| Topic Name: |
What a waste of time!!! |
| Message Name: |
Thanx, R2 |
| Date Posted: |
05/22/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
You interned at a shop with a good creative reputation which is a plus, but creative jobs are very tough to get and with demise of many creative hot shops that either went under or were absorbed by the big four holding companies its become even more difficult to secure as a copywriter or art director. Fewer shops mean fewer openings. Industry consulidation means that the least creative people in the industry (HR) are making decision concerning who gets their foot in the door.
You also may want to consider other departments besides creative. Most people who work in account management and media didn't plan on working in those disciplines when they originall planned on making advetising a career (myself included). We all wanted to work in creative, but faced with the choice of not working in a creative industry or working in non- directly creative aspects of such,we decided to stay in the industry.
Account management is the next most popular area, but forget about being hired for it with a major agency unless you are what in this cruel worl can be termed traditionally phsicall attrictive. More ar heads work in account managemnt than in any ither area.
Media is fun and combines creative thought, perks and numbers crunching. Media planning is a more creative discipline than media buying (you wite media planning decks and make decisions where the client spends their money). Entry level media job (particularly on the buying side) are slightly easier to land than creative and account management positons. Many agencies also require that account management trainees initially work in media. The pay however is even lower than the starting salaries for creative or account management.
Sometimes adminiustrative jobs are dead ends, other times they are not. I know many instances of people who were promoted to better jobs after getting their foot in the door and I know of many situations that the job remainrd a dead end. I need more details to find out if your adnministrative offer is a foot in the door in a bad job market in a difficult industry to break into to begin with or dead end.
Job openings are few in newspaper classifieds, online and in trade books. Cold calling smaller shops out of the agency redbook, might be worth a shot, but don't speak with HR and don't merely beg for a job. Research the company online and try to tie insomething about your interships or course work ( very specific project examples, not generic stuff) to their client base or work.
Be willing to take account managemnet, new busineess or media jobs if you can't land a creative spot. Also just don't call companies listed in the agency section. Call on companise in the cyber agency, media buying, PR and sales promotion sections as well. Obviously if you are calling a media service company, don't tell them you'd prefer to work in creative. Apply that concept to the other disciplines as well.
Good luck. Youl'll need a lot of it in this market. |
| Message: |
You sure have a lot of knowledge in that head of yours, and I appreciate your sharing it with a newcomer like India.
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