Here’s another group of tips for students and grads.
The most important one to remember is always ‘be persistent’. Keep pushing, keep improving, keep chasing people and keep your head up.
Tip 11 // Pay attention.
In the first 5 minutes of meeting a grad I can often tell if they’ll get a job quickly.
Try it, I bet you can pick out some of your classmates yourself.
It’s not down to their book.
It’s their attitude.
We had a placement in once. I made time to speak to them but they clearly weren’t engaged. Instead looking over my shoulder and around the room. I’ve better uses of my time then trying to help someone who’s not listening.
And when I came to hiring a junior they weren’t on my list.
Tip 12 // Avoid wacky work.
Some agencies like to set students briefs for ‘wacky’ products.
Ones that will ‘really show off your creativity!’.
Nonsense like ‘advertise a time machine’ or ‘sell umbrellas for dogs’.
Or the not as obviously wacky but classic ‘creative’ briefs for condoms or superglue.
Avoid them like the plague. They reek of forced fun.
None of that sort of work is going to be anywhere near as impressive in your book as when people see a really surprising, interesting and new approach to a standard product.
Tip 13 //What’s your style?
Everyone has a type of work that they like doing.
Whether it’s funny or heart-warming.
Maybe it’s in certain channels from self-shooting social to big integrated work.
It might be you love creating ideas vs crafting them.
Whatever it is, look at the agencies producing that type of work. Then give your book a similar flavour. Make it appeal to that audience.
Don’t turn a job down just because the agency’s not on your target list though. That’s madness! Get a job then keep working to get the job you want.
Tip 14 // Craft your book.
When a CD is hiring they have to look at a lot of books.
And back to back they can all start to blur into each other.
That’s a problem, so how are you going to stand out?
By using your craft skills.
Design your book as much as you’d design a campaign within it.
The fonts, layouts, colour, images, words.
Add gifs, videos, carousels or show work in-situ.
And test it works on desktop, mobile and as a PDF.
Tip 15 // Do your research.
When I was a job-hunting grad I’d take short 3-4 day trips to different towns.
I’d grab the yellow pages on arrival (it was pre-internet), find a working phone box (it was also pre-mobiles) then I’d ring every ad agency trying to set up as many book crits as possible.
Nowadays we’ve all got the internet on our mobiles. Mad times.
It also means you can look at the website for every agency in the country in one day.
So do that. You’ll be amazed how many places there are to work and contacts you can find.
