How to get a job in a creative agency.

​​This is how many unread ‘invitations to connect’ on LinkedIn I generally have at any given moment. I promise it’s not a humble brag, I honestly find it overwhelming and impossible to appropriately respond to. 

On top of that, every week I get e-mailed and DM’d dozens of requests for a ‘quick coffee’. A lot of them are from young/aspiring creatives. I struggle to respond to these as well, sometimes I feel guilty about all of it, but there’s only one of me and I have an agency to run and a family to support.

I’d love to be able to take them up, but if I did, no work would ever get done and I’d probably go into cardiac arrest by day three. That being said, I still like to try to help as many young creatives as time allows - so I figured I’d write a ‘quick coffee’ on how to get a job in an agency instead and send it out for everyone to drink. (Not sure this analogy is working tbh, but I’ve run it with it anyway.)

Firstly, it’s an incredibly difficult time to be breaking into the industry as a junior. 

Dwindling budgets and timelines mean there is absolutely no room for passengers in an agency anymore. There are some pros to that, as it tends to weed out mediocrity, but the biggest shortfall is the lack of room for new talent to get a chance to experiment, fail, grow, and learn the ropes. No one is going to just ‘give you a chance’ on a whim, you’re going to have to make your talent, personality and drive so obvious and undeniable that someone has no choice but to hire you.

But that’s the thing, it’s always been that way. It’s always been incredibly difficult to break into the industry. As harsh as it sounds, it’s kinda meant to be that way. This isn’t an easy job. 

There’s obvious starting points like doing a university degree, but for creatives, that isn’t really necessary. I’m not saying don’t do it, or if you have done it that it’s not of value, I’m just saying it isn’t necessary. I have no ‘advertising degree’, and personally I don’t care what school or university you went to. Folio schools are a better place to start, in Australia the infamous AWARD School is still the main gateway into the industry. It’s a 12-week course that puts you through your paces more than the 4-year degrees seem to. Obviously, I’m generalising here, and there are exceptions to the rule, but after a lifetime of looking at uni student books and AWARD school books, AWARD students are more battle ready.

Many juniors think doing a degree/AWARD is the end. It’s not. It’s the beginning. In fact, it’s not even that. It’s the pre-prod meeting about the beginning. Unless you’re the next Droga and somehow crush folio school and immediately land a job, you’re now a junior creative with a bunch of scamps and loose spec ideas competing with hundreds of other juniors walking around with the same shit, as well as experienced midweight and senior freelancers all looking for work. And you’re e-mailing CDs whose inbox and LinkedIn DMs look as chaotic as mine. You have to stand the fuck out. Big time.

So this is my big piece of advice: STAND THE FUCK OUT. BIG TIME.

Or, perhaps put more eloquently,

DO SOMETHING THAT GENERATES ATTENTION AND MAKE SURE THE RIGHT PEOPLE SEE IT.

We recently made time for a ‘quick coffee’ to meet a couple of young creatives who I’ll give a shout out to. Flynn Ord & Ricky Verderosa. After months of e-mailing and DM’ing us, we then got a package in the agency of some custom SICKDOGWOLFMAN merch they made for us, with a note and a link to their work. This kinda stuff is a much better way to get attention. It shows that you’re creative, proactive, hungry, and industrious.

So, here’s how I got a job in advertising.

Like most creatives in Australia, I got into AWARD School and completed the course.

My tutors, Chris Ellis, Aaron Lipson, and Jarrod Lowe, were incredibly supportive. Maybe too supportive. They pumped me up into 'possibly cracking the top three, easy'.

I didn't crack the top three. Nor the top ten. I didn't even get anything on ‘the wall’. (Creativity is subjective, lesson one.)

Luckily, on 'wall night', Jarrod talked me down from Humpty Dumptying off the wall by telling me something like 'Fuck it, fuck them, you've got what it takes. Just do something that gets people's attention' and used an example of a side project he'd done that helped him get a job.

Many months later, after a few failed interviews and a bust up with a creative partner, things were looking bleak. Then I bought a new BBQ and my wife asked me to sell the old one. The advice still ringing in my ears, I thought, maybe this is a chance to write something I could put in my folio. So I wrote an ad for my 'enchanted BBQ' on Gumtree.

It blew up the internet. It was on TV. Radio. It broke the Gumtree site (I don’t think an ad for a BBQ on Gumtree is meant to get a million visits).

It destroyed my phone. I had over 600 texts and msgs on Gumtree. I got multiple marriage proposals. A guy called me at 2am asking if 'I had any acid'.

People made fan art. For some reason. (That’s the BBQ atop a mountain with a dragon or something…)

Gumtree even made a mini doco about it.

Perhaps most importantly, I PR'd it in the industry press, and it eventually led to multiple job offers and my ticket into the world of advertising. This simple classified ad for an old shitty BBQ held infinitely more weight than any degree or folio school result ever did. Again, that’s not to say you shouldn’t do courses and degrees, I’m just highlighting the power of ‘show, don’t tell’ when it comes to creativity.

So, juniors, take note. You don’t need permission or ‘the chance’ to be creative. Creativity isn’t something you do, it’s something you are.

Don't worry too much about your student folio/AWARD School book/RMIT projects. Don't get hung up on not winning competitions or uni grades or not getting on the wall. Don’t overly obsess about making spec ad after spec ad after spec ad.

Do something that generates attention, and then make sure the right people see it.

There’s further advice on this topic in a previous article I wrote: “Trust me, I’m creative” isn’t going to cut it.

And here’s some more advice on how to build your website/folio.

So, if you’ve been messaging me for a ‘quick coffee’ and I haven’t responded, I’m sorry. But hopefully some of this can help point you in the right direction.