend or colleague to look at your work samples

What stays out?
• It’s a bad idea to
fi
ll a portfolio with spec projects

• Unless you happen to work for a particular agency, no
one wants to see your ‘spec’ Apple ad

• It is far be
tt
er to have projects where you played a
signi
fi
cant role in the execution

How o
ft
en should you update?

How o
ft
en should you
 
update a portfolio?
• No job or client is 100% secure

• You always need to be ready for that next interview or
proposal

• Be sure to update your portfolio a minimum of every 6
months

• Certain mediums (like a website) are even easier to
update regularly

• Always save copies of your latest work. Archiving all of
your work to disc

• Some jobs require you to get permission before keeping
work samples

• Be sure to credit the company that you did the work for
How o
ft
en should you
 
update a portfolio?

Why you need a great demo reel
• You need a great demo reel to show clients what you can
do

• Demo reels are your primary sales tool for landing good
work that pays well

• The best demo reels not only show what you can do but
also WHO you are

• By displaying a bit of your personality, demo reels convey
to your audience why you are the person they want to
hire and work with on important projects

Are you ready for a demo reel?
• Is the work you’re showing the result of your creative
e
ff
orts or those of a lesson in class or an online tutorial?

• Assets and tutorial content from learning sites like are
easily recognized by professionals in the industry

• Are you proud of the work you’ve done?

• Every clip and every frame that you include in your
demo reel must present your very best work

• Do you have enough di
ff
erent, short clips to last 60
seconds?

• If you answered "yes" to all of these questions, then
you’re ready to build your reel

• If not, don’t worry

• Take the time to build a body of work that you’d be proud
to show to strangers — not just your friends and family

• Many pros will tell you that it’s be
tt
er to not have a demo
reel than to present an amateurish one

Keep it short
• A successful demo reel does not show all your work but
rather highlights your best work

• Most employers agree that one to two minutes is
enough for them to determine whether your reel is what
they’re looking for

• Indeed, many professional editors feel that 90 seconds is
the sweet spot for a great demo reel

Keep it short
• Rarely have I heard an audience complain that a video
was too short

• There is a reason to edit and it becomes increasingly
clear when you actually watch people as they watch your
reel

• Do your best to strip a reel down to its essence and only
add what is needed

• When in doubt… cut it out

Keep it short
• Grab the viewer’s a
tt
ention from the start

• Sometimes a
fi
rst impression is all you get with potential
clients or employers

• Because of the number of submissions they review, you
may have their full a
tt
ention only for the
fi
rst 20 seconds

Editing advice
• Show your most recent work
fi
rst

• No one wants to see what you worked on
fi
ve years ago.
Show them what you’re working on now

• Include only your best current work

• Replace clips that show an older style or are not as
strong as your later e
ff
orts

• Include only those clips that showcase a modern style
and make a strong, professional impression

Editing advice
• Express your personality

• Whether you are serious or a joking, laid back or
hyperactive, let it show through in your reel

• You may have just the personality the client or employer
is looking for

Show some emotion
• Let people see what you’re passionate about

• Add a musical soundtrack

• Pick music that complements your professional, or
personal, brand and then cut your reel to that beat

• Show a variety of work. The more the merrier — and the
be
tt
er chance you’ll have of showing something that
interests others

Show some emotion
• Focus your reel on the type of work you’d most like to be
doing

• If you’re really excited about editing music videos, cut a
reel that focuses primarily on that type of editing

• If you don’t have much content of that type, then go out
and create it!

Structuring your reel
• Open with your name or company logo

• Let people know who you are up front

• A cool intro with your name or company logo is a great
way to grab the viewer’s a
tt
ention

• Highlight work you’ve done for recognizable brands

• If relevant, give a li
tt
le extra screen time to logos that
people will recognize

• The more people who recognize the companies you’ve
done work for, the be
tt
er

• Give on-screen credits

• Show "before" and "a
ft
er" clips. This is especially true if
you are a colorist, audio engineer, or similar specialist

• Show sequence shots

• This is particularly important if you build visuals in
stages, like 3D modelers or compositors do

• Close with your contact information

• This is your call to action

• Include your full name, phone number, website, and
professional e-mail address

• Your reel is worthless if people don’t know how to
contact you

Demo reel mistakes
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Demo reel mistakes
• Mistakes will happen, but you only get one chance to
make a
fi
rst impression

• Take time to review (& re-review) your reel so that errors
don’t slip in; they will be noticed

Demo reel mistakes
• Don’t take credit for work you didn’t do

• Clearly label any clips in your reel for which you only did
part of the work

• Adding a text overlay to the clip that simply says
"Premiere Pro editor," "3D modeler," or "responsible for
motion tracking" goes a long way toward clearing up any
confusion and speaks volumes of your character

Demo reel mistakes
• Don’t repeat any footage

• It gives the impression that you haven’t done enough
work to
fi
ll a reel

• Make your demo shorter instead

• Don’t include errors!

• You would be amazed at how many demo reels
contain spelling errors, audio glitches, clips with
squeezed-looking aspect ratios, and so on

Strategies Before the Interview

Check your references
• Make sure your references know they may be called on
to speak about you

• Ask each reference what your strengths and weaknesses
are

• Ask them which type of job they think you’d be best at
performing

• Make sure a reference is worth listing

• Give each reference an updated résumé

Check your network
• What do your connections know about the company?

• Who do they know inside the company?

• Can anyone speak on your behalf?

• Can anyone o
ff
er advice?

Research the company
• Their website

• Their social media pro
fi
les

• Key employees

• Awards they’ve won

• Management team

• Industry news

• LinkedIn company page and pro
fi
les

Research the position
• What does the job entail?

• What skills do you have that meet the requirements?

• Are the gaps critical or solvable?

• Who depends on this position?

• Have you
fi
lled this role before?

• Is the position caused by vacancy or growth?

Physically visit the interview location

Physically visit the
 
interview location
• Don’t get lost the day of the interview

• Figure out the commute time (then double it)

• Figure out where you are going to park

• Evaluate the size of the company

• Determine the company a
tt
itude and “dress code”

• Ensure your commute is feasible (or movable)

4.5 Physically Visit the

Interview Location

Preparing for an In-Person Interview

Holding mock interviews
• This is personal training

• Helps you to prepare

• Ask a mentor

• If needed, go outside of industry

• Reach out to past internships

Preparing physical materials
• No single point of failure

• Multiple copies of résumé

• Demo reel on 2 formats

• Extra business cards

• Electronic versions accessible

Backup your digital
• Be prepared

• O
ffl
ine access

• Fully charged ba
tt
ery

• Physical media

• USB, not DVD, TB, FW

A few words on intellectual property

A few words on
 
intellectual property
• Don’t be a liability

• Don’t steal music

• Don’t use work sample without permission

• A
tt
ribute your sources

• Be wary of issues and able to respond appropriately

Online resources on copyright
• Copyright Tutorial
 
h
tt
p://asmp.org/tutorials/copyright-overview.html

• Copyright and the New Economy
 
h
tt
p://asmp.org/content/registration-counts

• Copyright Basics from U.S. Copyright O
ffi
ce
 
h
tt
p://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

• Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright from the Library of Congress
 
h
tt
p://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/

• The World Intellectual Property Organization
 
h
tt
p://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/

How to dress for a job interview

How to dress for a job interview
• Research the company

• Take a look around

• Slightly over-dressed is be
tt
er than under-dressed

• Favor clean, but not
fl
ashy

• Show small amounts of personality

• Minimize art and piercings

When to arrive for a job interview

When to arrive for a job interview
• On-time = Late

• 15-minutes early to parking lot

• 5-minutes early for appointment

• Call ahead if you’re running late

• Drive the route the day before at the same time

How long to stay at a job interview

How long to stay at a job interview
• Don’t double-book

• Be prepared to stay all-day

• Be prepared for multiple interviews

• Arrive with a (slightly) full stomach

• Don’t seem rushed

What to bring to a job interview

What to bring to a
 
job interview
• Note-taking materials

• An electronic portfolio

• Backup portofolio

• Multiple copies of résumé and references

• A list of prepared questions

• A briefcase or portfolio

• Small snacks

• Water bo
tt
le

What not to bring to a
 
job interview
• Games

• Social media

• A visible phone

• Gi
ft
s

The importance of eye contact
• Maintain eye contact during the interview

• Address all in the room

• Always look at the speaker

• Don’t stare, but be alert

Have questions ready for a job interview

Have questions ready for a
 
job interview
• People like to talk about themselves

• Ask intelligent questions, not generic

• Customize based on your research

• Ask about tenure and growth

• Ask about business practices

Have questions ready for a
 
job interview
• What motivates you to work each day?

• Which recent project was your favorite?

• What skills help someone succeed here?

• Does the company promote from within?

• What’s go
tt
en in the way of someone succeeding?

Prepare for the unexpected
• The employer may cancel

• Things may be running behind

• You can’t access the Internet

• They may know a lot about you

• Explain short tenures

• Explain employment gaps

Know your longterm goals
• Most employees last 3-5 years

• Make sure you want this job, not just a job

• Be speci
fi
c in your search

• Be able to describe your 5-10-15 year plan

• Be prepared for questions about personal desires

• You are responsible for your own happiness

Avoid delusions of grandeur
• You are not an expert… you have core skills

• You are not a director or a DP… you have been a crew
member

• Do not boast, but show work you’re proud of

• Clearly identify your role in a project

• It is never about you, it is about how you can help the
company or the project

Avoid delusions of grandeur
• There are no stock options

• Don’t ask what the schedule is

• Don’t ask about vacation time, do ask if any bene
fi
ts are
included with job

• Be prepared for low-end work
 
“If I can’t trust you with the small stu
ff
…
 
how can I trust you with the big stu
ff
?”

Ask about the next steps
• What’s the timeline to hire?

• Anything to send a
ft
erwards?

• When can I expect to hear from you?

• Is there anything you need me to do?

What to Do A
ft
er the Job Interview

Electronic followup for job interviews

Electronic followup for
 
job interviews
• That evening, follow up

• Send an individual message to each person you met with
on the team

• Thank them for the meeting and express your interest in
the position

• Write a unique message to each
 
(zero copy and paste here)

Wri
tt
en followup for job interviews

Wri
tt
en followup for
 
job interviews
• Send a handwri
tt
en note the next morning

• Thank them for the opportunity

• Express interest in the position (if you have interest)

• Express desire to continue in the application process
and assist with any next steps

Do not send a gi
ft
to a job interviewer

Do not send a gi
ft
to a job interviewer
• Keep all followups professional

• Avoid any perception of impropriety

• Do not send any gi
ft
s to the o
ffi
ce or individuals

Alert your job references a
ft
er a job interview

Alert your job references a
ft
er a job
interview
• Alert any listed references that they may be contacted
by prospective employer

• Con
fi
rm if they know the employer

• Contact any other references discovered during the job
application process

Stay o
ff
social media a
ft
er a job interview

Stay o
ff
social media a
ft
er a
 
job interview
• Do not discuss the job interview on social media

• Do not complain about the company

• Do not a
tt
empt to engage or friend the company through
social platforms

There’s always somebody willing to work for less than you.

There’s always somebody with more talent than you.

There’s always somebody who’s smarter than you.

There’s nobody out there who is exactly like you.

When they can, people choose to do business with people
 
they like and respect.

Be real… Be nice… Be you...

You're Hired! How to ace your next job interview

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