Dear Grads...

The world is a wobbly place right now. I won't pretend it isn't.

I don't know the market was thriving when I was in your shoes, but it wasn't suffering like this. Alas, here's my experience of graduating, if there's anything here that can reassure you.

The privilege of my genetic lottery winnings helped me. As did luck. Of this I'm sure. Though, it was also what I did with that luck, and those winnings, that got me to where I am now. But I won't pretend it was easy.

I finished uni and packed my life into the back of a Ford Transit. I marvelled at the pathetically small amount of space it occupied and drove to London.

I had one placement, starting about six weeks after my move-in date.

Sidenote:

My Art Director Laura and I had got that after, on a Friday afternoon, two CDs had said they liked our work, but wanted to see a little more... The following Monday, at 8am, we packaged up all the work we'd made for our degree, (which was different to our book), and fired it over. Not a single lie was told that day. But a placement was earned.

The (mostly) unemployed move to London was scary. But I knew the pressure of having to pay rent would motivate me every morning, even if through fear. Especially as my Landlord was a nice, but large, and intimidatingly built East-Ender. (Whom I'd told I had a string of placements.)

In hindsight, this was probably stupid. But I'd also saved some money throughout my final year at uni. I'd worked part-time, and also stopped drinking. (The latter of which saves you a lot of money, by the way. Especially if you keep it up when you move to London.)

I'd also borrowed money and wagered against my own success. Again, in hindsight, probably stupid. But motivating. I lived with two of my best friends, Mike and Greg - a fellow Creative Team from Lincoln.

Every day, I woke up in our flat in Leytonstone to see them headed off to their placement. And every day, I felt a messy emotional blend of happiness, pride, and jealousy. Happy for them, and proud of them, for their success. But jealous to the point of small tinges of physical pain.

Then, I'd boil some eggs, throw them in my bag, and cycle the treacherous journey to Whitechapel. Here, Laura would meet me, having commuted from Bishop's Stortford.

Together, in Libraries, and anywhere else we could find that didn't demand we buy coffee or a croissant once an hour. We'd work a full day before I would text my Mum and Dad to tell them if anything happened, I loved them and I was wearing my helmet. Then I'd cycle home.

We did this full time for six weeks. Nothing...

And we were incessant in trying to get in front of people.

Email them.

Put 'Re:' at the start of the subject line so they're more likely to open it.

Email them again in the same chain.

Email them again again in the same chain.

Phone them.

If a PA answers only use their first name.

Pretend you know them and you're a creative at another agency.

While in our third year at Lincoln, we had done at least 100 book crits. We'd reworked our book literally dozens of times, often opting to just start a whole new book each week. But after another six weeks of this approach, now full-time, and nothing.

We started our first placement.

'Fuck', I thought, 'this really isn't working...'

I started to panic. But we kept on truckin' alongside doing our placement. This truckin' saw us receive our second placement offer. While on this second placement, a Creative Director at Adam&eveDDB said these precise words to us:

'Your book isn't where it needs to be. But in the last 3 months, I've seen you more than I've seen my Mum. You can have a placement, on attitude alone.'

But first, we had to wait for our friends Philippa and Artur to do their placement. Meanwhile, our second placement was coming to an end.

'Fuck', I thought, 'this felt like it was working...'

Now, I was facing the scary reality of unemployment again. Then, Artur told me they had postponed Adam&eveDDB for a placement at Wieden and Kennedy.

RIGHT.

EMAIL ADAM&EVEDDB.

ASK IF WE CAN HAVE PHILIPPA AND ARTUR'S SLOT.

It worked.

Ok, now we're at Adam&eveDDB.

This is the one.

This is mecca.

You thought you were working in sixth gear before?

No chance. That was fourth, maybe even third.

Now you really have to push.

Even now, 12 years later, I can honestly say I have never worked so hard in my life than I did during those three months. (You'll see why, in a minute). We did everything we possibly could to get a job at adam&eveDDB. But it wasn't meant to be.

We weren't good enough. (Yet.) Our book wasn't good enough. (Yet.)

Now, we were two weeks away from Christmas.

'Fuck', I thought, 'this really felt like it was going to work'.

We hadn't worked on our book the whole time we were at adam&eveDDB. (This was a mistake.) We looked at it and felt embarrassed. We'd grown so much as a team.

What to do?

I mentally projected forward to January.

'Fuck. Rent.' I thought.

'Rent, that you owe to Steve. Nice, but rent-hungry, and very muscular Steve.'

We didn't have a choice. For the last two weeks of our placement at adam&eveDDB we worked an average of 14-hour days. This included weekends.

We did both our placement work and re-did our book. We emailed people tirelessly. We managed to see a couple of CDs. But December is a quiet time in agencies, a lot of people are on holiday. (And January placements are usually already booked up.)

The fear started to set in...

But then, an email arrived in our inbox, from a Creative Director at Leo Burnett. He asked if he could see our book.

'God, is that you?' I thought.

We sent him our book, started our placement in January, and were hired the following September.

Our friends Philippa and Artur were hired at Wieden and Kennedy.

Greg and Mike spent a year at Channel 4, and then, after a stint at BMB, were hired at Cake.

And the team who had been at Leo Burnett before us were hired at Adam&eveDDB.

I can keep naming names. But the moral of the story is, the itchy ones...

The ones who read the most books...

Who watched the most YouTube videos...

Who did the most book crits...

Who reworked their book the most times...

Who were constantly searching for the secret sauce to great work...

They all ended up with jobs at great agencies eventually.

If you've just graduated, if you're standing in the desert...

Staring at the advertising Citadel in the distance...

I can't tell you I know your experience.

I can't tell you I know how you're feeling.

It was a different time when I did it.

But I can tell you, the itchy ones always get the jobs eventually.

Stay itchy.