An Awesome Grad Role

This is Alfonso, the original Geronimo fish. Check him out on Twitter.

Hey everyone.

Geronimo, the agency I work at are hiring! We're looking for a junior account executive to start soon to work on ING, SEAT and a bunch of new business stuff that's too secret for me to talk about on the interwebs.

We're a small-ish agency so you have to be immensely awesome in all ways, shapes and forms. If you have any questions or want to apply, send me an email with your CV so I can pass it on to HR pronto. Boom. And good luck!

Oh and no headhunters please. Muchos gracias.

Updatification: I've had about 5 CVs through in the 2 hours this has been up, keep 'em coming and thanks and good luck. Also when I wrote no headhunters I meant no headhunters. Thanks!

Update numero dos: I'll keep this post up until Friday and then it'll be looking at CVs time, have had 13 so far. Gimme some more.

Star Stories: Rory Sutherland

Our next Star Story comes courtesy of Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy One London's Executive Creative Director and Vice Chairman, and the Ogilvy Group UK's vice chairman and the forthcoming IPA President for 2009/10. Oh, and he also writes an excellent blog on Brand Republic.

HOW I GOT INTO THE BUSINESS

by Rory Sutherland

My story? A little similar to Jon Steel's, in that I thought I was going to become a teacher. A plan that was rapidly abandoned once I spent some time actually in a school. This experience terrified me. Not in the way you might think, though: it was rather a good school, and the pupils were well mannered and amusing - no, what frightened me wasn't the classroom but the staffroom.

Imagine your entire life since the age of five spent either learning or teaching in educational establishments. It's not a good idea. Remember, too, that this was the late 80s, a time when the lack of entrepreneurial spirit and ambition in much of the staffroom seemed completely at odds with the times. I remember one female teacher was married to a partner at a law firm in London. She drove to school in quite a nice car. Not a Bentley or anything, you understand, but something that wasn't an Austin Maestro. I think it may have been a Fiat X-19, if you remember the thing. Anyhow, once her back was turned she was routinely villified for having the temerity to drive this car. Sod this, I thought.

I applied to 19 agencies half way through the year, and had about six interviews and two second interviews. At JWT (which involved two days away at a place called Minster Lovell to check you held your fork correctly and owned the right part of Derbyshire and so on) and at Ogilvy & Mather Direct, the latter making me my sole job offer. From September 1988, and for about a year thereafter , I was the world's worst account man, then became a copywriter in 1990, a rare move (rarer still now, I suspect) which required great support from a number of people to whom I owe thanks to this day - Drayton Bird, Steve Harrison, Dan Gipple, David Watson, Andy Firth and David Nobay being many but not all of them. I also owe my job to an anonymous advertising copywriter who was the other candidate for the one available copywriting job in the department at that time, but who took one look at a long copy ad and a mailpack on the walls, loudly declared "I'm not writing all those words - I just do concepts" and promptly flounced off.

Two lessons, here. First, get a job at a good agency doing anything. After a while, if you're good you can probably choose to do something else and if you're bad (and I was a very bad account man, once even failing to turn up at a time management course because I'd got the date wrong) there's a small chance they may give you a chance elsewhere to see the back of you. It's only a small chance, but the odds are probably better from the inside than from outside.

The second thing? I can't help here much, but be lucky in the place where you start. We probably did not realise it at the time, but O&M Direct (now OgilvyOne) in 20 Soho Square was one of those supernode wellspring places you get in advertising and direct marketing (quite possibly it still is, but we won't know for another ten years). The assemblage of talent was tremendous: in addition to the above named were Rod Wright, Mike Simm, Randy Haunfelder, Derek Robson (now at Goodby), Miles Young, Paul O'Donnell (still here) and many more great people. Plus Drayton Bird had a Bentley Turbo even though he couldn't drive, which rather confirmed my suspicion that the automotive prospects were at least better there than in teaching.

Sometimes I feel a little like the Peter Sellers' "Chauncey Gardner"character in Being There. I had lucked into an interesting place with great people at exactly the right time. We were lucky in other ways, too. in the 90s we picked up an obscure Seattle company called Microsoft. I can still remember meetings where anyone new to the account had have explained to them what the company did - "You know when you turn on your PC is says MS-DOS for about a second? Well the MS stands for Microsoft." Looking back, this was rather a stroke of luck. Having software clients (and later we had Compaq, too, to be followed by IBM) meant we took IT quite seriously. And when the Internet became big, there were some of us who already knew what it was.

Advice on first becoming a copywriter? Advice which, now I think of it, holds good for any creative person anywhere, and at any time, for that matter. Work very hard and look for opportunity everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Not only in the briefs you are given. And not only in the fashionable briefs. A few early breaks I had were a tactical ad for BT which ran on the evening Mrs Thatcher resigned and a wonderfully cute piece of work to small tradesmen for American Express. Mailpacks to small businesses - not promising. As Drayton Bird was fond of quoting (from Bacon) "A wise man makes more opportunities than he finds."

But a more important question than "how did you get started?" is "how do you stay interested?" What keeps you enthusiastic?

In the early days, I feel I must record my debt (a debt shared every one of us in direct marketing from those days) to Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury.

For the hottest agency in London in those days to do promotions and direct marketing because they wanted to not because they had to was an inspiration to all of us. Its approach to innovation was truly a revelation. I think, deep down, most British people in the business are either temperamentally BBH-ites or HHCL-ite - the school of "sexy" versus the school of "new".
Even though it lived less long, I think I am temperamentally a HHCL-ite. It's one of those Beatles or Stones things - everyone goes one way or the other - all, that is, except me.... I'm for Jim Reeves.

A little later (and what a shame it is HHCL never fully lived to see the digital age) , new media have added a new dimension to what we do, which has made possible innovation of a kind that seemed years off when we first started.

Subsequently? Well, I have been enthused by one simple fact, of which I remind myself every time I get a little low. This is one of very few jobs where doing almost anything of interest can make you better at your job.

Actuaries, bankers, acountants - their jobs aren't improved by watching people in a cafe, listening to conversations from bus passengers or taxi drivers, reading a book about history or economics or watching a film. We can become better copywriters in our spare time. Never forget what a rare and wonderful thing that is.

Another Grad Opportunity...

Here's hoping that's not you vs the creatives/the client..

This one nearly slipped through the net. Lean Mean Fighting Machine have a graduate opportunity for a three month internship.

You can apply for it by emailing your CV to ahancock@leanmeanfightingmachine.co.uk.

Best of luck.

Calling All Designers

An open door. Pic from serp77

Ok guys here's the deal:

A ninja-in-training type digital agency in London needs an AWESOME graduate digital designer to do some really cool stuff across their client base. You’ll need to be down with Flash, HTML, CSS, Photoshop and all types of web-related code goodness.

Email me if interested and I'll give you the details.

Good luck!

Extensions and Another Opportunity

Just a quick update to let you guys know that Publicis have opened up their applications for this year, deadline is 1 February at 6pm and the application is here.

Also remember you can still apply to Dare as they've extended their deadline to the 20th of January. Dare's application is here.

Good luck y'all.

Dare To Go Digital

The dust may have settled on the year that was but the graduate recruitment machine soldiers on. Today we have my homeboy Will Lion talking about digital agencies and why you should apply to Dare's grad scheme this year. Their application deadline was today, but has been extended to the 20th of this month, so get applying. And good luck.

Will is a graduate at Dare and his blog is here.

It might be overstated (there is probably always going to be the bed, bog, bath element) but Mr Billingsley's comment is almost certainly right: we're going to be digital advertisers because the world is now digital, and getting more so.

What does all this digital malarkey mean for people looking to get into the communications business and, before we look at that, what does digital mean anyway?

One of the lovely insights of Dare's grad video; where the parents of Dare folk gloriously fail to define what their children do, is that pinning it down is tricky.

Part of its slipperiness is that things just keep shifting. Facebook was born in 2004, YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2006, the App Store in 2008 etc. The only constant is change.

The other thing about 'digital' is that it is polysemous; it has multiple meanings.

It is used to refer to electronic media (web, screens, mobiles, ipods, nike+ shoes etc) but also, and more importantly, the behaviours those media have unleashed and fed: interaction.

There is an important difference there that Jeremy Bullmore expressed perfectly in Campaign when he said,

There are two important things there for grads trying to get into the industry. The first is, whose roof?

Most of you will have been concentrating on the big above-the-line ones. That is a good bet for a digital future as long as that ATL agency gets digital, which means they aren't just talking about it, they're doing it (hmm, a black sheep has just popped into my head.)

On the other hand, another good bet are the agencies whose best is yet to come: the digital ones, primed as they are to thrive in the coming digital ecosystem.

And now for the second important bit of Mr Bullmore's quote: if you're worried about applying to a digital agency because it's got the word digital in it, don't be: as he says, it's not really about tech, it's about interactivity.

And what's that? It's spreading the intelligence more evenly between people who make stuff and people who consume it. Sometimes it's only a little, sometimes it's a lot.

This interactivity lets you do a lot more than you can at your typical traditional ATL agency. Or to reunite that idea with its owner:

I think that's really exciting (and Mr Tait has 9 more great reasons digital is better for those interested). In digital you're unshackled from just doing TV, print and radio to all sorts of exciting things like sites, applications, blogs, games, branded content, widgets, podcasts, social things and experimental stuff. And a lot of this (not all) is actually useful to people; it's additive rather than interruptive.

In my experience grads tend to think of digital as something on-the-sidey and techy. Maybe it once was. Now it ain't. Technology is so ubiquitous, so ready-to-hand, that it's becoming invisible and when that happens it gets socially interesting. In other words, technology and culture used to be separate, increasingly they are the same (look what you're doing now.)

It's a brilliant time to get into an industry that's only going to grow (even in these tough times) and that's much more about interesting interactive ideas than it is about tech.

Go on, apply!

Obviously, I am biased but this would be a good place to start...

(For those wanting more, I suggest you have a play in here, read this, canoe back up this and maybe watch this. That should be enough to be getting on with.)

The Gatekeeper to agency experience..

They give with one hand...and can sort you out. Photo via benaspenod, usual rules apply.

Hello there. In between bouts of turkey, drinking, presents and sitting, I've had a few notes about that mythical beast, work experience.

If you've not been one of the lucky ones who've gotten in through the grad scheme milkround, perhaps it's the right time to start to think about a spot of time in an agency. It may not be paid, it may not be the most exciting job in the world, but it's vital in order to beef up your cv and prove that you really want to be here.

Personally, I found it invaluable, doing a few bouts of work experience (though don't go mad with it - you don't want to look like a bridesmaid and never a bride). Certainly helped me decide what job I thought i'd be best suited for (though work experience did sort of seem to be either superb fun, and somewhat unreal, or work the account execs couldn't be buggered to do themselves).

It's also good, because it teaches you about what sort of agency environment you'd like to be involved with - are you a big agency person, or a small one? Do you value a place which places great emphasis on creativity, but is a bit of a sweatshop? What do you thrive on?

Annnnyway...those are some of its benefits. But how'd you get it?

The simple answer is - it's not easy, but it can be done. There has been some chat about nepotism, but let me assure you - though it may exist, it can be overcome through persistence. I used to rant and rave about it too, but hell, it's just another barrier, and one which exists in pretty much every industry. Grit your teeth and get on with it; i'd suggest doing the following:

1) Blanket email - but with a caveat. Write a couple of short paragraphs about yourself and why you think you'd be suitable for some work experience. Try to be original, but short. HR people don't have all day to read these things, and they get enough of them.

2) Ring. Ring at the right time. Anyone can pick up the phone to an agency. 's not hard...christ, embattled account execs have to deal with a large variety of mad requests from clients. But HR people aren't used to such weird requests ("Can you make the colour a little bit more...sympathetic?). So, pick your moments. Just after you've sent your email, phone the agency, ask to speak to the head of HR (or someone similar - if you've done your homework, you should have a reasonable idea of whom it is) and say you've sent a note through.

Be warned though, phone during the day, rather than early morning or late in the working day, and you'll get a short shrift. HR folk don't have time during the day to deal with you. If you are the first email to get their attention, you'll do ok. And they'll be more likely to bear you in mind.

3) Do something different. This being advertising, people often try 'creative' ways to get in. One of the best i've ever heard about was an ad being placed by the agency with a pair of shoes, and the line "Think you could walk a mile in these shoes?", recruiting for agency staffers. Well, the chap in question found a life sized dummy, the pair of shoes, and wrote his CV on the side of the dummy, with the line "I think i've filled them", and posted the lot. Needless to say, he got in.

In recent years, i've seen people post cake or try to scare W&K, and some have been successful. Others, less so - but it gets your name in front of people, and means they remember you. Heck, even our own Sammy and Anton both got on in the industry by doing it.

Obviously, it's best if there is a point, and it's not just 'wacky' for the sake of it. The Saatchi examples worked well because there was a reason.

4) Above all - be charming. HR people (or even the account execs/managers/planners involved with recruitment) are few. They have other responsibilities to be getting on with than catering for you at this point. An agency isn't Deloitte, with a whole department dedicated to getting the best from you. So be patient, and be nice. As my mum is fond of saying - 'Manners cost nothing'.

And they really don't. The HR person who says yes to you has tremendous power, and even if you get in and on, and are rude to them, they'll do for you. Hell, same applies for receptionists, security guards and postroom folk. They make the agency tick, and you'd do well to remember that, you fortunate bugger.

Obviously, if you are nice, more chance of getting in and on, and you'll be remembered even if you aren't successful.

That's your lot. To those still doubting the point of work experience, if you've had a few unstructured ones, well - just let me put it this way...I got 1 grad interview straight out of university. A year later, with 3 pieces of work experience under my belt, I got to all (barring one) of them.