When I got back from New York I didn’t know anything about advertising in London.
But I needed a job, so some mates helped me get a job in a merchant bank in the city.
I figured I didn’t want to go dragging myself all over London for interviews at different agencies.
Most of them wouldn’t have jobs anyway.
And I didn’t want any advice.
I’d just come back from New York, which in those days was light year’s ahead of London.
All I wanted to know was do you have a job?
So I figured I would make up lots of little portfolios and send them out.
I used the bank’s photocopier to make 50 copies of my portfolio.
Then I used the bank’s postal system to send them out.
I just looked in The Yellow Pages under ‘advertising’.
In a week I had my answer.
18 replies, with 2 job offers.
That sounds good until you think about it.
That’s 30 people that didn’t even bother replying.
So that’s 48 rejections in all.
If I’d gone the conventional route of taking my book around to agencies, how long would that have taken?
Well, if you could manage an interview every other day, which would be quite a lot, it would take you over 4 months.
4 months of trudging around, paying tube fares, being told no.
How depressing is that?
This way I had the answers in a week.
I didn’t need to see the ones that didn’t have jobs.
And I could choose between the two jobs available.
The agencies were quite different.
They were both good, but one was press agency (BBDO, Creative Director Peter Mayle).
The other was a TV agency (BMP, Creative Director John Webster).
It was a tough decision, which one to take.
I figured, I’m a junior so all I can really do is press.
So I should go to the press agency, right?
Well think about it.
If I go to the press agency, all the seniors will be fighting for press.
So I won’t get much.
But if I go to the TV agency, all the seniors will be fighting for TV.
There won’t be any competition for press.
So I should get all the press the seniors don’t want to do.
So I picked the TV agency, BMP.
And that’s how it turned out.
I got as much press as I could do.
But if I had gone the conventional interview route, I wouldn’t have been able to choose.
Instead of getting all my answers in at once, I would have had them one at a time.
In which case I would have taken whichever job came up first.
Which is a weaker position be in.
We’re in advertising.
We wouldn’t give advice like that to a client.
We should take the advice we give other people.
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I really wish that young people would get in touch with these stories from Dave at a much much earlier stage. If I would have read all these posts and comments before graduating from art school, I think I would’ve taken a different route to getting a job, being creative and just generally being more aware about what good advertising is and what isn’t. Which gets us back to the “make a book out of it Dave!” topic. That book should be mandatory for everyone to read when starting out art school or any other study in the creative field.
Hi Dave,
Would you recommend your spread mailing technique given the current state of the global economy?
As a post grad I’m trying to get my foot through the door in account management. With relentless networking I managed to secure one interview for an internship which started off by the interviewer announcing that, like virtually every other agency at the moment, there was a total freeze on all recruitment throughout the company.
Generally people in the advertising business that I have contacted have been really encouraging and offered advice and further contacts, but they are not hiring and they’re not aware of anyone who is.
I’m very prepared to send out multiple cover letters/CVs, but would rather avoid the inevitability of agency HR departments’ bulging WPBs.
Dave if we sent our book to you on a cd, would you get back to us with a yes or a yes?
Lewis
Phil, and Lewis & Fitch.
It wasn’t meant to be technique for getting people to want to hire you.
It was a just a way to get rid of all the clutter of people who weren’t going to hire you anyway.
A fast way to clear the ground to see if there were any jobs there.
And get all the time wasters out of the way.
If I was in your shoes that’s what I’d still want to do.
And nowadays you have mail, so it’s much quicker and cheaper.
Sorry, that last line should have read ‘email’ not ‘mail’.
Seems like common sense, but many of us just wouldn’t think of that. I’d argue that from the stories that you post you are a lucky person, but then i think fortune favours people who have the right attitude, work hard and use the things at the disposal to there advantage. Would you say you’re a lucky person? Personally, it just seems you have twice the common sense of anyone else.
Hi Liam.
I think the luckiest thing that happened to me was going to college in New York.
You learn not to trust so-called experts, to question everything and trust your own common sense.
Before that, when I grew up in London, I was just as obedient and subservient as everyone else.
That’s why I’ve always told everyone that’s worked for me, try to work in New York before you’re 30.
It’s great to spend your formative years in a ‘can do’ atmosphere, rather than a ‘can’t do’ one.
Dave, what happens after 30?
I got myself my first work experience when i was 22 in New York, the company i worked for were going down at that time so they couldnt hire me full time and with no green card i went back to London after my 3 months there. I loved every minute of New York and the company i worked for.
Havent been back since (except for my honeymoon 2 years ago) and to be honest I would love to go back and work there.
Do you still recommend New York now? for a 34 year old?
Im in Berlin at the moment and frankly the advertising here is just not inspiring.
Toufic.
It’s different when you get past 30 because you’ve got partner/mortgages/children/career to consider.
By then it depends on other criteria.
The good news is the whole world speaks English.
So you’ve got Sydney (family), New York (culture), San Francisco (lifestyle), Singapore (food & sun).
You have to decide what your priority is.
Don’t forget Manchester (football, music and beer).
Dave,
Fantastic post. I really appreciate your posts and honest view at this industry. I would love to repost this on my blog (www.addirection.blogspot.com) and hopefully help us soon to be graduates graduate students here at the Brandcenter. Would that be alright? And thank you so much for a great blog.
Wow, I didn’t know that CDs will actually spend time to look at books via mail. I thought they are too busy for it. I am surprised that two big agencies offered you a job Dave, cuz back in the days BMP was the agency everyone wants to get in. You said you were new in London’s agencies, so did you mail it to John Webster or just mail it to BMP?
Jesse.
If there’s anything on here that is useful to students, please feel free to take it.
G.
I don’t think CDs will always look at books via mail; or email
But if they’re looking for teams they will, so it’s self-selecting.
Just like advertising, you can only sell something to people that are in the market for it, right?
There’s always a lot of wastage in media.
Just look at all the papers left on the tube every evening.
I just mailed the first 50 names I could find.
And then I would have mailed the next 50, then the next 50, and so on, just don’t stop.
Eventually my mail will get to someone who’s got a job for me, right?
Hallo Dave, have to be careful how I phrase the ‘merchant banking’ bit. How was it being in financial services? Did it teach you what to do/not to do? I like what you did, the 50 books idea.
You think it still works?
For years, I used to read bios of people who came to Singapore from China or India. These guys worked 20 hour days and became rich. They were in banking, rubber plantations, import/export, cinemas.
What I mean is, these days, many people (and not just in advertising) work long hours too. But fewer and fewer build up business empires. So, has the ‘model’ changed? Thanks?
[...] There is only so much time that you can put into a job search. And time or timing is a key factor to finding the right fit for each of us. With this in mind I recommend checking out Dave Trott’s method for garnering job leads. [...]
Ian.
What I learned about banking is that the worst day in advertising is better than the best day in that.
As regards hard working stories, my wife is from S’pore and her father was from mainland China.
Like your story, he couldn’t read or write and lived for work, 18 hours a day 7 days a week.
He loved it, and that’s the secret.
If you love it, it’s not work, it’s fun.
If it’s fun, you can’t wait to do it.
So you’ll be great at it.
It’s a no-lose situation.
Don’t go for something to make money, go for something you love.
Then you must be successful every possible way.
Thanks Dave.
There’s a saying, “Do something you like and you’ll never have to work for another day in your life.” Words like that, much better expressed.
I like advertising a lot. It’s the only thing I can do half decent.
Trouble is, the whole structure’s changing.
Bleedin’ time sheets that make no sense.
And retrenchment.
I’m not in it for the money but I also don’t want to get exploited by people who run agencies just to make money.
Seems the more you care about something, the more frustratin’ it gets (at least for me).
My friends once asked me why I moved agencies.
He was dead proud he was in the same agency for 10 years.
Never mind he had nothing much to show for it.
I told him it was like cars.
Some people stick with just one car.
But those who love cars keep experimenting.
Went to the Trott/Scamp blog. Brilliant.
Cut and paste your words especially about real planners attacking problems, not tweaking ads.
Thanks.
Dave,
you did a nice story about a guy who was told, ‘we like your work but we’re looking for someone senior for this job’, so he went out and came back dressed as an elderly guy.
question is, at interviews, do agencies often try to see how you don’t fit the job, rather than how you might be able to?
If you have good ideas in press, they say we need someone with TV exposure and vice versa, or if you have good new media ideas, they say we need someone with traditional media experience…
‘if u can think, u can think in any media’ , why isn’t that how they should judge people?
i hope i am clear.
And lo and behold Planners!
I wonder what the Perspective Vs Process of ‘getting into ad-land’ is in reality if we take it from the Creative tip with Proposition handling & Trend Management in place of Books
It seemed to me upon two successful work placements from very inspiring (still!) ad Jedi’s, that all the great minds though streaming not to be alike, were/ are/ will be employed from much of a mushiness when it comes to Planning Directors (…and their safe future entourage of Qualitative serving or Account Exec/Manager Graduates-to-Planners.)
Maybe instead of criticising the creative result - and our in/ability to communicate/ sell to the every and anyday Joe or Mary - we should bollock the planner’s limited vision and cultural realms through lack of people exposure. By this I mean where the planner is from to where they are at, both inside the agency & research process, and outside through the memes of recruitment.
After all do you really gain insight from a clone army of Ox Grads in ill fitting ‘It’ wear, hanging around Skateboard Parks & Cyber Goth BatChat Rooms?
In doing so we might gain some future facing knowledge, AND dare I say it People - and with it natural living idea’s of value/(s). Not just an agreed client safety trap that can carry client - and - planner from proposition to focus group evaluation.
With real evolutionary ‘peoples’ - be they Gen Y or Nora Batty - and their ability given room to act, not just borrowed from in a 3rd hand P.Point Slide, knowledge that capture’s whatever the trust needed can come alive in the right time, people, and context.
Not 3 months later in an ad that element that say’s what reality was thinking then…only now?
So I Ask (Me Lord!): Or are there any planners that -
Did not attend an old boy Uni?
Did not take a bogus 17k Account Exec Grad Scheme?
Did not swallow his/ her pride and disappear into the bogus world of qual research?
Did not find themselves accidentally in the role of after their Web agency was purchased?
?And had the passion and living talent (supported by IQ/ insight) to ‘walk into a planners mentored wing’ within the realms of post-uni/ life knowledge (as SO many of these US / Miami agencies claim and Campaign seems to run around September every year since Dave published that article)
Or at the advice of a planner ? no names ? taken the Dave deep & mass targeted method to the face, not a distant whining blog or mash up of daily second hand ?ideas?, and scored a realistic job.
By this I mean realistic in financial and knowledge rewards in return for your realistically valid mindset.