Starting Out In Advertising

Every year, hundreds of art college graduates and copywriting hopefuls are unleashed on the advertising job market, most of them pretty much convinced that they will be the next big thing.

Then the rude awakening begins.

First they find it hard to get anyone to even look at their portfolio (or ‘book’ as it’s often referred to). After perhaps dozens of failed attempts, they finally get an interview or two – and then hear nothing more from the agency. Finally, when they do get offered a job, 99 times out of hundred it will be to do ‘menial’ work like banner ads and brochures.

It’s all very disheartening indeed.

So here are a few ways that might make the process of finding that job a little less painful.

Opening the door

Do your research! If you want to work in ad agency, any ad agency, you need to do some background homework. Google is your friend. Find out the names of all the agencies in town. Check out their history and which clients they handle. Learn the name of the creative director and/or the senior creative teams or creative group heads. LinkedIn should give you all the information you need.

Emails from anonymous sources or unknown people are usually ignored. So this is one of those times when good, old-fashioned snail mail might be the way to go. Write a nice, polite and short letter (including your CV) to the CD or creative group head (spelling their names correctly) requesting an opportunity to show your book and get their opinion on it.

Don’t worry, they know that you are really looking for a job – it’s all part of the game. They may not have an immediate vacancy, but if your work is impressive enough, they will remember you.

If you go the snail mail route, enclose some samples of your work – reduced to A4 print-outs or, if you’re feeling generous (or desperate enough), a thumb drive. (Don’t include too much, just enough to give them a taster.) A website URL to your online portfolio is even better - maybe even convert your URL to a QR code. To move things along, mention that you will call them to follow up on the possibility of meeting up. Two days after you send the letter, call them and ask for that meeting.

Your Book

Whether it is a physical or online portfolio, balance is critical. Only show what is in your opinion your very best work. Never, ever show work that you have to make excuses about. 8 to 10 examples of your creative skills are more than enough. If you are a copywriter with zero drawing skills, don’t worry. Neatly presented matchstick drawings will more than suffice – as long as the concepts and copy are good.

The Interview

Whether it is virtual or physical, show up punctually. If you have to cancel, have the good manners to call or email as appropriate. This especially applies if you are interviewing for an advertised position! You don’t have to wear a power suit – you are a creative after all – but you shouldn’t be scruffy. If you are Zooming, make sure your background is tidy or at least out of focus.

Breathe. It's normal to be nervous in an interview and those butterflies in your stomach will help to keep you in your mental toes. Take your time when speaking. Don't rush your answers. You are not expected to be 100% 'professional' and articulate so don't obsess over it. Sincerity scores more points than smoothness.

As you show your work, explain the thinking behind it. Answer any questions thoughtfully. A large part of the creative process in advertising involves explaining your ideas to often bewildered account service people or clients. This is particularly important for copywriters, because words, after all, are what you do.

Another reason the CD or group head is asking you questions will be to establish if you really did do the work. I have lost count of the amount of times young creative people have shown me work that patently wasn’t theirs. (I’ve even had people show me work that I myself had done.) This is a very small industry and if you try to pull a stint like this, you will get caught out.

Be humble

The person who is looking at your work, regardless of their title, has a job and you don’t. This means they know a great deal more than you. (Even if they're an 'out of touch' millennial or, gasp, boomer.) Listen to what they have to say with an open mind.

Of course you can defend your work, but do so politely. Most senior creative people genuinely try to be helpful and give constructive criticism. It is very, very important that you take careful note of what they say.

You will probably also meet one or two assholes who will take great pleasure in informing you how shit your work is. Again, listen carefully (bite your tongue…) and ask yourself as honestly as possible if there is some truth in what they say. Also bear in mind that creative directors’ styles and opinions often differ and frequently contradict each other.

If the person who’s looked at your work asks you to make certain changes or do some more work and then come back to see them, for God’s sake leap at the chance! This means that they are interested! Get back to them in less than two weeks with a new book following their suggestions. The door to working in that agency just opened a crack.

Questions to ask

Ask about the agency and its work – show that you have done some research and are genuinely interested.

Ask what you can do to improve your work.

Ask if you can come back to show them the improvements you have made.

Ask if they can recommend anybody else in any other agency for you to see.

Offer to work for them for a week or two – for free. No, you are not underselling yourself. You are giving them a chance to see how you work and gaining some very valuable work experience at the same time.

Don’t lose heart. Rejection is inevitable in this line of work. (Even when you do land a job, you’ll find that your ideas are frequently rejected.) Keep plugging away. With so many people looking to get into the industry, it is often a matter of being in the right place at the right time. So the more places you are in, the more chances you have of being there at just the right time.

After your interview, send an email thanking your interviewer for their advice and taking the time to look at your work.

Now, let's talk about where you might end up working first.

Sweatshops are good

Let’s face it, the queue of people looking to work at BBH, TBWA or O&M is always going to be pretty long. And the competition to get in there will be fierce.

However much we’d like it to be different, we can’t always get to work in the agency of our dreams. But if you look at it another way, working for a small, local outfit will probably teach you a lot more than if you were working for a large MNC. You may not really enjoy your time there, but you will definitely get valuable work experience and learn the real craft – and graft – of advertising.

If the only promising offer you get is from a local agency rather than an MNC, take it. Even if the day-to-day work you do is dull crap, you can at least work on polishing your portfolio in your own time and you will have genuine, hard-earned experience to offer when you apply for your next job.

You’re hired

Congratulations! You’ve landed your first job in advertising and are on your way. Stay humble! Keeping your mouth closed and eyes and ears wide open will be your best policy. And no, you won’t be doing that $1,000,000 TV commercial that opens on a sun drenched Hawaiian beach just yet…

Reality hits. Your first day and your first task – banner ad or Facebook post time! The chances are you will start off doing mundane work like banners or social media posts – nothing that you would want to have in your portfolio. Bear with it. You are an unknown quantity to the CD and his agency. They are simply not going to risk big projects on beginners. Adapting layouts to banner formats or social media memes, or writing copy for for LinkedIn posts or Google Ads is where you’ll not only prove that you are reliable, it’s also where you will learn your craft.

There is a huge difference between the way you work in college and the way ad agencies get the job done. Believe me, the next few weeks will present an almost vertical learning curve.

Mundane work can be a great learning experience.

What do you know about preparing artwork for reproduction - in print or digital formats?

Have you ever written copy for a precisely targeted audience and attempted to explain very complicated principles in simple terms?

Have you ever received a brief at 10am and been required to deliver the finished ad by 12 noon?

You will now.

The next step will be when you have to work with a more senior creative person to complete a presentation or pitch. If you have to, volunteer to help out. Be prepared to work through the night if need be. This will be a wonderful learning opportunity as you’ll be following the instructions of a more senior person and learning first-hand how they tackle such projects.

Be Reliable.

Be there when you're needed.

Be the one everyone can count on.

Work-life balance is a wonderful thing. But, if you are starting out, the balance should be in favour of work as you learn your craft.

You have no control over how talented your colleagues are compared to you. But you can control how hard you work. And ultimately hard work beats talent in the long run. (And of course if can combine hard work with outrageous talent you're on a winner).

If you do well in the tasks assigned to you or if the workload at your agency gets super heavy (or somebody drops dead unexpectedly), you will finally get a chance to tackle some of the bigger briefs.

The big chance

This is it – a chance to really prove yourself. It could be a small job – a quirky recruitment ad; a series of Instagram posts; a complete campaign – whatever it is, you have to make the most of it.

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received was to treat every brief as if it was a real portfolio piece. You should do the same.

After you have come up with your ideas, you will probably have to discuss them with your immediate supervisor – the group head or CD. Listen to them. If they don’t like it, go back and do it again and again until they do. If they don’t offer you an explanation why they have rejected your work, politely ask them why. Whether you like it or not, they’ve earned the right to judge what you do. If they do like your ideas but tell you to improve certain parts, follow their guidance without sulking.

Work, work, work. Passion, energy and commitment will contribute more to a successful career than mere talent alone. (Yeah, I know I'm repeating myself but it bears repeating.)

Never, ever show just one idea to your group head or CD. Show as many well thought out concepts as you possibly can.

Never, ever show just one or two headlines for an ad – come up with at least twenty for each ad!This is the reality: there is always a better idea out there. Keep searching for it.Even if you do manage to push through the first few ideas you thought of, you are actually cheating yourself. Remember what I said above: every job you do could have the potential to be a great portfolio piece.

Focusing on always doing the absolute best you can is the real key to achieving your career goals. You won’t always succeed, but your portfolio will slowly improve.

Make a conscious effort to continually (and quietly) update your portfolio with any work that you are particularly proud of. If something nasty happens and you find yourself being let go or fired, you probably won’t have the opportunity to scramble around looking for various bits and pieces that you’ve done.

While I happen to believe that a creative person is entitled to a copy of anything they have done, please be aware that many agencies don’t necessarily agree. This is something that needs to be considered carefully.

Network, network, network.

I must confess this is something I’ve always been very lax about doing and I’m sure it’s cost me plenty of opportunities. Don’t make my mistake.

Many of jobs out there that are never really advertised; instead people hear about them by word of mouth. If you turn up for an interview and the CD already knows your face, your chances of landing that exciting new job will have increased a thousand-fold.

Go to every ad industry function, creative awards or pub night you hear about. Hustle shamelessly and distribute your business cards to everyone you meet.

LinkedIn is a wonderful gift to those of us for whom the idea of networking is akin to going for root canal surgery. Keep your profile updated and make as many connections as you can. (Without spamming!) And for God's sake, do not use LinkedIn's AI to enhance your posts or profile. Your LinkedIn profile is you and it needs to reflect you and your uniqueness.

A bump in the road

Advertising is a very volatile business. Accounts come and go. Restructuring is a frequent occurrence. Minor mistakes can escalate into major screw-ups. Backstabbing and shafting are far from uncommon.

In other words, there is always the chance that you could be fired. In fact it is very likely that it will happen to you at least once in your career.

Or, you could actually be in a dead end job, doing the same boring crap over and over again because a) your boss doesn’t appreciate you or b) because the agency you are working for is in decline or content to do high volume, fast-turnaround, low budget work.

All of a sudden, your soaring career has come to a standstill. Here are a few tips to help you get it moving again.

You’ve been fired but it wasn’t your fault

If you were ‘downsized’ because of a business loss or typical office politics shafting, ask your CD for a reference and any openings they might have heard about. They should be feeling pretty bad about having to let you go and will likely do their best to help.

At the very least, you now have solid work experience. Play that up as you call in all the connections you’ve made from networking in the industry or return to the strategies outlined in “Opening The Door”.

You’ve been fired and it was your fault

Learn from the experience. Accept that it was your fault and see how you can fix it.

As a CD, I’ve had to fire people for a variety of reasons: incompetence, poor work attitude despite repeated warnings, playing politics (a personal hate of mine), pilfering of software and so on. While I’ve taken no pleasure in firing the person concerned, I’ve also had no hesitation in doing so.

In these cases, I always put my reasons in writing and explain carefully to the person why they had to leave. My purpose is to help them. Hopefully, they will address the issues I have raised and it will prevent them from being fired from their next job.

If you are fired, ask for the reasons in a polite, non-aggressive manner. Consider them carefully and learn from your mistakes. Then call your contacts or return to the strategies outlined in “Opening The Door”.

Always remember: this is a really small industry. Everybody knows everybody else and there is a good chance you will end up working with at least some of the same people again. Never burn bridges.

You are stuck in a dead end job

First of all, try and figure out if it really is a dead end job. Are other people in your agency doing interesting work? If so, why? If not, it really is time to move on.

If there are interesting jobs going around but you’re not getting to work on them, get a copy of one of the briefs and come up with something in your own time. Yes, even if you have to stay on till 11pm or work on weekends – or work from home.

Nobody is ever going to give you a fantastic brief on a silver platter. You’ll have to fight for it and make sacrifices. When you’ve done what you consider to be a good job, show it to your CD. (In my view, the most important part of a CD’s job is to get the best work out to the client, no matter where the idea comes from.) You may be stepping on some toes but there are times when you have to be a little pushy.

If your agency really has no interest in doing great work (despite what they told you in the interview), then it’s time to start writing your own briefs (which is excellent training by the way) to do some good work for your portfolio.

Once you have pulled together a decent book, continue working in your ‘dead end job’ and start quietly looking for a better challenge.

Yes, all this extra work will entail you sacrificing your sleep and social life.

Welcome to advertising.

For even better advice about how to get a job in advertising, learn from the Master himself, Mr. Dave Trott: https://noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com/downloads/howtobydavetrott.pdf