Returning Final Years Take Note

If you’re going to start your final year in a prestigious and hallowed academic institution this autumn (like Sam) then you may be interested in applying for the Omnicom Summer School that runs on the 30th and 31st of August.

For those of you that don’t know, Omnicom’s roster of agencies in the UK include DDB London, TBWA\London and AMV BBDO.

Read more and apply here.

Read Full Post »

On The Campaign Trail

A little over a week ago I told y’all about Saatchi & Saatchi seemingly putting an internship up for auction on eBay.

It was actually me, applying for the Saatchi summer scheme. The brief was to turn a piece of paper into a job. I thought about what to do for days, what could I do? I considered writing an acceptance letter from Saatchis to me offering me the job, maybe dating it back in the 70s and claiming I had a job offer from them for years, doing a photo collage type thing of my life and on and on. The brief was simple, but I didn’t want to do anything that everyone would think of. Turn the poster into a job? I did. A virtual job to be exact. I set up the auction id – saatchigradrecruitment, created the auction (complete with lame description) and seeded it on the BrandRepublic forums, Facebook, Digg, ihaveandidea and some other places I can’t remember. The idea for the auction itself only came about 3 days before the application was due back at Charlotte Street (with much help from Jack ‘Alex’ Bauer from the BR forums – so major props to my boy Jack), so I wasn’t entirely optimistic about drumming up enough buzz to get some media coverage. But the power of this internet thing was soon revealed to yours truly, when bloggers started picking it up thinking that Saatchis had put it up themselves. I was majorly happy. And itching to tell them ‘It wasn’t them, It was me!!!’. But I had to wait it out and see if I could get some big publicity and sure enough the really good stuff was still to come.

James Hamilton from Campaign had a look at the auction and gave Saatchis a call, who told him they had no idea who it was and that it was most definitely not them. James posted as much on the BR forums so I gave him a call and told him it was me, a punk AdLad trying to stir up a place at Saatchis for the summer. This is what he wrote. I haven’t heard from Saatchis yet so let’s see if what I did was enough to get me in.

Before I finish, you all should know that Campaign, Saatchis and one of the AdLads have some history, namely Anton starting a hurricane of publicity a few years ago when he applied for the summer scheme by putting the ‘Nothing Is Impossible’ logo on M&Cs website (or was it?). M&C threatened to sue him and Campaign, upon hearing about this said ‘Surely it would be better for M&C to hire the graduate before Saatchis does’. Exactly.

Read Full Post »

Saatchi Summer School Auction?

Have been on the brandrepublic forums this afternoon when I spotted this

Auctioning a Summer School on eBay? Surely a PR stunt?

Read Full Post »

Experiencing Work – Getting Work Experience in Advertising

As promised a few days back, a ‘how to get work experience’ type of post, with the regular wit thrown in. Or not

So you’ve figured out now, maybe after a year of uni, or maybe after having finished your degree that your pre-university idea of dream job is just that, a dream. Or maybe you’ve realised that being part of the pinstriped brigade shuttling back and forth from Canary Wharf talking of mergers, acquisitions and dividends just isn’t your kind of hype.
On top of that, a cocky mate of yours has been talking about the advertising industry for a while now, and their constant referring to it as ‘the industry’ is a) pissing you off and b) sounding like they’re talking about California’s ‘adult entertainment’ industry.
Now what? What is the ad industry and how oh how do you get in? It’s too late now to get in for the grad schemes (and if you haven’t graduated yet they’re no use anyway) and the summer school applications seem so weird (where do they think up these questions is what you’re thinking) so where do you go? It’s those words you thought you’d heard the last of the summer after your GCSEs: work experience.

Work experience is one of the best ways to decide whether the ad industry is for you, and it’s a great way to put your name out there so people in adland take notice. So where to start? First stop is the library/bookshop and have a read of the books in Anton’s thorough recommended reading list. Read every word of the books you get your hands on, devour them. Seriously. It’ll help you loads later on. Step numero 2 is to go the crappy IPA website (www.ipa.co.uk) and register there. Once you’re registered then download the graduate factfile. This is your holy grail, as it has recruitment contacts for all the agencies that are hiring grads this year.

Because they’re hiring grads there’s a good chance they’ll need any help they can get. That’s where you conveniently step in. You’re an eager pair of hands, someone who wants to do anything to find out more about adland. Bingo.
But obviously it’s not that easy. You take an agency, have a good read of their website and ring up the recruitment contact, before you do that, check the time. Make sure you call them early in the morning, or late in the evening, they’ll be busy in between and often they’ll be busy anytime you call them. Be confident on the phone, don’t umm and ah, say who you are and what you want. Then shut up and let them answer, don’t jump in going “If you don’t need anyone that’s ok” No it’s not ok!! They might say yes, they might say no, they might say they’ll get back to you. Rule number 1 of adland is that HR people rarely get back to you, not out of malice, they just don’t. So you have to keep trying. At every agency. In a way you have to be shameless and confident in equal measures.

Now some agencies have structured work experience schemes (BBH, Saatchi&Saachi, M&C Saatchi, Leith London etc). They’ll be easier to approach but again perseverance is the key. And so is originality and that oft used but never really completely understood lateral thinking thing. Send the HR girl (they usually are) flowers/chocolate, it’s cheesy but it works, and worst-case scenario is they laugh about it and remember your name. In this industry that’s never a bad thing. And keep trying, ring up every agency and remember it only takes one person to say yes and you’re in. And once you’re in it’s a hell of a lot easier to get to other places.

Make the most of it by the way when you do get it. Don’t mope around in a sulk because you have to run down to HMV/make a mood reel/photocopy stuff, be a sponge and take everything in. Be proactive, email the whole agency saying you’re here for a week and will do anything (well almost). You will get noticed and people will give you work and their time (One of us did this at BBH and were immediately told off by our ‘supervisors’ that they would get in trouble, but then the CEO emailed us back and asked us in his office for a quick chat. Bingo). Pick their brains for advice about everything you really wanted to know about advertising but couldn’t find anyone to ask.

Oh and remember, you will get in, it’s just a matter of time. Questions? Fire away.

Read Full Post »

Trap Doors, Back Doors And Other Ways In

This has been a long requested post, and we are sorry it took so long. But good things come to those who drink Irish beverages..or to those who wait..or something

There are nothing but rejection letters on your desk, your mates are asking in lectures how the interviews went, you have a dissertation to do and feel deflated or all you can see is another year ahead without a grad training job as you’ve held out for the previous round with no joy.

Well, it doesn’t have to be so shit. Firstly if you’re still at uni you will need to drag yourself up to focus on your finals, without a 2:1 it’ll be hard to find a grad training scheme anyway. If you’ve finished uni there is still a boat to catch.
There is an emerging trend where agencies don’t actually practice the usual grad recruitment which is the usual 2 stage interview process. Both Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis now use their Summer Schools as grounds to recruit for their grad training schemes, so keep a close eye on their websites.

Also there is the other way which isn’t the traditional grad route. It’s to join an agency as a junior account exec. This is where you pretty much feel like you’re on work experience, don’t receive the training the grads get and usually paid a little less. But it is actually one of the best ways to enter the industry.

While the grads get pampered with training, you, as an account assistant, are thrown into the thick of it where you’re expected to be a strong support line to your account team. You’ll learn quicker than the grads and you’ll be under more pressure than the grads. If you’re worried that you’ll do twice as much work as the grads and not get promoted like they are think again. Agencies are very prude when making promotions and it usually is made on merit especially at the more junior levels so this is still a great chance to enter and climb the ladder of the ad industry.

So how do you go about becoming an account assistant if you’ve missed the grad recruitment boat? Well, firstly you need to have some kind of experience within agencies. Account assistants are usually hired because they were a close choice to being on the grad rounds and usually its experience that speaks volumes. So if you don’t have any get on the blower to some agencies and organise the odd 1 or 2 week stint or apply to the summer schools as you could still make a grad scheme. Once you have the experience and a paper reference from it, you can start approaching agencies. A ‘how to get work experience’ post is done and will be put up in a day or three.

Start by finding out which agencies have just won large accounts and jump on them straight away (large wins are usually screamed about in Campaign and at BrandRepublic). What usually happens with a large account win is that the agency will start to organise moving key people off other accounts to front the new one, it’s pretty much all hands on deck – a perfect opportunity for a budding account assistant who rings the agency, tells them they are ready to go to work and help out where needed. Don’t be disappointed if the first few say ‘no thank you’, like all things it’s a trail and error process. If you really want it you’ll come across an agency that is looking.

Sign up with some recruitment agencies (eg. Pathfinders), Google for the ones who specialise in advertising/marketing and be prepared to go with an agency in digital, marketing services, DM as well as the large networks.
The point being is that just because you didn’t get into a grad recruitment scheme it doesn’t have to mean that advertising isn’t for you. It could have been a number of things that just were not in your favour on the day and how can a lifelong career be judged simply off an interview that lasted maybe 30 mins?
Well….it can’t so if you really want it go about making it yours through whatever means necessary!

And good luck.

Read Full Post »

Getting Better

Some things really piss me off, and usually you’ll find that things that piss you off make you do stuff more than things that make you insanely happy. Par example, if you have great service on a flight (and that can mean anything you want) you’re not really as likely to write a letter to the airline’s customer relations department as you are if you say, saw a flight attendant (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) spitting in your food. Comprende?

Anyway what’s really getting to me is the almost across the board lack of talent that is filtering through the funnels of unholy HR departments. I mean some of the new starters coming in really really really really are not good enough. Really. Enthusiasm? None. Passion? Less. Attitude? Yes please. Now look, attitude is great, we love attitude and like to think we have > our fair share. BUT, and this is a big butt, you have to back it up. Cash those proverbial cheques that your mouth is writing, if you will.

So what am I talking about? I’m talking about giving a damn, not in a hang a flag off Big Ben type of way (although that is mega cool) but in a ‘be interested about what you do’ type of way. And realising that you have to pay your dues in the land of ad. And (and there’s a lot of and in this post, so I apologise) to be fair and honest and other cliched type things, it’s really not that hard if you’re interested. Since everyone loves a list, here’s a very simple step by step guide to getting better at your job.

Read – if you can’t, learn how to, and read about what’s going on, and not just the pages 2-3 of Campaign to see if your damn agency is in there this week. Chances are it has nothing to do with you so get over it.
Look – Central London is full of everything ad so look and think about what you’re looking at from your (soon to be) educated communication related senses
Listen – To everything. That pretty much covers it.
Think – About what you’re reading, looking at, listening to etc.

We’re all in the communications business, so all the ways in which communications happens should be your business.

And please for the love of God, don’t expect that because you’re an Oxbridge graduate, the world and it’s dog owe you something. You’re owed nothing baby. Not a strand of anything. One of the AdLads went to Oxbridge and the head up your butt factor is astounding. Get over yourself and pull your head out your backside, it’s a great day today.

Finally, if you ‘fell into advertising’ and don’t really fancy it, get out. They’re plenty of people who’ll do a better job. Just because you’ve been in it for x number of years doesn’t mean you can’t be replaced. Working in this industry is a privilege, not a right. Treat it like it is. And maybe we’ll all get better at doing it.

Read Full Post »

Starting out as a Planner

So I’ve started as a Planner, officially that is. I’ve even got the business cards. So what now, where is my equivalent to status and contact reports, what do I do instead of checking the copy of print ads, hustling production and burning CDs for Nazi fools?

That’s just it, you aren’t actually told what to do. Planning has very quickly appeared to me as a roaming career. Whatever work you want to do you do, if you don’t you just sit there and grow old, it’s true to say that mediocre people can hide very easily in Planning.

It’s scary in a way as you literally feel your own boss, your phone doesn’t ring anymore and there is a mild feeling of respect from Account Handlers. This is just my experience by the way and having been knocked about as an Account Exec this is bloody refreshing. One problem though, getting a busy senior planner to read your f*cking briefs!

So from now on I’ll be posting about my trials and tribulations as I set out on my career as a planner. Ask away if you wish to know anything.

Read Full Post »

DING DING, Second Round Interviews

So you’ve made it through to round two. You’re wondering what it’s going to be like, what’s going to be expected of you and what is the competition going to be like. Well, if there is one thing that sums up how agencies base the second round it’s ‘Team Work’. Now, I use to hate the idea and often I did of having to work with a bunch of people who were so keen to be heard, so keen to be noticed and all appeared like rejects from The Apprentice. That’s ok as I probably played up to the exact same thing. The thing is you have to have a balance in these team work assessments, you need to stand out but not so much that you’re a sore thumb, you need to be intelligent but not use every opportunity you have to let everyone know how much, you need to be funny and make those around you laugh but not look like a failed Brighton pier-stand up comedian and most importantly you need to demonstrate strategic understanding, the ability to take on board what others think and say and generally come across like a sound human being. Sounds ruff? Well the only real advice we can give in these kind of interviews is that you simply remain yourself and sharp. If you fit in then you fit in, it’s really that simple and there isn’t really that much you can do to prepare for this type other than keep reading up on the industry from

Brand Republic and Campaign. Some I was successful in and others not so. Some I enjoyed others I didn’t. Leo Burnett liked the louder more exhibitionists of people while JWT liked the quieter sharper type. It’s really playing to the agency culture you’re going to so research that well. So what kind of things do you have to do, well there is a number of different types of group work they get you to do. For example: together build a bridge from this point to that point using these materials. In a group present to us the perfect Graduate Trainee. You’re given 30 items listed, pick 15 you would take with you to a desert island and why and tell us why you dropped the remaining 15. Speed interviewing (this is when you’re all in a line sat opposite a member of the agency, you then have 3 minutes to answer a question and then whistle is blown and you rotate to the next, much like Speed Dating. Questions come at you fast such as what is the most iconic thing in the world. What is the product of your generation? Define creativity. If you had to be an inanimate object what would you be and why? How much do you think I earn? If you had to kill your mother or your father, who would it be and why? What is the worst thing you’ve ever done? What is your biggest success? What is your biggest failure?)

You get the picture. Once you’re over the guard up phase and you all collectively realise you’re all in the same boat it can actually be good banter, especially if you feel you’ve done well. I highly recommend you going for beers with your counterparts afterwards as these could be the people you spend the next year training with…that and there is nothing better than having a drink and going over the day with others whilst chain smoking…if you feel you did well. All in all, I suggest you keep calm, always be yourself and always be witty and reasonable, which I’m sure most of you are anyway.

Questions?

Read Full Post »

The First Cattle Call…

The alarm goes off and you slap it till it shuts up. Bleary eyed and almost excited, you get up and stumble to the bathroom to start the day. Today is the day. No not your wedding day, MUCH more important than that. Today you have your first interview for grad training at an ad agency.

Before anyone asks there is no real right or wrong way to dress for these, we’ve been suited and booted and then had some ginger haired kid march in wearing a jumper as if from Worzel Gummidge…he didn’t out flank us but still, he was in the running….for a bit. The rule of safe thumb is guys wear a suit, shoes and a shirt but with no tie and ladies dress as smartly and as eclectic as they like.

Now the Brand Republic forums have been alight with questions like ‘I’ve got an interview at x, y, z, what will they ask me?!?!?!’. First off, I have a feeling they’ll ask you about ads, lots of questions. Just a hunch though.

In all seriousness most first interviews are pretty standard in terms of what they, the big bad agency are trying to figure out. They want to know if you, the esteemed applicant is what they thought your application was.

So what can you do? Here is the AdLads step by step checklist for interview bad-assness

1) Maybe the most important thing is read your application form. All of it. More than once. And not just on the day of the interview as you’re on the tube in.

2) Have 3 good ads and 3 bad ads in your mind.

3) Have a read of their website and the industry rags for mentions of current happenings, so if you they ask you ‘What do you know about us’ you actually have something to say.

4) Try and watch as much of their recent work you can, and think about whether you think it works / not.

5) Build a structure to how you critique an ad campaign. Quick easy steps are:

The Creative Rationale: Why does this work? Is it funny? Why is it funny? Is the target funny? Is it removed from competition in the same sector?

Is the idea campaign-able? i.e. does the overall idea work in different mediums other than just TV. E.g. Dr Pepper’s creative idea was ‘try it’ due to a consumer insight that everyone played it safe with just Pepsi. So this gave birth to the idea ‘Dr Pepper, What’s the worst that can happen’. That idea works on TV, Radio, Press, Print, Ambient and Digital.

The selling proposition: Where is the client’s business now? How will this build on the client’s business? Is itto steal market share, create market share, generate awareness or speak to an already loyal consumer base

The point here is that it’s quite hard to structure a critique of advertising unless someone hands you a structure. The above is used in the agency one of us works in and is quite a sound foundation to start talking about ads

As a footnote to any discussion about ads, there are certain specific things to talk about. Don’t say you don’t like it as you may not be the target. Always justify your opinions as deeply as you can.

So that covers the ad talk, what about the general getting to know you stuff? What do you do then? The easiest and most right answer is just be yourself. Seriously. It’s well known that individual agencies have individual cultures etc, but that by no means means (how many times can I use means in this sentence?) that you should try and conform to a type. Go in, be yourself, and do your best. Chances are if you’re well informed, enthusiastic about ads and able to back up your opinions you’ll get through. And if you don’t, it honestly is the agency’s loss. So don’t mope around, ring them up and ask for feedback, if it’s something wrong with you specifically you can fix it, if they come up with some fluffy ‘you’re not the right person for us’ crap then they don’t know what they want out of their grads, and you’re too driven for them (they wouldn’t be able to handle you). Before I go off on a rant, it’s blatantly obvious that some agencies are happy to have ‘yes’ people droning around, hiding under catch phrases that tell you nothing about anything. Don’t be a lemming. If you can stick to that, you’ll go far.

That’s the first careers related post done, comments as always are welcome. More career related posts are in the AdLads pipeline. Stay tuned…

Read Full Post »