Art / Creative Director @ Fun Ecom Co | Great People & Flexible Hours
JLS Trading Co.
- Do you get off making boring things look sexy AF?
- Do you enjoy coaxing greatness out of designers?
- Do you thrive in a high-stress environment filled with political infighting, bureaucracy, and corporate nonsense?
If so, then we are the place for you, except you might hate how nice of a company we have - filled with happy, generally competent people that don’t put up with jerks. Frankly, it makes me sick how nice everyone is.
We are remote full time, have very flexible hours, people are judged by their output, not by how much they suck up to the boss, and turnover is super low because the company believes that happy employees = happy customers = happy bank account. Simply disgusting, if you ask me.
--Is this a real job ad?--
Yup! Amazingly enough, we actually paid money to post this on a bunch of different job sites. And it’s not even a pyramid scheme! Plus, get this: the owner just started paying our 60 employees with money instead of Pizza Hut coupons - we’re big time, people.
Our careers page is actually worth checking out to learn more about how insane we are:
http://www.jlstradingco.com/careers/
--What do you guys do?--
Our business involves taking random products and then marketing the heck out of them, primarily on Amazon. We have hundreds of SKUs at the moment and are launching around 10-20 new products every single month. A small sampling:
- Bad Parking Cards (http://amzn.com/B01HLGZRCQ)
- Cable Tie Mounts (http://amzn.com/B06XNBS6TG)
- K2-D3 Capsules (http://amzn.com/B07C451MZ9)
We want to launch as many products as we can. Our business is growing rapidly every year, and it’s our intention to continue that for as long as possible, which means we need good people to help us keep up with the growth.
--What is your company like?--
1. Full Time Remote/Flexible Hours. You will be working from home in your pajamas, on your schedule. And we don’t care if you work 10 hour days 4 days a week or want to catch up on the weekend. So long as you put your hours in and get your work done, we’re happy.
2. Complete Work/Life Balance. If you’re routinely working more than 45ish hours, you’re gonna get a friendly talking-to. We want you to be operating at 100% capacity, which means that you need to rest.
3. You Can Be Yourself. You don’t have to put on a fake, professional face. You can just be yourself. You can talk smack to the CEO, and no one will think anything of it.
4. Major Opportunities for Career Growth. We are not trying to just be a small business. We plan to be doing $100 million annually in the next few years. We promote quickly once we identify talent. It doesn’t matter what your credentials are – it matters what you get done.
5. Strongly Anti-BS. Anybody in the company can (and is expected to) tell the CEO when he is wrong. There are no bureaucratic or BS rules getting in the way of getting work done.
6. No Micro-Management. Once you’re trained and have demonstrated you know your stuff, we are pretty hands-off. In fact, if you need external management to stay on-task and motivated, we probably aren’t the place for you.
7. Supportive Environment. We don’t operate via intense stress or unreasonable top-down deadlines. Everyone wants you to be successful – internal politics are at a minimum here.
8. No Toxic People Allowed. We try very hard to screen out mean people before they get in, but in case they slip through, we fire them quickly. Imagine never having to interact with toxic people at work - how nice would that be?
9. We’ll Invest in Your Training. We want you and everyone to get better constantly. You’ll be learning new things all the time, and are strongly encouraged to invest time every day to learn new things, improve your system/work process, and just generally try to make your life easier.
10. Four+ Weeks Vacation. We 100% want you to recharge, so having plenty of time off is absolutely worth it.
--What are your company’s values?--
See here: http://www.jlstradingco.com/careers/
Yes, those are legitimately our values. The careers page is definitely worth checking out - it’s not just normal corporate BS. We promise you’ll learn a lot about us.
--What will I actually be doing?--
Super short version:
Overseeing the production of a wide variety of art assets and creative media in order to help us make as much money as possible
Here is a bulleted list of responsibilities:
- Come up with concepts for each design, often in collaboration with others
- Give feedback to graphic designers/others on how to make their art better
- Organize workflows to keep things moving smoothly
- Keep art production high (real artists ship!)
- Mentor your team to get better and better over time
- Probably produce some art yourself on occasion
- Build tight systems so we can scale
Like everyone else in the company, you will also need to innovate regularly - which means figuring out ways to improve quality and production speed.
It is challenging, but fun work that’s going to require a lot of time and task management, problem-solving, and a reasonable amount of people skills.
--What type of media are you working with?--
The big areas are:
- Amazon product images, which can include live photography or 3D renders (each image needs to sell the product independently)
- Product photography (we gotta make our stuff look as beautiful as possible)
- Packaging/label design for our products
- Printed product design (we sell a lot of stickers and things like that)
- Social media advertising (not as much here, but we’re doing more and more)
We eventually want to get into video, but that is down the road for us.
--Is this worldwide remote?--
Yes absolutely.
--Do I need experience?--
Yes - this is not an entry-level position. This is much more of a mid-level/senior role, where you’re managing a lot of things vs being the only person producing the actual art.
You don’t necessarily need to have been a full-on creative director before, but you need to be experienced in the visual arts of some variety. Graphic design, photography, etc as long as you’re ready to make the leap into managing people vs solely being an individual contributor.
--Is this just managing?--
Probably not, at least not yet. We aren’t big enough to where giving feedback and directing people on things is a full time job. You will likely be more of a “creative generalist” who can gap-fill into whatever creative position needs you/could use more production.
--Do I need a college degree?--
You just need to be awesome.
--This sounds pretty good, though I’m still skeptical that this isn’t a pyramid scheme.--
You and the IRS both!
--That doesn’t resolve any of my fears, but what do I need to do to apply?--
Please submit your information on the following page to apply:
https://jlstradingco.applytojob.com/apply/TnU6sfJiQJ/Remote-Art-Creative-Director-Fun-Ecom-Co-Great-People-Flexible-Hours
We promise to respond within 5-10 business days even if our answer is No.
There will be multiple steps in this process, FYI, including a long written application, interviews with potentially a few different people, and (a) paid work test(s). Hiring the right people is really hard and very expensive if we do it poorly, so we have to front-load the process. I'm sorry about that and thank you for sticking with us.
Once you’re in our pipeline though, I would anticipate giving you a final answer within a few weeks, depending on how it goes. We definitely don’t want to string you along, and as long as you do what we ask, we promise to tell you “yes” or “no”, and to not just ghost you (like everybody I match with on Tinder).
Thank you for your time and interest, and I hope we can work together soon!
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JLS Trading Co. provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, JLS Trading Co. complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.
JLS Trading Co. expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of JLS Trading Co.’s employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge
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