2. Earning a degree helps, but isn’t necessary. Without a degree, it’s more important to show you have the skills with demos. It also means an employer can use the lack of degree as an excuse to pay you less. A tafe course or short course will help with legitimacy as an alternative

3. Get a professional email address for applications. warez32, bigdog, ladiesman69 is kind of dodgy sounding. I know it’s fun, but I don’t know you yet, and I use everything I can to try to judge you quickly.

4. Make your CV easily accessibly. I don’t have Microsoft office. Don’t save as docx. Host your CV somewhere without ads. Google Docs would be a good choice.

5. Get some real paid experiance. It doesn’t matter where from. Get an odesk account and apply for jobs on there http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/how-to-win-any-job-on-elance-odesk-or-gurucom/

6. Contribute to an opensource project or even start an opensource project of your own. Obviously include this in your demo portfolio and CV.

7. Teach yourself about SEO and mention this in your CV and demos. This is very important to companies now. You may find you really enjoying it. If you do, choose a niche to try to rank a keyword for as a demonstration.

Don’t cheat!  Try to figure it out.

I stole the extract below from the website http://www.buyoptimus.com/

How It All Began

Please let me explain more and I’ll tell you what this is all about….We’ll start where it all began, deep inside the psyche of the mastermind behind Optimus….

Inside the head of Optimus’ creator

Let me tell you about the master artist behind Optimus. Imagine a person who was so obsessed with his craft, that he lived and breathed Optimus, his journey’s, his battles, his flaws. Day and night, for 3 whole months he immersed himself in getting to know this great leader.

He watched every transformers movie, every television episode (starting from the beginning original cartoon series) and read every comic book he could find.

He felt he could never create a true representation of Optimus unless he felt he knew him personally. And he did. He could tell you what Optimus favourite sayings were, what he’d do in certain battle situations, and how he has changed over time, and even become (dare we say it?) a little more human.

Then, over a two week period he visited every scrapyard, every car yard, every mechanic and asked every friend he could to attain the raw materials to create Optimus. He spent close to $10,000 buying the raw materials, which were pulled from lawnmowers, cars, trucks, chainsaws, motorbikes, toolsheds, factory machines and anything else he could think of..

Then, he locked himself away for 75 days and nights, with only a welding instrument and a few other basic power tools, and out emerged Optimus.

Some of The Raw Materials Used During Optimus’ Creation

A Strong Foundation of Welded Metal Car Parts Forms Optimus’ Frame

If you know a collector who would want it, there is a finders fee. Check out http://www.buyoptimus.com/

You can Download it for free.

You can use this theme for any private or commercial use.
If you keep the link in the footer then you are truely fruity. Thanks!

Instructions
1. Eat a piece of fruit.
2. Unzip and upload the FruitBox folder to wp-content/themes/
3. Activate the theme in wordpress
4.  Add a category called “Featured” and add some funky posts to it. They will show in the center footer under “Featured Posts”. Of course, if you add a widget to this section then the widget will override this featured posts thingy.
5. Eat another piece of fruit. Maybe a strawberry or 2.

Great News!
This theme will be improved with a new feature EVERY time someone new uses it.
How? If you use this theme, notify me at http://eastes.com.au . I will then improve it.
You will be adding to the fruitbox, just by using it.
How fruity!

Thanks to
To http://www.VroomVroomVroom.com for renting out fun cars and funding the project.
To http://CaptainCaptain.com for giving me permission to give this fruity theme away.
To Wordpress for making an awesome blogging / CMS platform

Tweet me. Make sure it’s fruity.
http://twitter.com/eastes/

Peace out Fruity ones.

DOWNLOAD FRUIT BOX THEME

Download the PSD

Download the JPG

Sometimes I relax with a game of chess or poker, both of which can be used to explain good business practices. When playing TA Spring, a games about war strategy, I couldn’t help but notice that many of the strategies used in the game are relevant in business as well.

Keep the pressure on.

Every move counts.

Every asset counts.

Use your strengths.

Abuse competitor weaknesses.

Anticipate competitor moves.

So if you want to refine your strategic skills, try a game of Spring RTS. It is a free, open source real time strategy game with lots of robots and explosions. Check out the video…

Design competitions are Fun
Usually, I prefer training and keeping in house employees. I make exceptions when it comes to design. The only way you can review 100’s of creative ideas from many talented designers, within a number of days and for zero cost, is by hosting a design competition.

Make me want to lick the screen
Remember how Steve Jobs once said that his new O.S. made him want to lick the screen? (I didn’t care. I’m a PC.) That’s how I want to feel when I review the submissions for my design competitions on 99Designs. I use 4 tips to help do this.

1. Motivate the top designers

You want the very best designers to enter your competitions. A large prize helps, but you also need to motivate them. If there is a chance there may be future work for the designer. Say so. They like this. If the winning design will receive good exposure on a popular website or signage, say so. Good Designers know this is impressive for their portfolio.

Case Study: New website design for CarHire.com.au
The Competition: http://99designs.com/contests/20132
Competitors: 164
Prize: $600

2. Leave lots of feed back

The competitors need to know if they’re on the right track. Give feedback at least once a day.

Case Study: Design a logo for CaptainCompare
The Competition: http://99designs.com/contests/25547
Competitors: 28
Prize: $295
This competition didn’t actually receive many entries. Luckily with lots of feedback, it was rescued and a decent logo won the prize. As mentioned in Tip#1 the designer received extra work to design a super hero

3. Mention three Logo design rules

If the competition is for a logo, copy and paste these three rules in to your competition specifications. Makes a big difference.

ONE. must look good big and small
TWO. must work good in greyscale
THREE. keep it simple. No photos in the logo.

Case Study: Logo for RoadTripMania.com
The Competition: http://99designs.com/contests/28055
Competitors: 361
Prize: $460

4. How do you want to feel when you see it?

Sing to yourself the M.J. song “The way you make me Feel” as you write down some words describe how you want to feel when you see the logo. eg. Fun, Safe, Dominating, Friendly, Happy, Trustworthy.
This makes it WAY easier for designers to know what you’re looking for.

Case Study: Krow
Prize: $450
Entries: 102
I used words like “fun, happy, talkative”. There was no winner in this contest since the project was put on hold. Therefore, I did not have to pay the $450 prize.

These rules have helped me run design competitions on http://99designs.com that are fun with results that have exceeded my wildest expectations.

If you’re about to run a design competition, tell me about it so I can mention it here and tweet about it.