wurk»advertising {Your career. Your say.}

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” C.S Lewis

To have a placement within advertising is pretty much the best way to get in when going about graduate recruitment. Many universities now have an industrial placement year (3rd year) as part of a 4 year course and this is for a very good reason. In 1999 The Minister of Education released a report which denounced university graduates as inexperienced and reported how companies were disappointed that graduates leaving university had little or no vocational skills. As a result, forward thinking universities started to include placement years which are far more valuable than a week here or a month there of work experience gained from holiday periods.

This poses the question how do you get a placement year within advertising considering that they don’t really offer them unlike their client counterparts such as IBM, P&G, BMW, Heinz etc?

The first place to start is to learn how an advertising agency works. It is of little use approaching an agency without understanding the infrastructure of advertising. There are departments you’ll need to get to grips with such as Account Management, Account Planning, Creative, Traffic and Production to name only the major few. The best source of information for this is ‘How To Get into Advertising’ by Andrea Neidle which is easily available from www.amazon.co.uk.

So now you know how it works. If you are thinking about a career in advertising early enough you should be in your first year of your degree. Use your first summer break to get a week here or a week there in an ad agency. Saatchi & Saatchi are very good at providing week unpaid placements so this is where you should start. The most important part of taking a week placement early on is that you have something on your CV to show agencies that you are proactive and have started at an early stage. It’s important that when working there that you are as supportive as possible. Even if you are left to your own devices think of things you could do or research to help your assigned account manager. Off the back of being proactive you can ask for a paper reference at the end of your week. This is extremely important as this can be photocopied and sent away with your CV when hunting for a placement year.

Now you need a resource of agencies to hound for a placement. The IPA has a database of all its member agencies and is a great starting point www.ipa.co.uk

It is now up to you to invest some time and money in sending off your CV and a tailor made letter along with any agency references you have to these agencies. Read Campaign magazine on a regular basis. Look out for those agencies that have just won a large piece of business and then act upon it to offer yourself as support staff to help with the extra work they have taken on.

You should also be prepared to work for minimum wage. When I was on my placement year I started on £4.20 an hour. You may very well think that it is impossible to survive in London on that kind of money. You’re right, it is. So prepare. Work your arse off at a part time job and save whatever you can. I sold my soul to a BT call centre in order to save up the extra cash to carry me through my placement year so I would advise you do the same or you’ll find life down here quite hard.

Don’t expect replies. I had about 9 replies from the 130 letters I sent out - all were rejections. Agencies don’t want to know about offering a year long placement as they don’t understand it. Try and enclose any official university documentation explaining you course’s year long placement scheme as this gives it some academic weight. Before you know it you’re not just sending out a CV and a covering letter but a mail pack selling yourself as a serious student who wants to gain experience.

Don’t be afraid to call. There are over 500 ad agencies in London from very small to very big. If you call what do you have to lose? You’re not bothering them as such, you are enquiring so make the calls as this is often more effective than sending a letter and expecting the busy agency to act upon it.

Don’t be afraid to go abroad. Why not call a large New York agency and ask for their HR department and speak to them? You may very well get a lucky break in an amazing market and what would look better than having a year in a New York office? The worst they can say is No, so have a try…if you are lucky enough to afford such a year.

Research the agency you are sending information to. There is no point going to an interview with a digital agency if all you can talk about is a dancing robot. Teach yourself the difference between ATL and BTL advertising. Become familiar with trends to merge the two and the new ways of creating integrated campaigns. You can learn this from Marketing Weekly, Campaign and articles found at WARC www.warc.com

Be persistent. Just because you don’t hear anything but rejections if anything at all is a good reason to get unmotivated. The way to win is by not giving up. Stay positive and keep on trying, you’ll learn different ways and tactics to get heard and the louder and cleverer the better.

Euro RSCG offer a placement year scheme and are the first to do so. I literally bounced from agency to agency and was lucky enough to get in where I did. Before you can sell for an agency you need to be able to sell yourself. So make yourself different from all the other students applying. Become innovative in your approach and don’t be afraid to break rules. I was able to have quite a lengthly period at Saatchi & Saatchi based on the fact that I hacked M&C Saatchi’s website with the Saatchi & Saatchi logo. This did cause trouble but also noise and it made me stand out. There is no reason why you can’t do the same.