VACANCY: Account Manager & Designer

My lovely little agency are looking to hire an account manager to support on a number of our retail accounts. This would be a great opportunity for an Account Manager or a confident Account Exec to take join us and make their mark in a small team of hardworking but fun-loving agency peeps.

We are also looking for a mid-weight graphic designer with great all-round design skills to come work on both digital and print designs for our clients. Ability to artwork is a must and if you can code that would be awesome but it's not essential. The most important thing is your personality, we're looking for someone who's willing to get stuck in to work and also play!

If you're interested or know of anyone who is just drop me an email at jos.canavan@babersmith.co.uk and I can send you more info!

Look forward to hearing from you! xx

Class of Initials 2014 open for applications!

Class of INITIALS is a work experience programme for graduates looking to enter the exciting world of agency marketing.

INITIALS Marketing is a creative communications agency with a fantastic culture. Spanning multiple disciplines, from shopper to digital, promotional to direct, design to experiential, the world of INITIALS is fast-paced and always fun!

INITIALS hold a very special place in my heart - not only did I start my agency career there through a work experience placement in 2011 (before the official Class of Initials initiative was born), it was there that I worked my first position as an Account Exec. 

I worked on the experiential team at INITIALS for five months in 2012. I learnt a huge amount and was able to get involved in some amazing national-scale projects. It's why I'm so excited to share the Class of INITIALS 2014 with you - through it you have the same opportunity that I had to bag your dream marketing job! 

So what's the deal? 5 graduates will be selected via a challenging (but fun!) recruitment process to carry out a four week work placement between July and September 2014. For the right graduate there could be a job at the end!

Applications are being accepted via the INITIALS Facebook page, where you can also find out a few more details about the company and some great past work, as well as what's on offer. Please don't hesitate to comment/contact me if you have any questions! 

Good luck!

More reasons why a non industry degree is useful in advertising

As if we need any more!

As you know, this blog exists to bridge the gap between the advertising industry (specifically agencies) and those who don't possess an industry degree. A lot of it has focused on account handling, as that is the function I myself was aiming for and later landed in. So it's high time we focused on the lesser well known side of agency life - Planning.

In a nutshell, Planners exist to shed light on consumer insights that will help inform the advertising devised by the creative teams. Whereas account handling and creative teams are standard in all types of agency, Planners can mostly be found in the larger agencies.

My impression is that Planning is quite hard to get into, more difficult than any other agency role. I think this is mainly because the roles are much less common and therefore it follows that the competition is fiercer. With competition for graduate jobs increasing all the time I think it's a great role to look at from a Jos Can point of view.

What qualities do employers look for in Planners? Do academically-trained graduates have a hope? These questions and more were answered by Chris Kneebone of Kitcatt Nohr Digitas in his great post on The IPA's Admission blog:

Worried your degree subject will stop you finding a job in advertising?

Thankfully for us non-industry graduates, the answer to this is a resounding "Don't be!"

Chris gives us an insight into what his job requires of him and makes a compelling argument as to why his History degree in fact has armed him with just the right skills to be good at working in advertising.


I'll always remember something a Creative Director said to me on one of my internships, which was

" With all of these advertising graduates emerging from unis having had the same teaching and exposure, what can they add that is different to hundreds of their peers?"

Although anyone (including the man himself) knows that graduates of the same course are far from clones of each other, it did make me think more about the potential merits of having done something different.

Day In The Life

Hey guys!

 In my last post I promised you an account of a day in my life working in an integrated agency as an Account Exec, so here it is. Every day is so different in my job so bear in mind that my duties do extend to outside of what you read here, but hopefully you’ll find this post helpful if you’re thinking of getting into agency account handling.

I also hope it will show that it is very possible to be good at this job without a degree background in marketing. Obviously I myself haven’t had that educational exposure so I would be really interested to hear from others who have who really feel they directly reap the benefit of their degree in their agency role.

As always, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to ask them by commenting or by contacting me using the details on the Contact Me tab above.

Day in the life.

My day starts at 9am, where I take a seat at my desk and check my emails. My main client is a shopping centre and we do all of  their creative comms, from in-centre posters and hoardings, to press, radio, events and social and digital – whatever works best for the campaign we’ve devised. I work on the account with a Senior Account Director, and whilst she handles a lot of the main client liaison, budget tracking and more high responsibility stuff, I manage most of the deliverables, working with our internal studio to produce the ads for the centre.

I start today by liaising with our contact for all things print, as we need to replace the posters in centre with our Valentine’s creative. I send an email requesting a quote for the print order, then follow that up with an estimate to the client so they can sign off this cost. The posters have been designed and signed off internally as well as by the client the previous week, so all that remains is for the posters to be artworked – made print-ready. I mail the file over to our artworker and pop over to ask him if he’ll be able to see to it by the end of the day.

Next on my To Do list is to write a design brief. This contains all the details that the designer needs to create an ad, including info such as the relevant branding and colour scheme, what imagery and copy to include, the dimensions etc. We need to design a press ad to advertise a new retailer who is opening in the shopping centre, so once I’ve written up the brief I talk it over with a designer, and when I’ve made sure they are clear on what needs to be done I head back to my desk.

One of the primary target demographics for the shopping centre account is 18-24 year olds, and as such we plan a lot of activity on our social media pages. These are managed by a Marketing Assistant at the shopping centre. Having come up with the concept and strategy for a Valentine’s campaign in a brainstorm the day before, I now write this up as a brief to send over to the Marketing Assistant. As a shopping centre, the retailers obviously play a key part in our marketing and this campaign is no exception, so this brief is vital for the Marketing Assistant so that she can liaise with relevant retailers and pull together the right content for the social campaign.

Another job for today is deployment of an email, which will be sent out to our database of around 6,000 people. Having already overseen the design of the email, it has now got to be coded (thankfully not by me) and tested before it’s sent. Before I pop out for lunch I check that our html-savvy designer is still ok to finish coding and testing the email that afternoon as we’d discussed the day before.

I usually eat at my desk – one because it’s good to be there in case someone, the client or a designer who’s working on something for you, has a question or needs something, and two because there’s really not many places to eat around my office..!

After I’ve eaten the designer who’s been working on my email comes over to let me know that it’s ready to be tested, so I go and join him at his desk so I can oversee how it has come out and ensure that all the click through links are correct. Once I’m happy we click Send and away it goes! After a few days I’ll check back on the results and compile a report to send over to the client, comprising the open and click through rates and how these compare to previous emails and the average industry standards.

By this time it’s getting on in the afternoon and I check back with all the work I’ve got going on in the studio – the press ads and the artworking. I print a copy of the press ad to show our creative director so that he can sign it off before I send it to the client for their approval. The posters have been artworked so I can send them to the printer along with their PO from us.  

That’s it for studio work today, which means I have a couple of hours to sit at my desk undisturbed to get to a couple of larger tasks. One is a management report for the client that details all the work we have delivered in the previous month; for this I need to go back through our folders and take screen shots of all ad creative as well as compile results such as email open and click through rates, entries to any competitions we have run, and analytics of both Facebook and the website. This is a big job that usually takes a day or two to complete but I dedicate a few hours to it and then send it to my line manager; we’ll go through it in the morning to make sure I’ve included everything I need to.

By now it’s about 6pm. I fill in my timesheet for the day and head out the door to the pub! :-)

Unemployment is over!

Big apologies for my silence recently everyone (I know you’ve missed me) - I’m back and ready and raring to blog.

The past few months have been a time of unemployment for me – not altogether an unenjoyable period in my life (lie-ins never get dull), but definitely a time of doubts, fears, and questions. After five months as an exec in a great agency which gave me the chance I needed to learn my chosen trade, I seemed to be in a good position. However, my job hunt was still without its challenges. I wasn’t searching for my first position – I had three relevant internships under my belt, not to mention the good half a year I’d spent in a full time agency role – but having worked primarily in experiential, to some potential employers I wasn’t experienced enough to enter as an Account Exec working with other channels. Which leads me to my other problem, which was that I wasn’t quite sure what disciplines I wanted to work in, having not had exposure to them all.

My experiences of the workplace had, however, opened my mind to other important considerations when job hunting. I knew that a well-matched culture was important to me. And now I was on the first rung of the career ladder I felt that I didn’t have to go to every interview nervous and desperate to impress, because I was fully aware that I was making an important and career-defining choice and could afford to be more picky. This certainly helped me in interviews and I viewed it as more of a two-way process, with me trying to find out as much as I could about the company, people and culture so that I could make a decision for myself. That way I also didn’t count many rejections as failures and get disheartened, because some that I went to just weren’t right.

I think when you’re just starting out it’s better to go for whatever you can get; back then I was certainly in the habit of convincing myself that I would love whatever it was I was going for. And that really helped me, for even if it turned out whatever I was doing wasn’t for me, that experience was still valuable and it has put me in a better position in the long-term.

Next post – a day in the life! I’ll be taking you through my experiences as an Account Exec at my new integrated agency.

The Graduate Without A Future

Whilst browsing Facebook last Wednesday I noticed a trending videos called ‘A 2.1 just won’t cut it any more’. Well, you have to have been living under a rock for the past three years to have missed that, so not exactly a hugely intriguing revelation. Everyone knows that there are exactly 3.5 trillion other graduates out there to compete against for employment, and that you must complete 49 unpaid internships in order to qualify to fill out a job application form. But I clicked through anyway, curious to see another perspective on this issue which is affecting myself as well as thousands of other young career contenders, hopeful for some constructive advice in the very least.

It turned out that the video was published on The Guardian website, as part of their newly established Comment Is Free online series called ‘The Graduate Without A Future’. Cheery, no? I settled down, readying myself for some quality journalism, as one would expect from the Guardian (no sarcasm). Instead, I was treated to a lamentation of the ‘futureless’ graduates of 2012 – seven and a half minutes of completely useless despair and melodrama. 

 One of the main features of the report was the stories of two 2012 graduates from Sussex university. Neither were asked very much about their individual career goals, so instead of an interesting and relevant interview focused on what jobs they were looking to pursue and how they were going to go about obtaining them, their portrayal focused largely around their ‘ambition’ to avoid ending up in a “mindless sales job”.  In line with the video’s title, they also talked about how throughout their time at uni they had made conscious efforts to get involved with extra-curricular activities. As students and recent graduates, I think we’re all probably quite familiar with the notion of enhancing your CV with activities and societies as well as work experience, and this is really important for graduates like myself who have traditional academic degrees. Take the rise in degrees with placement years; this is a significant sign of the increase in employers’ expectations for graduates coming straight out of uni. The presenter, a Guardian writer called John Harris, seemed outraged at the thought of these girls doing anything with their three years but studying. The fact is, that involvement in these extras is now part and parcel of the personal development we’re expected to undertake at uni, and complaining about it will get us nowhere. One of the grads, India, told us how left her small hometown in Essex in order to pursue better things; surely this involves making the most of the opportunities on offer in a big city like Brighton? Harris may mourn the new necessity of diverting your attention from your studies to prepare for post graduate life before you’ve even secured your degree, and I agree that your priority should be studying, but as the other grad, Chrissy, rightly pointed out, if she hadn’t been trying to get involved with other things, “What would I have done for three years, just mucked around and got a degree?” It is true, a degree alone is not enough any more. But instead of lamenting this, should we not celebrate all the extra skills we will develop as a result of involvement in extra-curricular projects?

The second half of the video featured a visit to the Graduate Recruitment Bureau, a recruitment consultancy specialising in graduate recruitment which is based in Brighton (the setting for this happy tale). Dan Hawes, the founder of the company and actually someone who was kind enough to agree to be interviewed for this blog a few months ago, was interviewed by Harris, giving his perspective on the importance of rivalling the competition from fellow grads by supplementing your degree with extra experience.

In his interview, Dan explained how the GRB typically works to recruit STEM graduates for its clients (that’s those who’ve studied Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) – no crime for a company to have a specialism. However, the report managed to twist even this seemingly innocent admission into a negative. As they entered the GRB office,  Harris’ voiceover uttered this sombre statement: “If you study humanities, the kind of jobs open to you may well come down to working at a place like this.” As well as debasing the value of humanities degrees, Harris also managed to insult the company who had just given him a relevant and constructive interview. Nice.

My annoyance with the angle of this report peaked at the mention of student loan debt. Erm…why did how much debt these girls have need to be discussed? It seemed that this was mentioned simply to further demonise the situation of these ‘graduates with no future’. Student loan repayments are no more of a detriment to a graduate’s bank balance than they would be if the job market was hunky dory, because repayments are relative to earnings. The hyperbole of the presenter raising the subject of debt and portraying it as a distressing issue spoke volumes for the type of messaging that the report is attempting to convey. But then again, what is media without a little bit of hype? …Even if that hype can only amount to the fact that the entry phone system at the Graduate Recruitment Bureau doesn’t work...SO WHAT?!

You can watch the video below. Do you agree with me?

My interview with the IPA

You may have heard of Gradvantage, a blog run by graduates at the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) which is all about helping grads get into marcomms. I got in touch with the blog in order to promote the Class of INITIALS programme, and was invited to add my own piece to their blog about my story of getting into and working in a marketing agency. You can read my interview-style guest post at

http://gradvantage.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/jos-can-can-you.html

Join the Class of INITIALS! A graduate marketing placement opportunity

This blog post is all about a great initiative that has been introduced recently for passionate marketeers such as ourselves!

Class of INITIALS is the new work experience programme for graduates looking to enter the exciting world of agency marketing.

INITIALS Marketing is a creative communications agency with a fantastic culture. Spanning multiple disciplines, from shopper to digital, promotional to direct, design to experiential, the world of INITIALS is fast-paced and always fun!

I myself have been working on the experiential team at INITIALS for the past three months as a Communications Exec. I've learnt a huge amount, been handed my fair share of responsibility, and have been involved in some amazing national-scale projects. But I'm sure you guys are all fed up of reading other people's success stories, which is why I've waited until now to share mine with you - the launch of Class of INITIALS means that you have the same opportunity that I had to bag your dream marketing job!

Last summer, I spent two weeks at INITIALS along with a number of other students/graduates. I left with some great experience under my belt, but with no concrete promise of a job. Just under a year later, however, luck was with me and I was invited back to fill the position I'm in now. This year the graduate programme has more of an official structure to it, with 5 graduates being selected via a challenging (but fun!) recruitment process to carry out a four week work placement between July and September. For the right graduate there could be a job at the end!

Applications are being accepted via the INITIALS' Facebook page, where you can also find out a few more details about the company and some great past work, as well as what's on offer. Please don't hesitate to comment/contact me if you have any questions!

Good luck!

P.S. You might notice that the date for feedback on your round 2 application is BEFORE round 2 actually takes place. INITIALS will be aiming to get back to you with an answer by 22nd June, not 2nd!

Interview with the Graduate Recruitment Bureau

Today's blog post is an interview with Dan Hawes, co-founder of the Graduate Recruitment Bureau.

The GRB is a recruitment agency specialising in placing graduates into graduate jobs. I ask Dan some of the questions that had been been at the forefront of my mind when starting this blog, such as the true merits of an academic degree, the effects of the recession on the graduate job market, and advice on how to maximise your chances when applying for jobs. His answers offer unrivaled insight into the perspective of someone with expertise in handling recruitment into all sorts of industries, including marketing. Be sure to comment and let me know what you guys think!

- Do the recruiters you work with at GRB tend to have a preference for certain types of degrees over others? For example, do they look for degrees that are directly relevant to the job role, do they specify a preference for top universities etc.?

Our clients look for graduate calibre individuals with a mixture of hard and soft skills. In over 15 years of matching students and graduates into full time employment (internships and graduate jobs) we have worked with a diverse range of graduates. The most popular with our clients tend be STEM graduates – those who have studied Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths degrees. Very often employers will also be specific about where these graduates have studied, such as Russell Group Unis, as these Unis require strong A Level qualifications. We explain to our clients to look beyond the general Uni rankings and instead look at those that are exceptional by degree subject area. Sometimes this will include non-Russell group Universities. There may be other reasons recruiters choose certain degree subjects and unis due to historical success or even down to where the Chief Exec studied! 
It could be argued that this is a lazy way to recruit but it has increased of late as recruiters have faced an unprecedented amount of applicants and need a quick way to manage who gets through. This could be set to change with the introduction of HEAR qualifications which removes the 2.1, 2.2 and Third classification and instead includes other non-academic skills learnt during a person’s time at Uni much the way a GPA score is used in the States which will force recruiters to take a more inclusive approach.

- How much do you think degree subject matters in the graduate recruitment process?

Depends on the graduate job. If you want to be a Doctor then definitely but less so if you want to get into Sales. Apart from in depth knowledge of a subject, studying for a degree in a University environment equips an individual with many transferable skills.

- Do recruiters look favourably on candidates from the more 'elite' universities, or does that not really matter? 
As an example, if you were considering someone who had studied English at UCL (top of The Guardian's University Guide 2012 league table for English) versus someone who had studied English at University College Plymouth St Mark and St John (bottom of The Guardian's University Guide 2012 league table for English), and they were more or less equal in terms of experience and application quality, would you be swayed to accept/reject based on the university attended?

Again this comes down to the recruiter's preference. In the example you have given a company based in Plymouth may chose the local graduate over one that needs to relocate so it really depends on their criteria and the priority they assign to each.

Do you have a point of view about the benefits of studying an academic degree in a traditional subject? Is there any tangible difference between the skills that academic grads tend to bring to job roles versus grads from 'newer' and more specific subjects?

Both types of course have their merits depending how the individual embraces the learning opportunity. In my experience, I took a vocational subject (Business) so I could get an all-round understanding of how business operates but what I really valued was my year in industry which closed the loop in terms of my understanding and gave me extra skills and therefore advantages over other graduates.

- Do you think that academic grads from top unis are less favoured than they were before the recession?

No, the opposite! For many larger recruiters a strong academic degree still trumps a vocational degree. Last year saw the most graduates enter the job market ever which unfortunately coincided with the on-going recession. This meant recruiters had the upper hand and many raised the bar in terms of what they were looking for so in fact 2011 was a record year from GRB placements as the majority of candidates were exactly the calibre they were looking for.

- If a graduate does not have a degree specific to the role to which they are applying, what other traits, achievements and experiences do you look for?

The degree subject takes precedence for most of our clients. Where we help graduates start a career in sales or recruitment, the degree subject is less important, and instead clients demand a range of skills and competences. This could be demonstrated through paid or unpaid work experience, sport, extra-curricular activity or other achievements.

- I see from your LinkedIn profile that you studied Business - do you think that this has fared you better (in terms of skills development and employability) than if you had studied something more traditional?

It gave me a basic understanding of business, for sure, and is still a desirable course for certain employers (and great if you want to start your own business!) It was the year in industry that really helped improve my skillset and commercial awareness compared to other graduates at the time.

- What do you think that academic grads could do to better themselves in their uni life/job hunt and achieve their career goals?

We see so many graduates who leave graduate job hunting to the last minute but we are noticing a change (at last). GRB are on a mission to push this trend further. We have designed a year-by-year action plan from fresher to graduate to help students make the most of their time at uni, build their skill set, create an amazing CV and secure work before they graduate. It works – I’ve seen it happen but we so many get distracted along the way – come on everyone, focus!

- Do you think a marketing degree is necessary to be successful in marketing?

Not necessarily. It definitely helps to know the theory but if you show you have relevant skills from other experiences you have had (like writing a blog!) then you will get a recruiter's attention.

Article for AllAboutCareers.com

Have you heard about AllAboutCareers.com?

There are loads of careers information websites out there for students, but this one in particular stands out for me. It offers all the usual handy information, like a calendar of upcoming uni/careers events, and info and advice on different jobs and courses (not just at university). More unique are its sections for features, blogs and a Q&A forum, which are mainly written by users and make for a great community feel.

Overall the website is more social, informal and just plain amusing than your typical student web resource, and I would recommend it to all students and young grads.

So I was really very chuffed to be asked to write a little piece for them. I decided to write about how my blog has facilitated my job search. It was good to get it all down and fully realise the results I have seen from this blog. I hope by reading it you will be inspired to start your own blog!  Please follow the link: Writing a marketing blog

Help!!

Today I checked my Twitter to find that someone had tweeted me:

"Hi @JosCanavan I have just seen your blog on a website that a friend contributed to. I think you are my guardian angel, I've emailed you at your Gmail account for some advice on non-graduate aspiring marketing students making it into this industry! Help !! x"

As I read Amy's email I couldn't help thinking how much she sounded like me in my final year of university. Of course I was more than happy to try and offer what advice I could. I thought it would be great if I published Amy's message and my reply, in order to share our dialogue in the hope it might help one or two of you. I would also be really happy (and I'm sure Amy would appreciate it too!) if anyone had any comments to make about her position, and to add to the advice I have given.

Hi Jos,

My name is Amy Jackson and I recently found your blog whilst reading a friends contribution to the website TargetjobsBloggers.

Your About Me section really interested me and I thought I'd email you mainly for some advice, I hope this is ok.

I am in my last two months at University studying a Journalism and English Literature degree. My dream job is to be a Marketing and Advertisiting Co-ordinator. However, after a four year degree of something that isn't directly related, I am struggling. At 18 I was unsure as what I wanted to do at University, but as the years have gone on, I've realised I have found something I am passionate about and feel I could put my whole self into.

I have done many placements in the last four years, I have travelled to Vietnam and Africa with the BBC, worked in publishing houses working with events management and helped to arrange many charity events around the North East. However, no immediate connection to Marketing and Advertising.

I have an interview on Thursday for a 5 month placement with DiFFERENT Marketing and Advertising, in Newcastle. The email I got back regarding a graduate job invited me along for a chat about my options, and they said I would be more suited for a PR role. I am unsure as to how this meeting will go and what my options are, but if you could give me some tips on how impress at this sort of interview, then I'd really appreciate it.

Besides not actually doing a marketing degree, I regulary read books about it and speak to other people who are involved in this industry. My experience is limited but I want to show I can learn quickly.

Best Wishes,

Amy Jackson

 

Hi Amy,

Thanks so much for getting in touch! It’s great to know that people are reading Jos Can and taking something from it, as well as the fact we are able to connect and share advice and experiences. Your email struck a chord with me as I was in your exact position in my third year of university.

You seem really on the ball though, passionate and knowledgeable, which will definitely work in your favour. You mentioned you read marketing-related books and network with people in the industry – this is a brilliant demonstration of your commitment and enthusiasm, and you should definitely bring this up in the interview. These traits will probably be your greatest assets.

You mention that you have been invited to have a “chat about your options”, which seems to imply that the exact nature of the placement is not set in stone or that there is more than one available. So they might start off by explaining a bit more about what it is they’re expecting the hired candidate(s) to get up to, which will be a great chance for you to make connections to your own interests and past experiences in order to demonstrate your suitability.

Equally they might ask you what sort of career you’re looking for in order to scope out how right you are for what they have in mind. In this instance, I wouldn’t spend too long talking about the exact thing you’re looking for. For example, if you were interested in doing events for big sports brands but they were looking for someone to support the social media for a food and beverages client, you could focus instead on what you want to get out of the role – “I’m looking for something challenging, where I can take on responsibility and make a difference to a company”…”I’m a fast learner so this would be a great experience to work alongside and learn from industry experts”..., but obviously tailor it to what it is you think they’re looking for.  In a lot of interviews I’ve been to, they have been hesitant about revealing that a lot of the role will be admin/support–focused as they are aware it is not very appealing, but although it wasn’t what I was after, by showing that I wasn’t loath to get involved with that sort of stuff I found my way in, which then provided a chance for me to prove myself in other tasks that came along as part of the role.

When preparing for an interview I find it a good exercise to imagine yourself as the interviewer and that you have someone you have never met before coming in to talk to you. What would you want to know? Surely: why has this person decided to try for the job? So this is where you would talk about your passion for marketing. You can say where your interest came from - perhaps a particular campaign that first caught your eye, or the fact that you have always paid attention to brands and how they are interacting with their consumers. You said you've come to realise you have "found something you're passionate about and could put your whole self into", so make sure they see that and you'll be halfway there!

Try not to present your degree as anything but an asset (I know I have a terrible tendency to jump straight in and apologise for my lack of marketing degree!) You can point out how your degree has allowed you to develop important skills, in writing (an obvious one)/analysing (from deciphering news articles)/teamwork (from any group project work) etc.… You know that you want a job that allows you to use these skills, and marketing, coupled with your interest in the industry, fits this well.

Please forgive my majorly vague interpretation of your degree! It just goes to show how not everyone will have a really distinct idea of what it is you worked on as part of your degree, so it’s really important that you can clearly explain what skills you developed, and translate that to the job role you’re after.  Similarly, don’t view the fact that you haven’t had any experience directly related to marketing as a flaw. I’ll bet you’ll have picked up lots of useful skills in your past work experiences – they sound really interesting and unique and I think they would make you stand out.

It’s my (cynical) suspicion that they have suggested PR because of your writing and journalism-focused degree. Don’t let them pigeon-hole you if that’s not what you’re interested in! If it turns out in the interview that the placement you are going for is more focused towards PR, take the opportunity to find out all you can about what you’d be doing, as well as opportunities for the future - the placement is still likely to be worthwhile, and you certainly don't want to reject it then and there.

So! There's my humble advice - has anyone else got any comments to help Amy before her interview? Maybe you're in the same position as her and have struggled due to a lack of relevant experience. Are you from a similar course and able to pinpoint the key benefits/transferable skills of her degree? Or are you in the same boat and just want to complain! Even any words of encouragement that have come to mind whilst reading Amy's message. Personally, I think she sounds like she would be a great asset to any marketing team, and even if this opportunity isn't right or doesn't work out, that she'll no doubt go on to be successful in pursuing her dream. 

Guest blog post by language grad, Marie

Visit Marie's blog at
Grad and Looking

Today's post has been written by Marie, a French and Cultural Studies graduate whose career goal is to work in advertising. She writes spiritedly about the intense competition faced by those of us chasing our dreams in this popular industry, and highlights the main challenges and, even more helpfully, how we can face them.

Her story, of how she was inspired to carry out an internship in China in order to get that little bit closer to her dream job, emphasises just how much of a challenge today's job market can be. As she rightly points out, an internship abroad is not a viable option for all of us, but it just goes to show how important it is to make the most of the opportunities we are presented with. And, as I pointed out in my TARGETjobs blog post last week, the extra hurdles that we have to jump will just make us that much stronger candidates than if we had only to walk to the finish line.

Graduated and looking…

Hey everyone! My name’s Marie and like Jos (and many of you reading this) I am trying to break into the increasingly difficult marcoms industry – more specifically advertising.  A recent French and Cultural Studies graduate from the University of Sussex I know that there are two main things that advertising agencies think twice about when I apply:

1) I don’t come from a business/marketing/advertising background

2) My lack of agency experience (particularly because when I was first applying for grad schemes this time last year, I’d only had a couple of weeks of experience at an independent B2B agency in London)

So what to do you when any one of those two things are held against you? Well determination and pro-activeness play a huge part.  During my final year last year I applied for virtually nearly every advertising grad scheme that was out there that appealed to me, from AMV BBDO, to Iris, to Ogilvy, balancing uni deadlines with application deadlines, which always seemed to coincide. Unfortunately, despite all the hard work, out of the fifteen or so applications I sent I only received one invitation to interview (and as you can see from this blog entry, I didn’t get through to that agency’s assessment day that year). What had I done wrong? I had worked so hard and spent so much time on every single application. Couldn’t they see my extreme passion for the industry and eagerness to learn? I knew that my lack of experience was my main hindrance and that I needed to go out and get some, but I also knew that if I didn’t focus on the one important matter of gaining a good degree, my chances of working within the industry could be taken away from me completely. So for the last few months of my degree, I knuckled down and the hard work of a 4-year course finally paid off! But as graduation approached, reality dawned on me. Whenever bumping into relatives and family friends the same old questions and exclamations kept resurfacing, “What will you do now you’ve finished?”, “What, you haven’t got a job!?”, “There are lots of sales and recruitment roles out there, why don’t you pursue those options instead?”, “How about teaching? Lots of language students go into teaching…”.  The questions were never-ending, and whilst annoying, I knew that they all had my best interest at heart. But I didn’t want to go into sales, or recruitment, or teaching despite the constant competition and rejection I knew I was putting myself up for. There were simply industries that I wasn’t passionate about.  As the questions kept flooding in I started to do some research and finally found my solution: I was going to do an internship… in Shanghai.

Yes, that’s right Shanghai, China. I took the extreme option of moving halfway across the world for several months in order for me to get some of that integral work experience under my belt. And what an experience it was! It was undoubtedly worth every single penny that I had scrimped and saved up for during the summer at my part-time job. But why China of all places? Well three reasons really. Firstly, I’ve always had a soft spot for China, having grown up in Hong Kong until the age of 11, and I knew that I always wanted to go back. Secondly, being a language geek, I knew sometime after uni I wanted to start learning Mandarin, so what better excuse than to go and learn the language whilst being immersed by it! And finally, and maybe most importantly, the fact that China is an emerging market, that has not only become the second largest global ad market but that it is expected to surpass the UK and become the biggest consumer market in the next 10-15 years. As a result of this huge expansion, I know that employers, no matter what industry you want to go into, will start to look for potential employees who have had experience and understand the subtle differences between China and the West. It was easy for me. I didn’t need much persuading as I have never been one to be afraid of a challenge, particularly one that involved travelling and living abroad, having already spent a year living in France in my 3^rd year.

So last October, after 4 months of saving, I said goodbye to my family and friends, got on a plane and joined 30 other interns from around the world to take part in a two-month internship organised by CRCC Asia Ltd. I was working as a marketing and events intern for a small independent local advertising agency whose main channel is a website dedicated to helping expats moving to and living in Shanghai (I wont go into great detail about my internship but if you want to know more about what I did there feel free to visit my blog www.gradandlooking.blogspot.com). Whilst it wasn’t specifically an advertising internship that I had initially asked for when applying for the programme, I threw myself into it and as I was working for an SME, I learnt an extensive amount about event marketing, event management and social media marketing, and was given a huge amount of responsibility from negotiating with sponsors to devising and planning the agency’s biggest event of the year! I also learnt about Chinese business culture, including the importance of networking and guan’xi, and keeping ones face (mian’xi) and more importantly I learnt so much about myself as a person. Despite the never-ending cultural shocks that I faced in a city that is in a continuous state of change and growth, I never felt lost.  Even though frustration became a frequent sentiment in my day-to-day life as a graduate on my very own journey to the East, I learnt and improved upon many skills that were unbeknown to me! Whether it was my acting abilities during my first weekend when trying to look for coat hangers and struggling to find the word in my phrasebook (I am proud to say that I am pretty good at charades now!), or my ability in hiding my true feelings towards some unknown Chinese delicacy that I had to eat out of politeness (there were many dishes whose ingredients were unrecognisable, and perhaps to my relief will continue to remain unknown), or successfully holding my own on the metro and reaching my desired metro stop without being shoved and pushed off the stop before, Shanghai showed me that I can adapt to any unfamiliar situation.

Now I’m back in the UK, my life in Shanghai seems like a blur and I miss China terribly – I know it’s a place I would love to return to in the future to live and work. So what am I doing now? Well unfortunately I missed out on the majority of advertising grad schemes whilst away, but I have managed to apply for the few schemes whose deadlines were after Christmas and consequently been invited to interviews and an assessment day. I am also applying to entry-level advertising account executive job vacancies that I have seen, but surprisingly I have seen that even with me having several months of experience, for most vacancies this isn’t enough – they want at least a year’s worth! We just can’t win. For that reason I feel that grad schemes are so important to aspiring ad execs like myself, and that more companies should have them, or at least have a few trainee vacancies as many of us cannot afford to work for free for a year, especially with our student debt looming above us! Without a doubt my two-months of overseas experience have been integral to the success of my grad scheme applications this year, and I now have so much more to talk about during those important competency based questions that we are all so familiar with! However despite the fact that there is a high possibility that I may have to undertake some more work experience whilst working part time, I do not regret any part of my expensive decision to go abroad. I am not saying that you all have to go to the same extreme lengths that I have (after all going all the way to China might not appeal to everyone’s tastes and pockets), but that the key to getting noticed in the marcoms industry is to definitely get as much work experience as you can whether it’s an independent local agency or one in the big cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham etc. It really annoys me when I see headlines and reports stating how lazy our generation are. If they call people who are working for free for months on end just to get a foot on the career ladder in order to start paying off our scarily high debts lazy, I don’t know what more they expect from us. We all just have to keep at it and maintain our sense of humour. Be determined, be pro-active, be patient, and hopefully someone somewhere will see how much we want that ever-important first job. Good luck to you all J!

Marie xox

(If you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to contact me by following me on Twitter @mklw20 or connecting with me on LinkedIn).

Guest blog post for TARGETjobs

Yesterday, TARGETjobs Bloggers published a post I had written for them that documents my journey into marketing.

I talk about how the graduate job hunt can be frustrating and demoralising, but that we should see how, through dedication and self-motivation, the challenge of pursuing a job in your chosen sector can make you a much better candidate in interviews as well as when you actually start your job.

So don't shy away from a competitive sector if you are really interested in it - relish in the trials and tribulations of your job hunt and see it as a means of bettering yourself, because you can bet that all your hard work will make you far better in your job once you manage to obtain it.

Please go to TARGETjobs Bloggers to read my post. I hope you enjoy it!

Guest blog post by marketing graduate, Cassie

 This week's post has been written by Cassie, an American who studied Marketing Communication. She has been determined in her job hunt following graduation and has managed to bag herself a great job in the SEO sector. However, Cassie shows us in her post that even if you have a relevant degree, getting a job is not all plain sailing. She has some great insights into the marketing field and the job market, as well as some crucial tips for succeeding in your graduate job hunt. I hope you enjoy her thoughtful and engaging post.

How to Start Your Career in Marketing - 6 Tips

I remember being eager to graduate from college and pursue my career. Six months before I was set to graduate, I started perfecting my resume, portfolio, and interviewing skills. After graduation, I attended countless interviews and career fairs. I particularly remember attending a two day, intensive business career fair at Purdue West Lafayette. After going through the rounds, I hadn’t gained any solid job prospects—or at least any good ones. As I drove home, Katy Perry’s song, “Firework” came on the radio. As I belted out the lyrics, tears began flowing down my cheeks. I had gone through so much stress preparing for this career fair and for all of the interviews, I finally broke down because I felt as though I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, or worthy enough for my dream job. There didn’t seem to be many options out there and I started questioning my collegiate decisions. Katy’s song spoke to me, “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, ready to start again? Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?” I most certainly felt this way throughout my entire job hunt, which lasted about eleven months. However, there is hope. With much persistence and patience, you WILL succeed! “Cause baby you’re a firework. Come on show ‘em what you’re worth.”

A huge shift is occurring in how we apply for jobs. When my parents started in the work force, they looked for jobs in the local newspaper and mailed in a resume and cover letter. Now, there is an overabundance of online job application sites such as:  Career Builder, Monster, Indeed, and Simply Hired, just to name a few.  With this current recession and high competition for jobs, you must be very creative and relentless in your job hunt. That being said, here are my 6 tips in starting your career in marketing:

1. Take the right classes and internships

After I had received my bachelor’s degree in marketing communication, I realized many people working in marketing had master’s degrees—mostly because marketing is very broad and it’s easier to get a job if you are more specialized. I majored in marketing because I enjoyed business, writing, and I was creative. However, many employers are looking for more pin-pointed, technical degrees. In hindsight, I would’ve gotten a bachelor of science degree instead of a bachelor of arts degree because you can still attain a mathematical background and also take essential marketing electives. Then, I would’ve minored in marketing or advertising.

Think of what you want to do in marketing. Do you want to plan events and help companies get media coverage? Then maybe you want to specialize in public relations. Do you want to create graphics and logos? Then go into graphic design. If you want to complete budgets for marketing campaigns, having a finance or accounting background is very helpful. Tailor your internships to you degree and your interests. It’s always better to take a three month internship and learn you do or don’t enjoy doing something before you actually start your career. Internships definitely leverage you in your career hunt. If it wasn’t for my experience with SEO in my internship, I may not have my current job.

2. Network

Build your network! I can’t stress this enough. While in school, make many friends and keep their contact information. Join groups and organizations that tailor to your interests and career goals. This also will help you keep up with recent trends in marketing and advertising. Make an account on LinkedIn and start building your network before you graduate college. Perfect your LinkedIn page. If you are creative, build an online portfolio—sites like Coroflot.com let you do it for free. Make business cards with your contact information, LinkedIn, Twitter handle, portfolio, and/or website link to hand out to friends, professors, or anyone who may be interested in hiring you. Locate marketing companies, even if they aren’t hiring, see if you can meet up with an account manager or marketing representative for coffee and pick their brain on how they got into the business and maybe get some tips from them. Who knows? Maybe they will like you so much, they will eventually hire you or recommend you to someone they know. Companies like to hire people they know. So, help them get to know you. 

3. Perfect your resume and interviewing skills

I know this one seems like a no-brainer. I thought I had a perfect, colorful, and creative resume. When I had interviewed for my internship and previous jobs, everyone gloated how wonderful of an interviewee I was. I thought I didn’t need to practice anymore. Wrong! Have as many people go over your resume as possible. I suggest keeping your resume as concise as possible—keep it to one page. HR reps only glance at your resume since they review thousands a day, and most of the time they don’t even look at the second page. Also, stick to the basic fonts and little formatting. With larger companies, they put all submitted resumes through a computer filter. This filter doesn’t see your cool design on your resume, it only picks up formatting and vocabulary. Many colleges will help you with your resume and interview skills. I suggest making an appointment with them about three to six months before you graduate.

4. Research companies

In addition to extensively researching companies you interview with, research companies that you may like to work for. Follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and on LinkedIn. Sometimes companies post jobs on LinkedIn that they do not post on their website. If you are feeling really bold, contact the HR rep on LinkedIn. This is the person that actually posts the jobs on behalf of the company. This is precisely how I networked to get my current position. I did a lot of research online regarding SEO companies in Indiana. I found Slingshot SEO and began following their blog. I started following them on LinkedIn and contacted the HR rep after I had applied to a few jobs within their company and didn’t receive any feedback. From me reaching out to her in a respectful and enthusiastic manner, I was able to land an interview, which eventually led to me getting my dream job at a wonderful company!

5. Perfect your job hunt

There is an incredible number of career sites. You will have to decide for yourself which ones work best for you. For me, I used Indeed.com and Simplyhired.com. I stopped going to these sites every day, only to complete a lengthy, mundane search for jobs. Instead, I set email alerts. Then, Indeed or Simply Hired will send you a daily email digest of the job title you are looking for within your location parameters. Which, is much easier than searching manually every day. After you create your LinkedIn account, follow companies and search for jobs. You can also have a daily email digest from LinkedIn sent straight to your inbox every day. If your college has a career network, use that as well. You can also find career fairs at your school. Mark these career fairs on your calendar in advance and research the companies that are attending the fair.

6. Relax and have fun

Looking for a job and going through countless, dead-end interviews can really hurt your self-esteem and self-worth. Make sure you do fun activities to relieve your stress and distract your mind. You are obviously in marketing because you are a creative person—hone into that. Draw, paint, play an instrument—do anything that will get your mind off of trying to find a job. As long as you keep trying, your dream job will come. It is only a matter of time. You don’t want to keep getting down on yourself because you won’t be as enthusiastic and passionate in your interviews! And, an added project or hobby can always be something interesting to talk about during an interview. Don’t get discouraged; practice makes perfect. 

“À cœur vaillant rien d'impossible.”—Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.

Author Bio: Cassie is a Lead Generation Specialist at Slingshot SEO, located in Indianapolis, Indiana. She blogs about traveling at cassaleenietravels.blogspot.com. Apart from traveling and keeping up with SEO trends, she enjoys art, photography, and music. Follow her on Twitter @cassaleenie.

- Cassie