Career Conundrums

What’s the best way to go when looking for a first job? Do you market yourself as someone who can do everything well, or do you market yourself like an expert at one thing? Personally, I think it’s good to have a clear idea of what exactly you want to do. However, it doesn’t hurt to dabble in other areas once you have a job. Veronique gave me some good advice about concepting. If you’re a writer, don’t be afraid to sketch out ideas (even if your drawings get laughed at). And if you’re a designer, don’t be afraid to come up with some “punny” headlines. And don’t ever exclude an account person from the concepting process! They’re the person who knows the client best, and even if they don’t have “creative” in their title, remember that everyone in this business is creative.

If you’re applying for an account job in hopes that you can get your foot in the door on the creative side, do not tell the employer this. Market yourself as an account person, and then try to convince them to let you write/design. You can also reach out to alumni (if you have connections in the company) and ask if they’d ever consider you for a creative position if you were hired on the account side. Some companies won’t.

With this semester coming to an end, I’ve contemplated my options more and more. I’ve realized I have to sacrifice my dream of moving to Chicago/New York/San Francisco/(insert big city here) right after graduation. I’ve realized I might have to sacrifice my dream of working at an agency immediately after I graduate. While I’m not convinced I fit in with corporate life, I won’t say no to a job that still fulfills my goal to work in advertising. If there’s one thing I’ve learned you shouldn’t sacrifice, it’s the type of people you work with.

I’m wondering if there’s some way to bring Tony, Heidi, Dale, and Veronique with me wherever I go . . .

other than the obvious solution of cutting them up into tiny pieces. We’ll save that for a later post.

Freaks Welcome Here

I’m preparing for an AAF career day tomorrow and, as usual, I got some freakishly relevant advice this week at my internship. It goes something like this:

Remember your point of difference.

Ad people spend all day figuring out how to differentiate the brands they represent. Every brand has a unique story to sell, even if you have to search deep to find it. So doesn’t it make sense that when seeking a job in the ad world, you should present yourself with a unique selling proposition? “I’m passionate,” doesn’t count. Being passionate is expected of you. That might win over corporate America, but it won’t win the sensitive hearts of advertisers.

I love school, but I’m going to be brutally honest here. Our education teaches us to fit inside a box. A nice, well-dressed, eloquent, harmless box. But advertising is not a traditional career path. If you’re told you should have the same qualifications and experiences as everyone else in school, it might be hard to realize your own point of difference. I say it’s time to do some soul searching. This is a business full of “different” people. People who call themselves “Big Nuts,” demonology enthusiasts, closet kleptomaniacs, overly competitive bowlers, and skateboarding wannabes.

. . .

So if you’re “different,” I suggest you own it. This is one of the only businesses where you can. 

Writing Fiction & Writing Copy

In the advertising world, the stereotype about copywriters is that they’re failed writers. I don’t know if this is true. The copywriters I’ve met are certainly not failures by any means, and I personally never wanted to write novels. Obviously, you have to have an interest and a passion for writing if you want to be a copywriter, but there are some big differences between the techniques for copywriting and writing fiction.

When you write creatively you usually do it for yourself. You might think about your audience to make sure your writing is clear, but you don’t worry about your word choice as much. When you’re writing copy for an ad, you represent a client, a product. And you can’t write for yourself if you want to be successful. You can write for your client if you want to please them, but in the end, it’s more important to write for your audience. I’ve started noticing when something could have a different meaning to another person. We all associate words with different images. Images from our memories, books we’ve read, movies we’ve seen, things we’ve written ourselves, so word choice is much more critical when you’re writing for an ad than when you’re writing a poem. For instance, “scat” definitely does not conjure up the same things for me as it does for say . . . Dale and Tony.

This week brought about some helpful lessons in (cheesy as it sounds) believing in yourself. Excuse me while I vomit. First of all, when you give something to someone, you should always be prepared to say something about it, even if it’s basically repeating what’s in front of them. Otherwise it’s like letting a PowerPoint speak for itself. Awkward. I’m months into this internship, and I still struggle with putting myself out there. The people at this agency are probably some of the most accepting, supporting people in the business, and yet it’s still hard to put my ideas out there for them to judge. Heidi and Veronique gave me a great pep talk on taking risks. The people that take risks and put both bad and good ideas on the table are the ones who are respected in this industry. Everyone has been in my place. The place where everyone you work with has more experience than you, but the more experience you get putting yourself out there, the easier it will get.