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So you didn’t get into a grad scheme…..
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There is nothing but rejection letters on your desk, your mates are asking in lectures how the interviews went, you have a dissertation to do and feel deflated or all you can see is another year ahead without a grad training job as you’ve held out for the previous round with no joy.
Well, it doesn’t have to be so shit. Firstly if you’re still at uni you will need to drag yourself up to focus on your finals, without a 2:1 it’ll be hard to find a grad training scheme anyway. If you’ve finished uni there is still a boat to catch.
There is an emerging trend where agencies don’t actually practice the usual grad recruitment which is the usual 2 stage interview process. Both Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis now use their Summer Schools as grounds to recruit for their grad training schemes. These usually are made available to apply to between Feb - April so keep a close eye on their websites.
Also there is the other way which isn’t the traditional grad route. It’s to join an agency as a junior account exec. This is where you pretty much feel like you’re on work experience, don’t receive the training the grads get and usually paid a little less. But it is actually one of the best ways to enter the industry.
While the grads get pampered with training, you, as an account assistant, are thrown into the thick of it where you’re expected to be a strong support line to your account team. You’ll learn quicker than the grads and you’ll be under more pressure than the grads. If you’re worried that you’ll do twice as much work as the grads and not get promoted like they are think again. Agencies are very prude when making promotions and it usually is made on merit especially at the more junior levels so this is still a great chance to enter and climb the ladder of the ad industry.
So how do you go about becoming an account assistant if you’ve missed the grad recruitment boat? Well, firstly you need to have some kind of experience within agencies. Account assistants are usually hired because they were a close choice to being on the grad rounds and usually its experience that speaks volumes. So if you don’t have any get on the blower to some agencies and organise the odd 1 or 2 week stint or apply to the summer schools as you could still make a grad scheme. Once you have the experience and a paper reference from it, you can start approaching agencies.
Start by finding out which agencies have just won large accounts and jump on them straight away (large wins are usually screamed about in Campaign magazine or at www.brandrepublic.co.uk). What usually happens with a large account win is that the agency will start to organise moving key people off other accounts to front the new one, it’s pretty much all hands on deck - a perfect opportunity for a budding account assistant who rings the agency, tells them they are ready to go to work and help out where needed. Don’t be disappointed if the first few say ‘no thank you’, like all things it’s a trail and error process. If you really want it you’ll come across an agency that is looking.
Sign up with some recruitment agencies, Google for the ones who specialise in advertising/marketing and be prepared to go with an agency in digital, marketing services, DM as well as the large networks.
The point being is that just because you didn’t get into a grad recruitment scheme it doesn’t have to mean that advertising isn’t for you. It could have been a number of things that just were not in your favour on the day and how can a lifelong career be judged simply off an interview that lasted maybe 30 mins? Well….it can’t so if you really want it go about making it yours through whatever means necessary!
Good luck
xx
Contributor profile: http://wurk.net/profile/anton
Website: http://advertising.wurk.net/
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February 21, 2006 @ 9:49 pm...
Hello there Anton,
I am about to graduate in the spring from Hillsdale College (Michigan, USA!), with a degree in Marketing Management. Though I’m a yankee, my heart lies in Europe, where my family lives …
I’d absolutely love to pick your brain, but I’ll just leave you with one question:
Coming from the US, is it even worth my time to try and land a graduate scheme in the ad biz in London? Will I be considered? And, what’s the number one piece of advice you could offer to someone in my position, a lowly grad scavenging for any kind of graduate scheme/summer school experience in England?
Okay, so maybe that was more like three questions. My deepest apologies.
Cheers,
Renata
February 22, 2006 @ 4:10 pm...
There were quite a few US grads during my grad recruitment rounds so I wouldn’t worry about that. Why not call them and start flagging that it’s London you would like to work in and whether they would consider you? There’s no harm in asking. If you visit http://www.saacthi.co.uk and http://www.publicis.co.uk you should be able to find details on their summer schemes.
My one piece of advice would be never ever give up and with each rejection become more determined. I was rejected from 200 agencies when trying to get a placement year and luckily enough I was, as when I did get in it was with a bigger agency than could have ever hoped for.
If you’re determined you’ll get in, one way or another.
Hope this helps.
February 26, 2006 @ 11:01 pm...
Hi there Anton,
First off, a general thanks for investing so much time and effort in advertising.wurk.net. I’m sure i’m not the only one that finds it a really helpful and often reassuring resource.
Secondly, a question. I’ll be finishing my final year of university this Summer, and was hoping to apply to two postgraduate advertising courses - Watford and Buckinghamshire. However they both say that entry takes place through interview and portfolio review. Having only fairly recently decided that advertising is for me, I haven’t got a portfolio. Erk! Would you reccomend quickly rushing a portfolio (which i’m not actually sure how to do anyway … my drawing skills aren’t great and although I have confidence in my copywriting, I have no experience), or instead take a year out, try for placements and grad schemes and build up a portfolio more slowly, then apply to the postgrad courses next year?
Sorry for the epic proportions of that question. Hope you can help!
Cheers,
Alastair.
February 27, 2006 @ 10:09 am...
Hi Alastair
Tricky one. I take it you are looking to be a creative and your heart is set on that?
Firstly, I would contact one of the lecturers at Watford, no harm in explaining your situation and gain a solution from that.
If they do in fact ask that you have an portfolio I would try as hard as you can to get one up and running. Pick up to 10 brands you like or have ideas for and go about drawing really simple scamps in the form of TV story boards or simple scripts. For TV ads scripts are presented first before the story boards are so this gets you off the hook but you will obvioulsy need to bring your portfolio to life.
Do you have any friends who are quite skilled on PhotoShop? I would sit with my friend at uni and direct him and he would come up with some great stuff for a Guinness project I was doing, bought him quite a few beers as an offering of thanks.
Do whatever you can to get a diverse portfolio across different sectors, from automobile to phones to clothes to beer. But remember this is to get on the creative course, you wont be expected to have award winning stiff in there - bonus if you did though. Also make it look slick, have black paper backgrounds and then your work mounted on top within nice plastic sleeves.
Flag your concerns with Watford and let us know what they say. It can’t hurt to ask.