how to get a job in advertising

It’s that time of year when college students realize, with unusual clarity of thought, that they are totally screwed unless they get their ass in gear and nail down either a summer internship or a job after graduation. Which means that they reach out to family members, friends of friends and others with tenuous personal connections to ask just how those people got their foot in the door of the industry that they are in. Sometimes they even reach out to the Daily Biz (though wonders why).

Here are my tips for getting a job in advertising:

1. Know someone already in the industry

Advertising isn’t really different in this respect from other industries, where it always pays to have someone on the inside whether they are a relation, friend or someone you’ve had the foresight to network with. The reason for this is simple: it’s a lot more effective to have someone drop your resume/book off with HR and put in a good word (and maybe even follow-up or shop your resume/book around) than to just send it in.

2. Sell yourself

If you can’t sell yourself, you’re going to have a really though time selling something like, say, flavored sugar water or clothes-cleaning chemicals.What is the right way to approach the agency (do you write a non-formulaic cover letter, do you go to a job fair, do you sit outside the agency until someone will speak with you like that guy did outside W+K London)? Find it and do it. There is no excuse for cookie-cutter cover letters or emails or gambits. Don’t be trite or weird for weird’s sake. Learn about the agency, what makes them tick, and tell them why you are just the person they need.

3. Be really, really, ridiculously persistent

The industry is full of stories of people whose persistence got them a job. I am one of those stories, having called a certain someone at an agency I really wanted to work at two to three times a week (and supplementing those calls with occasional emails) during my last semester of college until I finally got an interview which, fantastically, I turned into a job…where I had to be just as persistent in everything I did because that’s what advertising demands.

Do what you have to do to make it happen.

4. Don’t piss off the most famous critic in advertisingBob Garfield is upset with me, and in some ways that is fair (it absolutely was sophomoric of me to call him an idiot when, though his opinion was wrong in my estimation, name calling is juvenile and anyway he’s not an idiot,we just disagree…emphatically.), but I wouldn’t suggest doing that if you want to work in the industry. In fact, I would do my level best not to piss anyone off in any way. Everyone is a potential referrer, and it’s important that they talk about you in the most glowing terms as possible.

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There you have it, four tips to get a job in advertising – completely foolproof or your money back!

four interview tips for creatives

We are in desperate need of quality art directors here at the House of Biz and have been interviewing candidates non-stop all week. So far, to no avail.

Yesterday afternoon I was asked to sit with a candidate who had been referred by a friend of one of the partners. Though he came from a promotions background and his work was only so-so, we need hands on deck. And he was recommended.

God knows why.

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The first tip for interviewing: do NOT passionately tell your interviewer about all of the people who have fucked you in your career.

Sure, we have all had people along the way on whose evil ways we could discourse for hours (like Jane Sample). But that is for your own personal time, not for an interview. Not only does it make me think that you have no self-control, do not know what is appropriate in a business setting and that you are overly-emotional, I also start to think, as the number of people you are listing piles up, that maybe the issue is with you.

The second tip for interviewing: if you have been fired by your last agency, say only what you have to about what happened.

Fifteen minutes spent discoursing about how the account team didn’t fight for your work hard enough and management didn’t support you and the client was an idiot is not making me think that you would be a good addition to this team. It makes me think that you need some sort of medication.

The third tip for interviewing: when asked about difficult clients you have had to deal with, tell me about one that turned out okay, not the one that got you fired.

Interestingly, this guy had worked on (at the promotions agency) the same QSR client that I had worked on a while back (at the ad agency). This QSR client was extremely challenging and was the worst work experience of my life. But I didn’t get fired because I couldn’t handle it. And anyway, I want to know that you can handle a difficult client since, sorry, you are going to have more than one in your life. I don’t want to know that you couldn’t stand the heat while I could. Not a good way to sell yourself.

The fourth tip for interviewing: be ready to talk about ads and campaigns that you like.

The key here is things that YOU like. Do not repeat back to me ads and campaigns that I may have mentioned earlier in the interview. Do not blow smoke up my ass by mentioning things that you saw in the lobby and know that I worked on. It will not overcome the fact that you freaked out and word vomited your anger at past employers all over me.

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This guy broke these four key rules so badly that it makes me question the quality of the shops that employed him.

I wonder if he was on drugs.