The Ignited Spark

The Sweetest volunteer you will find in Loughborough, Jam, writes about the Creative Spark Conference, the event you won’t want to miss if it happens again!

The Creative Spark event was a Jam-packed Event! (Pun intended), Hosted at the London campus Students and Graduates were invited to come for free and to experience this event! For those in Loughborough, a coach was provided free of charge to get to and back from the London campus, and lunch and snacks were also provided to all!

The event started very early, we were welcomed with a notebook and a pen, for notes, and a lanyard, to add to the collection (Got to catch’em all!), with the schedule. We entered this lecture room where we were welcomed and told how the day will be going. Our Keynote speaker, Dr. Adaku, told us about her experience and her journey and we also had a live performance from her! A nice connection there!

My top three pointers from the Keynote speech would be:

• Avoid Perfectionism: Something very clear for many but some always feels like they are not doing enough. The danger with this is it may lead to very serious burnout.
• Remember your value: Another simple one that goes under the radar. Sometimes under all the pressure, we forget how valuable you are. The importance of this is, that it prevents, to a certain point, work-induced depression. One must always remember that their mental health is very important.
• Remember your purpose: As someone who has ADHD, it is hard to focus on one project only as you have too much energy and passion; you are all over the place. As there is no harm in having other projects, one must remember what matters to them and what gets them closer to the end goal.

We had a quick coffee break, and off to the next part, or parts should I say, while I went to a Creative CV workshop, some went for a tour of Hackney Wick and some joined an online about being prepared before the presentation!

I can only speak about my experience and I can say the CV workshop was very eye-opening, seeing ways that employers look at CVs to improve mine! We also had a very cool activity there where I met a few more people! Connections added!

My top five pointers from the CV workshop are as follows:

• Colour Pallets and Colour Theory: For artists, this may be an easy one but for others not so much, as there is a certain mould one’s CV must fit into. Most do not know about the wiggle room they have such as background, the fact is people do judge a book by its cover, that’s why it’s always a surprise. The same goes for CVs, by making it look better to look at depending on the role you are applying to, you may just get the position if split between two!
• Font and Design theory: same as the previous tip the words and how they are presented can have a major impact on the final decision. Depending on the role, a different font or shaping they hold will leave an unconscious impact.
• Formatting and double checking: You might be the best in the world at what you do but one spelling mistake or overlap in the structure of the text will make you look unprofessional. That is why you shouldn’t rush your CV, take your time and check it before you send it.
• Cater to the position: Many when submitting their CV put every skill or experience they have had, but that is unnecessary. One must simply just put down relevant information and details. You do not want to overwhelm the recruiter, just cut to the chase and put just what is needed by them, i.e. don’t talk about graphic design experience for an electrical engineering position.
• Think you are the employer: This one was an eye-opener because it puts you in the other’s shoes and makes you unbiased towards yourself. You get to see stuff you don’t normally do and you can see if this position is best for you or not. Or how well of a job did you do on your CV? 

The next events were the Creative LinkedIn workshop, Tour of the Trampery on the Gantry, and creative vision (online). I had to opt for the tour as I wished to see the famous spaces I was told about and wasn’t disappointed with a nice Q&A with some marketing business owners there! Bring on the connections!

What I picked up on there was that such working spaces can be very beneficial as you now have an office for starters and you have other like-minded people working next to you. This may lead to good relationships where one business can help another!

The last event was the official networking event but there was one problem: I had already connected with almost everyone there and everyone had already talked to me but it was fun nonetheless.