cutiefrankie's art blog @cutiefrankieart - Tumblr Blog

btw. i made this quick guide of some of the natural size and proportion reference points in the human body. of course this all varies even irl, and you can stylize however you want, so ymmv but thought it might be helpful for some folks.

saphushia

like i said all of these vary, but adding on to clarify that that's especially true for hand + foot size, and thumb length. hands + feet are quite frequently smaller than stated here, and the thumb tends to vary from hitting abt the middle of the first finger bone to reaching the end of it. i made the graphic while half asleep so not as nuanced as it could've been lmao

the-stove-is-on-fire

Glow Tutorial!

If you would like to watch and follow along check out the YouTube link! (Sorry it has no audio) >>> https://youtu.be/VRTuhcABd1g

The art program I use is Krita but these steps should translate to most other drawing programs, one way or another.

tnerdbean

Know what I’m salty about?

In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.

Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.

I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.

tldr: Art Teachers: teach your students what different tools do. PLEASE.

spookyscaryscouticus

WAIT INDIA INK JS WATERPROOF ONCE IT DRIES????? THE ENTIRE REASON IVE AVOIDED MARKERS MY ENTIRE LIFE IS BECAUSE JNK BLEEDS AND YOURE TELLING ME INDIA INK IS

F U C K I N G W A T E R P R O O F

cinderteethe

oh man your teachers did not do there jobs!

-Yo painters, use pencil if u must underdraw beneath an oil painting, the lead is archival but ideally you should be doing underdrawings in a muted earth tones (siennas, umbers, ochres or earth green) with some titanium white added to it. (The white nearly matches the canvas and earth tones naturally blend with all colors on top unless u do super thin glaze washes).

-Trying to make a natural looking warm black? Don’t use black straight from tube, Mix alizarin crimson and viridan. add raw umber to adjust for light depth.

-If your into mixed media ALWAYS use acrylic first and oil on top (the gesso on primed canvas is acrylic based and oil sits on top of it great). NEVER put acrylic paint on top of oil, the acrylic will crackle/decompose and fall apart/off the canvas.

-India ink is permanent and if your using ink from a jar it should say it’s permanence. professional art grade pens usually have there permanace listed either on the pen or the companies website.

-Red cinnabar is poisonous, DO NOT EAT IT, no matter how much like fruit loops it smells.

-Translucent and transparent are NOT the same. translucent is *shiny* and a cloudier color, ideal for mixing usually ordor making vibrant colors like for eyes, cars, etc. Transparent is matte and usually a 50% transparency from an opaque color.

-ALWAYS DO A TEST SWATCH OF ANY NEW MATERIAL.

-any paint made with “true alizarin crimson” “red lake” and “chrome yellow” pigment is a fugitive paint. Fugitive means the pigment fades dramatically and disappears over time, (usually 5 to 15 years) lots of van goghs paintings have this problem. be very careful with these pigments. Alizarin crimson especially smells extremely sweet and like fruit loops or fruit loops, don’t eat it.

-gauche is a mix of watercolor and ink, proceed with caution as this material can be an asshole.

-Watercolor can be made darker/thicker by letting it dry slightly in cake form or in liquid form and can be dry brushed if u get the timing down.

-Paint liquid rubber or lay down thin pieces of painters tape on edges in watercolor paintings to Prevent bleeding between lines if u need super sharp edges.

-always tape down the entire paper edges when u paint with watercolor to a board to prevent the paper from curling as it dries.

-add salt directly into wet watercolor paintings to absorb pigment and make shit look like space.

-Always paint in well ventilated areas and avoid getting lots of paint on your hands. lots of paint is made with heavy metals and can cause cancer.

-natural materials aren’t always safe, especially

-Ones u collect yourself, do your research before grinding, burning, sanding these things especially indoors.

-use NATURAL bristles on your brushes with oil paint and SYNTHETIC bristles on your brushes for acrylic and watercolor. synthetic bristles literally break off into oil paint and stick into your painting, and natural bristles can’t handle the weight of acrylic paint and rip into 15 directions. Use hard boar bristle for the underdrawing/underpainting of an oil painting as it will force the paint into the canvas pours more effectively cause it’s stronger, use softer bristles for outer layers of oil painting and blending, boar will pierce outer layers and is to hard for anything but the first layer. can’t tell what u have? clean it up and brush it on your face, softer it is the better it is as doing outer layers of color.

teratocybernetics

-if you have a decent painters’ tape, you can prewet your watercolor paper, tape it to a surface & weight it down with some books to press it flat while it’s wet and help keep it from buckling later once dry, this is especially useful because for some reason, watercolor block is half again as expensive or more than a comparable sized pad or large sheets to cut down, even by the same brand

-natural sable is good for watercolor if you can afford it, i have two smaller brushes i shelled out for to try it, and while i probably didn’t treat the finer point one right, the other one is a miracle i’ve had for nearly 20 years.

-chinese calligraphy brush sets are fantastic for large work and washes and way, way cheaper most times than standard brushes, and it doesn’t seem to matter how cheap they are, either. they may shed a little, but they do a really good job holding and distributing water.

feliosfarkus

Rb for any art students

bigmammallama5

A trick i learned in art school, if your paper still warps/curls and your piece is finished/mostly finished: dampen the BACK and then press it flat again til dry. This works well with thicker papers! I have not had much success with thinner material. Test it out to get the hang of it before trying on your art!

tinywitchdraws

Anti-Aliasing in Clip Studio Paint

Okay, so today I want to talk about anti-aliasing in CSP because it’s kind of a lifesaver?

But also I have a super hard time remembering how to do it or that it exists so here we go.

Basically, anti-aliasing helps you color line art without going outside the lines. Here’s a gif of me coloring with my mouse so you can kind of get an idea of what it is we’re talkin’ about here:

So how do we do that?

First, select your line-art or sketch layer in the layer panel of CSP. Click on the little lighthouse icon at the top of the panel. When you click off there should be a little lighthouse on the side of your line-art layer! This icon means that is now a reference layer!

Step2:

Go into your brush settings and click Anti-overflow! Click “Do not exceed reference layer” to make it work, tweak the other settings till you’re happy. These are the settings I used in the example below to get a cleaner coloring style

Step 3:

Add another normal layer below you line art! Make sure it’s selected and color away! Here’s what it looks like with the settings above:

tinywitchdraws

RIP me

It should be anti-overflow in this tutorial, anti-aliasing is a totally different thing

>.<’’ sorry!!

art-res

Thanks for sharing!!!

wildxwired

How fucking annoying is it when you feel so restless with creative energy but you can’t decide what to do with it and when you finally try to create something it comes out shit so you just give up and sit there being all creatively annoyed and jittery.

lianabrooks

1 - Decision Making Fatigue is a thing. --> Make a list of possibilities. --> Use a random number generator to pick something off the list. --> If you hate the idea cross it off and generate a new number. --> Continue until you either find a project or cross off the whole list. --> If you cross off the whole list pick a random short story prompt, write for five minutes, and call it a good work day.

2. Yeah, of course your rough draft sucks. It’s supposed to. --> Let it suck. --> You can fix it in edits.

3. When you’re stressed you aren’t unbiased about your work. --> Don’t judge your work while your are actively working on it. --> Remember to drink water, take your meds/vitamins, eat something, and get sleep. --> Double-check to make sure the restless creative energy is not displaced emotional worries over something else. If it is, displace with intention and let the worries go into your work. You shouldn’t keep stress in your head, put it on a page, or canvas, or in a carving, or a meal, or something. Get it out and let it go.

4. No work is ever wasted. --> All time spent planning and creating is useful in some way. --> Failure means you tried, which is good. --> Try again. Fail harder. Fail better. --> Keep going until you like what you’re making.

5. Love yourself enough to allow yourself to not be perfect. --> Seriously. --> If this is a struggle I highly recommend seeing a doctor or therapist about depression. --> Because you are dang lovable, my friend. You rock. You do great things. I’m proud of you.

leave-her-a-tome

(source)

Unsplash - photography, illustration, and art

Pixabay - same as unsplash

Pexels - stock photos and videos

Stockvault.net - stock photos

freepngimg - icons, pictures and clipart

Veceezy - vectors and clipart

Kissclipart and kissPNG - more vectors and clipart (often transparent!)

Getdrawings - simplistic images and drawing tutorials

Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)

Canva - needs login but has lots of templates

Library of Congress - historical posters and photos

NASA - you guessed it

Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie

Even Adobe has some free images

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without infringing copyright! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own.

Please add on if you know any more sites for free images <3

kmparker616

Thanks for the information!!

draconic-cuddles

"You are no longer licensed to use the software," Adobe told them.

In other news, it is now not only morally acceptable but the morally correct thing to do to pirate the fuck out of Adobe’s software line.

justsomeantifas

Planned Obsolescence gives way to Enforced Obsolescence

semicolonthefifth

[Laughs as I boot up Clip Studio Paint, which I bought one (1) time]

Here’s a list of other programs. Keep posting till it’s widely known.

https://twitter.com/Everblue_Comic/status/1124453210297520128

crowmanart-deactivated20240316

Good to know these thanks man.

the-stray-liger

Reblogging this one bc it has options for indesign bc artists aren’t the only ones affected and graphic designers are getting played too and ignored in every one of these fucking posts

atalienart

Art advice question! I’ve been trying to practice drawing faces from more angles, but the profile or a 3/4 from the back is what kills me! I always have trouble with the mouth in those, Idk what it is, even if I try and draw in a super simplified way and only do a line it sill somehow manages to look wrong... any tips?

I don’t know how to help you when I can’t see your drawings. Maybe this can be useful:

As I said, it’s hard to fix something when you don’t even see it. Use references, draw from life, it’s the best was to understand and learn things.

nevver

Return to Magenta, Ekaterina Popova

succubusboyfriend

being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five

succubusboyfriend

someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help

me: my what

suave-eddboy

thepioden

What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.

sparksel

when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.

Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.

So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’

1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!

2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:

a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!

In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.

I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose

b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!

c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface

d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)

e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them

f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.

g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.

h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.

And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.

This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.

Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.

so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!

rileyav-moving

artist tips

don’t save as jpeg

suchirolle

as a former yearbook editor and designer, let me explain this further

if youre only planning on posting your art online, them please save it as .png ;this is also better for transparencies as well

BUT

please, if youre planning of printing your art, NEVER use png. it makes the quality of the image pretty shitty. use jpeg or pdf instead. and always set your work at 300dpi to get a better printing quality - this means, the images are crisper and sharper and theres no slight blurriness. i had a talk with my friend who is currently taking design, and pdf is much better to use when youre working with a bigger publishing company because it still has the layers intact, but if youre only planning on printing your stuff at staples or at some small publishing store, the jpeg is the way to go.

this has been a public service announcement

inactive-ironic-ken

Want a good picture to save as? PNG

Want a good printed picture? JPEG

kiwi

HEY THIS IS IMPORTANT whats your favorite place to find drawing references?

kiwi

so far we’ve got

senshi stock

croquis cafe

line-of-action.com

quickposes.com

posemaniacs

clip studio paint models

pexels.com

sketchdaily

eggazyoutatsu atarichan drawer

designdoll

if you have any more please reply!

nohara

Unsplash: All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible. More precisely, Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.

Freeimages: You can use the images in digital format on websites, blog posts, social media, advertisements, film and television productions, web and mobile applications. In printed materials such as magazines, newspapers, books, brochures, flyers, product packaging for decorative use in your home, office or any public place or personal use. The rights granted to you by FreeImages.com are: Perpetual, meaning there is no expiration or end date on your rights to use the content. Non-exclusive, meaning that you do not have exclusive rights to use the content. FreeImages.com can license the same content to other customers. Unlimited, meaning you can use the content in an unlimited number of projects and in any media. For purposes of this agreement, “use” means to copy, reproduce, modify, edit, synchronize, perform, display, broadcast, publish, or otherwise make use of.

Stocksnap: Every single image on StockSnap are governed exclusively by the generous terms of the Creative Commons CC0 license. Specifically, that license means you can do any and all of the following: Download the image file.Publish, revise, copy, alter, and share that image. Use the image (as-is or as you’ve altered it), in both personal and commercial contexts. Moreover, you can put StockSnap CC0 images to any of these usages without buying the right to do it, acquiring written permission from the image’s creator, or attributing the work to the image creator. In other words, there’s no fee to download or use these StockSnap images in accordance with the CC0 license. They’re free to download, free to edit, and free to use - even in a commercial project! You don’t even need to attribute the image to the creator, the way you do with other CC or traditional copyright licensing schemes. (However, even though it’s not required, we here at StockSnap do encourage you to include an appropriate attribution. It’s a nice thing to do.)

Burst.Shopify: Burst is a free stock photo platform that is powered by Shopify. Their image library includes thousands of high-resolution, royalty-free images that were shot by their global community of photographers. You can use their pictures for just about anything — your website, blog or online store, school projects, Instagram ads, facebook posts, desktop backgrounds, client work and more. All of their photos are free for commercial use with no attribution required.

Pixabay: Images and Videos on Pixabay are released under Creative Commons CC0. To the extent possible under law, uploaders of Pixabay have waived their copyright and related or neighboring rights to these Images and Videos. You are free to adapt and use them for commercial purposes without attributing the original author or source. Although not required, a link back to Pixabay is appreciated.

Viintage: All images hosted by Viintage.com are considered to be public domain images, each image is presumed to be in the public domain. It may be distributed or copied as permitted by applicable law. Viintage.com assumes no ownership of the images and they may be downloaded and can be used free of charge for any purpose. They may be downloaded and used for commercial and personal use. Understand “public domain” as the permission to freely use an image without asking permission from the photographer or the illustrator. Thus, the creator of the work will not sue you for violating his/her copyrights. It is your responsibility to make sure, displaying the image does not violate any other law. Viintage.com assumes no responsibility for how or where you use the images found on the site.

Gratisography: You may use Gratisography pictures as you please for both personal and commercial projects. You can adapt and modify the images and get paid for work that incorporates the pictures. This includes advertising campaigns, adding your logo or text to an image, printed in any size print runs (e.g., book covers, magazines, posters, etc.), on your website, blog, or other digital mediums, and on merchandise as long as the picture itself is not the merchandise.

gamersapphic-deactivated2022121

for Clothing refs,

Yesstyle.com

they have flattering and elegant clothing

thejoyfool

5 min tutorial for trcelyne, hope it helps!

sushinfood

Tried this out REALLY roughly just for fun and WOAH!?

IT WORKS WELL!!

IT STILL WORKS WELL!

@despeyyy

Impressive

mutherfucking chainmail brush

How to make a super awesome easy cheating chainmail brush for photoshop or any program that lets u make brushes

step one

draw a fucking loop

step tw0

take ur loop. go to edit > define brush preset (or whatever u use to make brushes idk man i use photoshop)

bam. now u got a brush.

but it does this shit.

and we don’t want it to do that shit.

so what u gotta do is

step 3

go to ur lil brush widget thingy

(this guy)

and he;ll take u to this sweet toolbox menu thingy

and then all u gotta do is fuck around with the spacing until it looks vaguely chain linky

and then u can do sweet arts like this

this tutorial has been brought to u by sleep deprivation

dont do art kids

now go forth and create beautiful chainmail without bawling you r eyes out as u singlHANDDLY draw every single fucking loop

ultimatefandomtrash61-deactivat

@evilwriter37

darkbookworm13-deactivated20240

I read the first sentence and wondered at what point would I need a brush to clean chain mail, before reading further and realizing my brain was in another galaxy, as that was how far off I was in understanding what was happening in this post.

ninpen

Things that have helped me (coding related)

jsfiddle - Helps you test out your code instead of using tumbr’s shitty customization page

cssportal - offers a variety of services,including: testing out your css code (gives you a live demo), generators (box-shadow etc) and others

dirtymarkup - Cleans up your code. Basically makes it legible

patternify - creates small patterns (it’s what I use to create my icons). This is honestly my favorite tool.

w3schools, codeacademy, learn-shayhowe, learnlayout - all of these websites help you learn the fundamentals of html/css and more

google - it is literally your best friend. It’ll answer any question you have no matter how vague

stackoverflow- very helpful website. Helps you answer any questions you may have (code related). BUT PLEASE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SEARCHED YOUR QUESTIONS BEFORE ASKING. These are actual people who are taking their time to answer your questions, and they will take your “question asking” privilege away from you if you abuse it

tutorialzine codrops- tutorials to help you with coding. It can go from very simple, to “that’s way too much time investment for me”

css-tricks - it’s like a combination of helping you code, to asking questions, to tutorials (this is my favorite website)

behance, dribbble, awwwards - great place to find inspiration

validator - checks the validity of your code

iconfinder - holy grail of icons. Some are free some aren’t

fount - it can identify any font that a webpage is using

colourcode - just check it out.

colorlovers- color palette galore

caniuse- says in the name

Now if you’re trying to see how your code/theme etc looks on different screen resolutions this is how you do.

Google chrome

right click on page then click on inspect or (Ctrl + Shift + I) look for this (it’s the two ipad looking icons)

All you have to do now is input in whatever specs you want If you don’t want it anymore, just click it again and it’s gone.

Firefox

click on the menu icon (the 3 lines in the right hand corner)

click developer then responsive design view or (Ctrl + Shift + M)

I hope you found this helpful. Enjoy your day

queendread

Right now, I’m sifting through 50+ applications for a new entry-level position. Here’s some advice from the person who will actually be looking at your CV/resume and cover letter:

‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.

Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you have included.

Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV - media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.

USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.

I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.

Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.

Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.

I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.

“I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.

For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.

This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments - it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.

And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.

And seriously, if you have any friends that do any kind of hiring or have any involvement with that side of things, ask them to look at your CV with a big red pen and brutal honesty. I do this all the time, and the most important thing I do is making it so their CV doesn’t read exactly like that of every other person who took the same ‘how-to-get-a-job’ class in school. If your CV has a paragraph that starts with something like ‘I am a highly motivated and punctual individual who–’ then oh my god I AM ALREADY ASLEEP.

revysprite-deactivated20170502

Very good post thanks for this.

copperbadge

Excellent advice for building and submitting job application documents.

dispatchrabbi

This is the first good resume advice post I’ve seen on this site. Much better advice than the “lists of active verbs to use” and “here are resume templates”. Follow this advice.