Monday, 26 March 2018

Using LinkedIn to get placements

I spoke to John Watters about how difficult is being to get placements at a studio. He generously made a list of people I could get in touch with.

First I got in touch with people in Leeds and surroundings. I messaged a few individuals and then I met Elliot from Propaganda, who gave me another list of people to get in touch with as well as he took the time to speak to those people. He's put me in touch with studios and agencies that regularly take students for placements as well as good people in the industry he thinks is worth to get in touch with.

I contacted them and there have been only a couple of replies, telling me that unfortunately, they are too small and busy to have me in. On a good note, they said I'm doing well and all I need to do is keep trying. These are the studios/agency I've contacted in the last week:

Seesaw Agency
OurCreative
Oslo Agency
MapCharity
Common Room Design
Design Something More
We Are Golden
Thompson Brand Partners
Home Agency

If local studios don't respond I will have to have a broader scope and try to get placements elsewhere. It'll be expensive, as I'll have to find accommodation for two weeks, but I don't mind if the reward is learning from a good design studio. It's an investment, after all.

Someone mentioned that what caught their eye the most is that I met Chris Do. I decided to make a publication with pictures of me with him and a little thought about our meeting and the lessons I've learned from him. The publication got viewed by many people, as Chris Do recommended it. Many likes and thousands of views quickly piled up. Many people connected with me on Linked In. I looked amongst the likes to see if I could find someone in the UK or Spain. There were some interesting contacts to make, so I grew my connections a little bit.




Days later, this post managed to get more than 50 likes and 3000 views. This resulted in more visits and attention to my profile.



I took this chance to share my last project, which got more attention than the usual (which is a couple of likes). This time the post got much more attention.




I like to keep track of who likes my projects. One of the likes came from the creative director of LazenbyBrown in York, a branding agency.

After 7 months of occasional mails, e-mails, postcards and all kinds of approaches I decided to do this one different. Just a couple of days before this happened, Matthew Encina from TheFutur uploaded the following video about how to get in touch with people online in the most efficient way.

 

He explains that the process can be summarised in 4 steps: be genuine, be curious, add value and go for the ask. That's exactly what I did with Mat, and after 3 messages on LinkedIn I managed to get the placements that I struggled so much to find. I covered the name of the company as the picture could be found alone online.



Matthew Encina's process was super efficient. I PM him thanking him, shared the story on The Designers League getting more than 54 likes and more attention to my project.

We agreed that I'll do placements with them, spending 2 days in the studio with them and the other 3 working from home. Soon after our conversation, they made it official on Twitter and Instagram.



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