#application tips

[dcafanzine]

☀️ Application Tips 🌙

Applying to a fanzine can be a pretty nerve-wracking experience, especially if this could potentially be your first zine! This set of tips has been made in the hopes of easing any potential anxiety and making the application process smoother for everyone!

Please read on to find out more and see some cute little puppets!

Read the FAQ and guidelines carefully

The FAQ and guidelines explain the theme of the zine as well as what we’re looking for when it comes to contributor applications. Reading these will help strengthen your application when you come to apply!

Make sure the zine schedule matches your availability

Please verify you’ll be able to keep up with the zine’s schedule if you’re selected to contribute a piece for the zine! For this zine, once selected, you’ll have about three months to complete your piece, with check-ins every month. Life happens, and unexpected things can make us all busy at the last moment (and our mods will try our very best to work with you to get things sorted!), but please be mindful when applying to check that your availability matches with the schedule.

Step one: Follow the guidelines carefully when submitting your application(s).

Please pay careful attention when reading and answering the application questions to ensure that your application follows the guidelines and answers everything as clearly as it can. Applications will stay open for a month - there’s no rush if you need time to complete your application in detail! If there is a maximum number of samples, a word count range, or a specific theme requested on the application form, please make sure your application adheres to these so we can properly evaluate your application. If you’re unsure about anything, please feel free to ask, as our mod team is only too happy to help!

Step two: Make sure we can see your samples.

Once contributor applications open, we’ll be asking to see existing samples of your work so we can see if you’re a good fit for the zine! Please be sure to link specific examples of your work that you think fit the zine’s theming as well as the style and quality level you’re hoping to meet when contributing to the zine. Bear in mind the mod team are likely going to be looking at a lot of entries, so if you link to a gallery that has a huge number of examples, we might not be able to give a fair amount of time looking at the pieces that best showcase your work! These don’t have to be posted publicly on social media, but please ensure we can see them for the duration of the application period (e.g., the links work, the links aren’t set to private or followers only, and the links don’t expire before the application period ends).

Step three: Make sure your application samples fit the theme of the zine.

In this case, we’re looking for examples of your work featuring the DCA. The zine will primarily focus on canon-adjacent depictions of the DCA, with some slots available for AU content made by the AU’s own creator or with express given permission from the creator of that AU. Your application should ideally provide one or more samples depicting the DCA, with at least one of those preferably depicting the DCA in a canon-adjacent form or setting.**Canon-adjacent here doesn’t mean the depiction has to be biblically accurate, just that the design should not differ so substantially from what would typically be recognised as the DCA to essentially be a separate character. This fandom is intensely creative and we love and applaud the originality of the many different variants of the DCA, but this zine aims to focus primarily on canon-adjacent depictions, with a limited number of slots for AU content as well. Having canon-adjacent depictions of the DCA will massively help round out your application for this zine!

Step four: This one’s for the merch artists - please don’t apply with the same samples you’d use for a page/spot artist application!

Including actual merch designs for your samples helps a lot, as prior experience making merch is a massive advantage for a merch artist application!

Bear in mind, you don’t strictly need to follow all of these steps to a tee when completing your application - the mod team will try to accommodate where we can. However, it will really help your application to take these things into consideration!

And most importantly …

Step five: If you get rejected this time, please don’t let it discourage you!

Zines often get a huge number of applications vs contributor spots, and a lot of tough decisions (often taking hours or even days) will likely have to be made between several really good applicants.

Being rejected from a zine in no way means you’re bad at what you do, or in any way less worthy or skilled than anyone else. You deserve to be here just as much as anyone else does, and there are people who adore what you do, so keep doing it! In some cases, certain applications might fit the theme of the zine better, particular applicants explained themselves more clearly in their application, or it was just all in all an extremely close call with one lucky winner. So please don’t ever let a rejection email discourage you from trying, and bear in mind rejection happens to the best of us at some point!

We appreciate every single application we get, so good luck out there!

[mindgambit]

Creative tricks through articulation: How you can influence the psychology of the interviewer

Discover tips for better communication! From word choice to tone - make conversation your tool. 🔊🗨️ #Communication #Tips #tricks #ArtOfConversation #Community #articulation #application #interview

The way you express yourself – your choice of words, your tone, and your articulation – can have a significant impact on how you are perceived. Here are some tips and tricks you can apply to positively influence the psychology of the person you’re speaking to: Use positive reinforcement If you repeat positive terms or phrases used by an interviewer, you not only build a stronger connection with…

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[contre-qui]

If I had to give rising high school seniors one piece of advice for your college applications, it would be this:

If possible, sit down with your parents/guardians/financers of your college education and ask them to be very honest about your budget for college. I didn't find out until after applications and offers that I didn't have a college fund at all. If I had known that before applying, I probably would have made some different choices. So if you can, I'd highly highly recommend asking what your college fund situation looks like, how much they're willing to pay, etc. It will save you a lot of heartache if you know where you can afford before you spend all this time (and money) on applications.

Good luck with applications this year! 💜

[carpenoctemzine]

Asks: Portfolio Edition

Some quick tips about portfolios:

There’s no “right” or singular way to present your portfolio. A portfolio can be a Google Drive folder with your 10 best pieces, or it could be an entire professional website with a range of categories and hundreds of works.

The idea with portfolios is to showcase your range and style in addition to your samples. Think of it this way: if you were applying for a position at a job, and you were told to bring in a folder of works to your interview, what would it include? The recruiter has already looked at your resume, i.e. the key items that make you a strong candidate. But what additional background can you provide that represents your overall artist / writer personality?

Of course, the number of works in your portfolio will depend on your overall inventory of works; Most importantly, the items represented in your portfolio should be what you believe to be your best work. You don’t want sketches or drafts in there, but complete pieces that you are proud of.

If you want something in your portfolio to stand out, just organize it that way. For example, if you have certain items that you couldn’t submit as samples but want to highlight, here’s a few ways you could do that:

If your portfolio is a Drive Folder, create a sub-folder called “Highlights” and place them in here.

If your portfolio is a website, your best pieces should probably be part of the image carousel or home page, or more easily accessible via the main categories.

If your portfolio is something like an AO3 account or a Tumblr art tag, where you can’t re-organize items in a preferred way, you could indicate your top pieces in the additional notes section of the application.

Again, when it comes to applications, you probably couldn’t have “too many” pieces, as long as they represent your strength and range of skill (especially in a way that you may not be able to show via samples). And just to clarify: your zine samples can also be in your portfolio. Especially if you have a website or AO3 account as your portfolio, because it’s not like you can remove items from there just because you used them as samples. For writers, your portfolios could even include the “full version” of samples that you had to excerpt (For example, you could copy-paste a segment of a longer fic into a Word Doc as sample 1. At the end of sample 1, you could say “Complete work can be found in portfolio, [here]” and include a hyperlink. 

One thing we would advise is that you don’t want your portfolio to be too sparse; after all, it’s there to provide further background. An additional 3 or 4 pieces probably wouldn’t give us that much of a better idea, so we’d say at least go for about 10 pieces in your portfolio (excluding any repeating samples). Writers could probably get away with less (for example, 6 or 7) since written works can be on the longer side.

We hope these tips and ideas can help you decide how to organize your portfolios! As always, feel free to reach out to us for further help / clarification, and we’d be happy to help!

- Carpe Noctem Mods 🧛‍♀️

[tenderacademia]

starting my college transfer apps this week. it has been years since senior year applications (i mostly winged these and got lucky tbh) & there's all the covid19 changes to applications, so if anyone has any tips please please PLEASE lmk!

[silvia-moon]

What not to do (and what to do) when applying for a zine

Hello all, I have had the opportunity to be apart of a mod team for two zines that have gone through their application phase and thought I would pass on some tips that might be helpful to any writers who would like to apply to one, or for those who have applied and been rejected. 

Remember these suggestions are mostly from my personal experience and there is no ‘guaranteed method’ to make you get accepted. All I can say is keep trying and hopefully these tips improve your chances. Suggestions are below, in no particular order.

Don't start the sample with a name. Seriously it gets boring to read 40 fics that all start with "Keith did this" or "Lance did this" Do: Give it an interesting starting sentence. Start with dialogue or action or anything that sets your fic apart.

Don't submit a messy doc  Too many samples are just tossed into a doc and sent over without considering how confusing this can be. Do: If you're submitting samples in one google doc or separate, please make sure to indicate; the title, what fandom it's from, and if it's an excerpt or complete story. If it's an excerpt, having a brief summary for where we are in the story or what happens next is helpful too. If samples are all in one doc, it helps to insert a line break between samples or increase the font size of the titles. Including word count or a link back to full story is a plus too.

Don't send in all excerpts Do: Most zines want to see how you can write short stories, so we want to see at least one sample that is a full standalone.

Don’t send in samples that are in a foreign language Do: Zines tend to expect all submissions to be written in the same language that the zine itself uses. So if no one on the mod team speaks the language in the sample, we cannot judge it.

Don't blind paste your links Do: Double check that all links are working. This is especially important for google docs where you have to make sure your link is shared and able to be viewed by others. If we have to request permission to view it, chances are we may end up skipping it.

Don't change your google doc samples Do: While you can make small edits or updates, don't change the sample file to something else completely until acceptance/rejection mails are sent. 

Don't ignore the application rules Do: The rules are there for a reason. Make sure that your fic follows the guidelines for wordcounts, and samples they want to see. All samples should preferably be from the same fandom as the zine. As good as your Naruto fics might be, if this isn't a Naruto zine, we probably won't understand the content enough.

Don't disregard the zine's goal Do: Submit samples that you think the zine would like to see. For our Keith zine, we obviously love Keith and expect to see samples that match that. So fics that kill Keith off, or show that he is having an affair, are not going to leave the best impressions.

Don't do dialog and/or info dumps Do: Try to send in samples that have a balanced mix of action and dialogue. Talking can be interesting, but it all runs together if that's all the characters do. You can even break it up with body language or some points of silent reflection. 

Don't submit that NSFW Do: A lot of zine's will accept NSFW, but if you submit one it better be excellent. Like that fic better be an award winning example of smut, otherwise it's probably not that good and it's safer to stick to your non-explicit work samples. Obviously don't send if the zine asks for only SFW.

Don't send untagged NSFW Do: If a zine is good with NSFW examples please, please, please tag them. Even if the mod team is all adults, it's no fun to click on something and have an "Ah! My Eyes!" moment. We like to be prepared for that, so any kind of warning is appreciated. It shows respect and that you are following the rules. 

Don't insert photos, videos, or gifs in your writing sample Do: While you may think it looks cool, it just makes your sample harder to read and can cost you points 

[nyfacurrent]

The Art of the Application | Work Statements and Cultural Statements

We’re sharing insider tips for your NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Application.

The NYFA Grants team has created a series of blog posts with information to help you prepare the materials needed for your application(s). In this edition of The Art of the Application, we’ll share tips on writing a Work Statement and guidance in helping you decide if you should include a Cultural Statement.

How Do I Write a Work Statement?

This may be a new term to you, but the concept will be familiar. The Work Statement is like an Artist Statement, in that it should describe the primary interests of your practice. Whereas an Artist Statement is often broad and overarching, your Work Statement needs to be specific to the work you are presenting within your application.

Your NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Work Statement can be up to 100 words in length and is required. It may seem daunting to distill your work down to 100 words or less, but trust that it’s a worthwhile challenge! However, be mindful when you condense your statement into a short format; don’t let your ideas devolve into vague sentences or generalizations. Instead, hone in on some of the key factors that inspired the work in your application, and describe how these elements relate to some of the larger ideas within your artistic practice.

As an exercise, consider this question: How would you explain your work to someone who has never experienced it before?

Keep it simple. It’s best to avoid language that is overly theoretical or philosophical. You don’t want to make your statement so complex that someone has to read it two or three times in order to understand it. Keep in mind that the panel is reviewing hundreds of Work Statements. Statements that speak clearly and provide concrete examples allow the panel to access your ideas more quickly. And remember, with only 100 words, you should never stop at the first draft!

Should You Supply a Cultural Statement?

Another aspect of the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship application is the Cultural Statement. This statement gives applicants the opportunity to describe how their practice relates to, or is rooted in, a cultural technique, tradition, or community.

The Cultural Statement should give the panel insight into a specific cultural community or practice, and highlight any techniques that may need further context.

Describe how your background in a cultural community has shaped your work.

Share any relevant cultural history or stories that influenced your work.

Provide more detail about the techniques you use, where they originated, and why you choose to continue this tradition.

It’s good to take advantage of any opportunity an application gives you to describe your work, but you should only submit information that is appropriate to your practice. Supply a Cultural Statement only if your connection to a cultural community, technique, and/or tradition is integral to your work. If not, don’t spend your time trying to argue an angle. Instead, focus your attention on strengthening other components of your application. Keeping your materials relevant, informative, and focused is key when submitting an application to an artist opportunity in general.

Depending on the discipline you’re applying in, you may have the opportunity to also provide a Technical Statement and/or Excerpt Explanation. These statements will allow you to go into further detail, so don’t feel like you have to say everything in your Work Statement or Cultural Statement.

For more information about the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, visit our website and view our Fellowships FAQ.

- Hannah Berry, Program Associate, NYFA Grants

NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowships are administered with leadership support from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Find out about additional awards and grants here. Sign up for our free bi-weekly newsletter NYFA News to receive announcements about future NYFA events and programs.

Images, from top: Ginny Casey (Fellow in Painting ‘18), Balancing Act, 2017, oil on canvas; Wafa Ghnaim (Fellow in Folk/Traditional Arts ‘18), Floral Bookmarks, 1988-2001, cross-stitch on fabric

[harvardbusinessschool]

Recommendations - App Tips Summer Series

We get a lot of specific questions about the letters of recommendation, so let me try this post Q&A style.

What questions will you ask my recommender about me?

How do the candidate's performance, potential, background, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples.

Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant's response.

Who should I ask to write my letters of recommendation?

Ask people who know you well in a work context. In most cases, one of the two should be your direct supervisor. The other can be someone you’ve worked with in the past or you are working within a different capacity now. Depending on where you’re working, you can also consider a client, an investor or someone from a partner organization. Recs from professors are typically not as helpful in our process unless you’ve worked with them in a significant way.

It is a good idea to think about how the two recommendations can complement one another by drawing on different examples or aspects of your background.

What if I am not telling my employer that I am applying to business school?

We understand, and we do not want your situation at work (promotions, bonus, etc.) to be negatively affected. If you’re in this situation you can ask someone from a prior job, or someone that you work with outside of your organization to write for you.

Does it matter if my recommender is an alumna/alumnus of HBS? How important is her/his title?

We get this question all the time, and you should always choose people who know you well over someone who may be an HBS alum or have a big title. Remember, we are trying to get to know YOU, not your recommender. 

Read more.