For those new to the industry or who are actively considering committing karmic Hara-Kiri by entering this puss filled industry, here are some friendly tips from your neighborhood Joker in regards to working in advertising and getting a full time job in advertising.
Ok, you’ve heard this before but it’s important. You need experience.
“But how do I get experience if I can’t get a job?” you ask.
Simple: being an agency bitch, working for free, doing the shit work people take for granted. Doing clippings and smiling while asking for another godforsaken pile of newspapers to go through mindlessly. You get coffee, you get water, you get food, and you will never ever get credit. Clean the desk, organize the folders, look for lthe long lost jpgs from Tutankhamen’s asshole, organize a used floss collection and answer the phone.
Obviously, I’m not saying to make a career out of this, I’m just saying do your share of “due” payments because guess what? Most of us went through our own brand of crap work to get into this luxurious fecal tenement of an industry. You have to work and work and overcome obstacles, shitty attitudes, lame supervisors, no supervisors, idiotic people getting paid a shitload of money, diva creatives, dictator account execs, drunken media personnel and harassing higher ups. Yes, yes my would be Cannes Lion tamers, it’s a shitty rocky start for most of you unless your dad is the boss, and anyways, you wouldn’t be reading this blog because you’d be too busy drafting status reports during your par five.
Most people who read or write on this page can tell you from experience just how much the total bill for their dues was paid. I was in one practicum, two internships and worked for free for six months before getting my fist job. Why is it so important though? Well let’s be frankly honest, compare what your copywriting professor taught you with reality. Re-read your notes in marketing and see how they helped you deal with a client. Honestly, college is a mere buffer to keep you from a working environment for as long as possible so you don’t become the new threat since sadly, our industry is suffering major cutbacks at a potentially global scale and Darwin fans will have the luxury of applying his theorems to this particular animal kingdom.
But if it is so bad, then why do I bring it up? Obviously people will keep wanting to break into advertising, but even still being a relative newbie, I’ve noticed so many young would be prospects simply dismiss the reality that they not only have to prove their worth, but that they have to put up, shut up, pay their dues and get the fraternity lynching we’ve all been branded with (my apologies for the terrible pun).
Salaries aren’t getting higher and middle management is being trimmed as we speak, although some agencies love bureaucracy hence having 8 creative directors, 59 associate creative directors, 36 associate senior creative supervisors, 40 junior creative supervisors, and ten guys doing all the work.
Seriously though, lots of people want success handed to them on a silver platter because they made the grade or graduated some cum laude whatever and were president of their college ping-pong team. Fuck you for being an ingrate half ass and look around, people not only stare at you because your attitude stinks, but your breath reeks of the shit your shoveling.
3 comments:
Great post. Especially considering a woman turned down a copywriter job at our agency the other day because she said "we didn't have anough Lions."
Unbelievable. I predict she'll have a long career in looking for the perfect job.
ha. bang on.
Ha - too funny! I got into advertising quite by accident over 15 years ago. Was in grad school (English Lit major) and needed a job pronto, so I took an administrative asst. job at an ad agency (had no idea what kind of biz it was when I applied; just needed a job as Mom got remarried and gave me and my sis the house and we needed to pay the mortgage!) The president of the agency said I was way overqualified and there was no way he was going to hire me, but I begged and he relented. I started out making $13,500. Saaaad. But shoot, somehow, I had all the $$$ in the world, even with my own shitty apartment and a new car. (In fact - why in the hell does it seem like I had more $ then than I do now??? I don't get it...but I digress...) Then, I got promoted to a media assistant and had to do all the shitty clipping and co-op filing bullshit that the media director hated to do (understably). THEN, I decided I actually liked advertising and moved up and on and from agency to in-house, back, to agency, etc.
Anyway, the point is - I'm not sure if it's my Capricornian nature or what (slowly plodding along, eventually hoping it'll pay off...), but I was full-on willing to "pay my dues" so to speak and take a shitty admin job that I was WAY overqualified for, working for absolute peanuts. And I worked my way up to a pretty decent station in life.
Could be just a generational thing though - I'm on the older end of Gen X, and it seems the younger lot have this sense of entitlement and instant gratification, whereas my generation (and especially the baby boomers) were more than willing to pay their dues and work their way up. Shoot - I think it builds character. I mean, do I WISH that I had the confidence, self-assurance it takes to turn down a great opportunity because it's not enough $ or not the perfect job? Maybe - but I am living proof that "hanging in there" actually can pay off, even if it takes a few years. And I had such a blast doing it, I wouldn't change a thing!
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