Things Not to Do in a Job Interview

So far, I’ve noticed a lot of great commentary on this blog about what the industry is looking for in potential planners/employees. Since those topics have been well covered, I’m going to try something a bit different for my first post here.

Something I’ve been mulling over lately is how there is no such thing as common information. It’s been said that because of Google/the interwebz, people know more about individual subjects that interest them than what used to be considered “general knowledge”. That being said, I’m going to use it as an excuse for some crazy stories I’ve heard. I’m a recent addition to the advertising community, but here are some things I’m (almost) positive you’re not supposed to do in an interview.

1. Bring someone.

A senior planner once told me that one of the girls he interviewed insisted on bringing her boyfriend into the interview to negotiate her salary and answer tough questions for her. Yeah, I know.

2. Show excessive amounts of cleavage/skin.

As my heroine Kelly Cutrone says in her book “If You Have to Cry, Go Outside” (which I highly recommend), cleavage is not for the office. I want to edit it for the dudes out there as well: no excessive skin either. Think of it this way: Do you notice when someone is showing a lot of skin when you’re passing them on the street? If so, your potential new boss will notice the same thing if you’re sitting in right in front of them. A friend of mine was recently flashed in an interview. She did not work at Hooters.

3. Fall for the trick question.

Your employer may ask if you really want to be doing the job that is entry-level/not paid well/practically janitorial. Or what you think of the company’s current work. Or what your favorite ad or current trend is. All of these questions are actually asking, “How much do you want this?” If you say, “Welllll…. It’s not EXACTLY what I WANT to do…” or have no idea what who their clients are/what they do, your potential boss is going to assume you’re not passionate enough for the job. Know your basic stuff! All it takes is a quick trip to Google. Research takes about 5 seconds and is incredibly worthwhile.

4. Misunderstand your place.

If you’re a recent graduate like me, you’re probably not THAT experienced. However many internships you’ve had in the last couple of years does not make you brilliant. But that's okay because it does make you look eager to learn a new job and what it entails. And that’s what employers want – an employee who has an can take on new projects with ease because of their enthusiasm to learn. As a previous poster mentioned – you are a brand. Be confident, but not over-confident. And if anything, understand your place in the workforce because I’m tired of reading posts/New York Times articles about my generation thinking they’re going to be CEOs at age 24 and then getting told (rightfully) that that probably isn’t going to happen. You rock, Millenials! But you’re (and I am) still young. Know that and use it to your advantage.

In conclusion: getting the interview means you are halfway there. So if you prepare for it, you can relax when you get in the room. Just make sure your boyfriend isn’t next to you.

~ alicia

MYT 36 - Economy of Meaning

Our topic 2 weeks ago started out as “happiness,” and as we do each week, interns found a number of articles relative to campaigns talking about the emotional appeal of happiness in 2009. What turned up was an article that mentioned the evolution from the experience economy to an economy of meaning – a very interesting idea! So we’re writing about it this week in MYT 36.

It’s interesting to note that the two examples we mention this week are from the auto industry. Looking to revive the category, brands such as Ford, Mini, and Toyota (see the Prius’ page on Facebook for their “Random Acts) are focusing in the positive, the good, and the optimistic.

Also, for further support, is a research paper from the 4A’s published earlier this month on the subject of emotional vs. rational in advertising

As always, have a creative week!

MYT 35 - Real-Time Search

Every week, a small group of us here put together a Trend Lab newsletter covering a topic we think is important to make the work more culturally relevant. This week's topic was real-time search.

Clients want immediate results. We try to pacify their desire for instant gratification by talking to them about the time and attention a strong brand deserves. But it seems that more and more these days, immediacy is more relevant than in-depth information. Only time will tell what wins; maybe it’s an effective combination of the two.

This week’s MYT talks about Real-Time Search – The trend of immediacy has inspired new search tools to help feed the frenzy – we want what we want, and we want it now! The Trend Lab forecasts that it will be no different with advertising in the future. In Show & Tell last Thursday, interns brought us articles that talked about a new retail ad service that would sync with inventory – if a particular product was out, it would yank the associated ads online – talk about real-time advertising.

A pretty interesting trend to watch out for.

Examples we mentioned included Collecta and Topsy.

the making of a trend lab

This blog post is purely for self-reflection and to help me think through an idea. But in the process, I'm going to share with you a project I've been working on for almost 2 years.

I think it was during my first week at the agency that they handed over a project to me (more like delegated) - we want you to build a trend lab. Back then, "trend lab" was an idea completely and entirely encapsulated in two words: trend (sounds cool) lab (sounds purposeful). I got a teeny tiny room on the quiet, hardly-frequented 10th floor. I did my best to make it cool - added visual stimulation in the form of creative ad work, magazine articles, and as many different colored stick pins that I could find. No one came into "the lab," so I started inviting people down, to talk, to share, to collaborate with. At one point in time, we were capturing the Consumer Confidence Index rating, the latest in creativity, the latest in marketing/communications, general articles about innovative cultural events or transformations, and consumer insights relative to particular audiences (Boomers, Gen Xers, etc.). People still weren't coming down in crowds. The people that did come down said it was cool once they were there, but still not purposeful yet, not an agency utility. Trend Lab 1.0 lasted over a year (that's about how long it takes when you've got one person working on the idea amid actual account/client work. I also needed that time to understand how the agency worked; of course I had my ideas of what I would want a Trend Lab to be, but I needed to take into account my audience and the category - other agency resources. What would make the Trend Lab different?

In its second year (and mine), it is alive and well in the form of a Trend Lab newsletter titled the MYT (see posts below for examples). The MYT stands for Making You Think, because we really saw the point of a trend lab to be thinking outside the box, being on the cusp of edgy and cool, making the work smarter and more relevant. I knew this from the beginning but still making a room out of it has been an uphill battle. Somehow I need to change the agency's behavior to incorporate a stop at the Trend Lab, it's needs to be a culture thing. If we want to produce advertising that engages, we better have a culture that engages internally.

And so, with Trend Lab (now a proper noun within the agency) 2.0 (thanks to the newsletter, it actually exists!) we have a room to differentiate from all other rooms in the agency. We're no longer on 10 but on 13, more at the core of the agency. Now our Trend Lab seeks to engage and offers a place for something agency people can't get elsewhere. Making You Think is not just the point of the newsletter, the point of the Trend Lab has been simplified to the art of thinking. It has become a sort of "prop warehouse" for planners to tell a story, for creatives to get inspiration, for anyone interested in collaboration to join in and be exposed to how other people think through conversation.

The brand promise of the Trend Lab is close to the campaign that restored Apple's reputation but not exactly. Think Different was a call to the creative class that said you are different, embrace your intricacies. The Trend Lab exists to make you think. As a resource within an agency that has many resources - most for information gathering, but none to stimulate or engage people, the purpose of the Trend Lab (its utility) is facilitating creative conversations. There's a certain call to action with a conversation; good ones require you to engage, to interact, to provide a POV, and to listen. Trend Lab 2.0 takes a lot of cues from social media, where the people matter and the conversation is what drives the interactions.

Ok. I've got it. Now off to write a manifesto to ensure that those who subscribe to this mentality and way of working will know there are others like them, interacting, thinking, and discussing in new ways, in the Trend Lab.

Global Collective

Heavily inspired by The New Socialism and Us Now was this week's MYT: The Global Collectivist Society. Click on the picture at right to see it bigger.

New projects are being worked on by many people from many different places, all enabled by the web. It's awesome to think about the power of collaboration and of a working business model that's run by "group think" and everyone taking equal ownership.

Two heads are definitely better than one, three are better than two, etc.

The MYT is a collaborative effort between myself and another Miami Ad School planner here at the agency. Part trend hunting/part cool shit, it's objective is Making You Think. Enjoy.

keeping things honest

I got a compliment the other day from a colleague:

"Thanks for keeping us honest."

It's hard sometimes to make the time to actually look at all the information we have to position a brand, identify a target, and set true objectives. But it's always easy to make decisions if the information you have is insightful.

Find the insights planners, they are out there.

Insight Chasers

on a long drive today, I started to think about what if...I started my own agency. Thinking about filling a niche that traditional agencies try so hard to reach while setting myself up for long-term planner wisdom and connections planning 101, I arrived at the name (and purpose) of Insight Chasers.

now, if I can only harness the power of the creative collective online via social media, maybe this 'agency' could be virtual, of the future, and accessible to anyone.

read The New Socialism by Wired and you'll get a better sense of the collectivist community I'm referring to.

plannerly advice

My director and I went to launch a month ago so I could pick his brain about things to improve upon. Here are some of his advice clips on being a planner:

• The job of the planner is to be the most confident person in the room. If you think about it, we're the ones who actually make sense of why we're doing what we're doing, why we're talking to a particular target audience, why we're using this particular strategy, why this strategy works, etc. Knowing that all of the parts make sense should allow us to speak with confidence. :)
• With this confidence, planners set in place the backbone of an idea. Again, we're there to answer the 'why'? We need to sound like we're in control.

At times when I'm struggling for a new angle or maybe the day-to-day has caught up with me and my life feels like Groundhog's Day, I turn the planning discipline on myself. Where am I? Where do I want to be? How do I get there?

Ok. Go!

just do it!

As a Virgo, I'm a big fan of organization. I also have a tendency to get overwhelmed with my perfectionisms (I don't think that's a word, but it should be: a combo of mannerisms and a perfectionist's attitude).

Today, I'm tackling the art and science of writing a "to do" list. Btw, I love that there is an "art" to it; in fact, there's an art to anything as long as you desire to work creatively. :)

Lifehacker says think of your "to do" list as a list of instructions: if the instructions are clear, specific, and easily executed, you're golden. The instructions should be written in such a way that you don't have to do any additional thinking once you've read them. It's the planning up front that does the thinking for you; Lifehacker says 90% of doing anything is the planning.

Make sure you differentiate between projects and tasks. A "to do" list is not the place for projects that require a lot thinking or are vague in description (Ex. write a research plan). To make it on the list, these projects need to be broken up into tiny, smaller tasks (Ex. Write background, write, objectives, write target audience, write topics to discuss, etc).

Use specific, active verbs. Inspire yourself to work with creative terms of action: analyze, create, write, develop, organize, etc. Note: if something's been on your list for a long time, break it down further or re-word it to get the energy going. 43 Folders says the best trick here is to simply phrase your task in a form like: “verb the noun with the object.”

Consider, for example, how an oversized to-do like “Prepare the big presentation” might be improved upon by zeroing in on the physicality of a first step like “Draft four ideas for our presentation’s theme.” Where the former task provides no purchase for a sensible ascent, the latter gives us a fat handle for getting started with something that already feels familiar.

Well, I hope this has helped some of you. I know it's certainy given me some food for thought when writing out my next "to do" list or revising my current one. Make items actionable, make them tasks and not projects, break it all down into bite-size bits, use the right verbs, and start getting things done. Just do it!

Because only you hold the power and responsibility for defining your work. (43 folders)

MYT 17 - An Optimist's Economy

This week's MYT

Next-Gen News - the future of news will be timely, relevant, bite-size bits of customizable content

MYT 14 - Capturing Customers

I have started publishing newsletters for my agency under the title "Trend Lab." It's a long story (this Trend Lab bit) that I will hopefully get to soon for you JPIA readers. But this is the output of one week's efforts at scoping out the new, the conversation, and where the focus should be for clients, brand, account teams, and creative teams.

Have a creative week! ~Trend Lab

I.I. with brand management

A couple months ago, I asked a brand manager if I could take them out for coffee and talk to them about brand management; informational interviews have always been a favorite activity of mine to find out about occupations - so even though I'm employed here, I still wanted the I.I. structure.

Specific questions turned into conversation, but here were three answers that stuck out:

Q1. What is your role within the client team?

To represent the client to the agency; handle the majority of communication between the agency and client; determine the appropriate resources; handle billing and time.

Q2. How do you work differently with media, creatives, and planning?

In terms of relative power with the client - creatives, brand planning, media. There's an opportunity for each discipline to have a partnership with each other: Some of the best people in media still bring ideas to the table even though they know the client will ix nay their idea.

Working with senior planners, they're partners in strategy and coming up with marketing communications.

Working with juniors, it's about managing details and helping with the research.

Q3. What are some characteristics I should work on developing to set me up for success?

Be smart but in a humble way; use the Socratic method to lead folks

No whining - "that's not my job" doesn't fly

Be curious, always want to know more, push it further

Verbal brilliance defines a planner - the more interesting you are, the more you will be valued

Make yourself top of mind - stop by to talk to people, remind them you're here

Fight for the resources you need. If you don't have the depth of information you need to write brief, then say so!

Develop your presentation skills, have a style, seek out opportunities to speak and have an audience

my bio

I have to write one for work, so I thought I'd take try a test one here. Let's see, when did it all start...

I discovered advertising as I was re-writing papers at the University of Oregon in hopes of becoming a magazine journalist and working for Rolling Stone. During the introductory course, I continuoully heard the words "insights" and "ideas" and thought, this sounds like fun! So I enrolled in an advertising strategy course the next term and found my passion: planning. From there on out, I got straight As (except for one B in management, :P) - a collegiate feat achieved solely in my advertising major; I thought wow, I get it AND I'm good at it: score!

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, I went to Alicante, Spain to immerse myself in Spanish culture and learn another language. Hacia un ano muy buenisimo y tenia gracias por todo. It was in Madrid, that I met an account planner who told me about Miami Ad School's Account Planning Bootcamp: "It's a good place to hone your skills," he said. I never forgot the suggestion...almost three years later - after working for Vitamin World, J.Crew, The National Psoriasis Foundation, Clear Channel Radio, and Starbucks in Portland, Oregon - I applied. And got in.

It was at Bootcamp that I encountered my mentor and my future job connection to The Richards Group - Christopher Owens. I wanted to be an electric planning firecracker just like him, but I thought "Dallas? Really?" It took a stint as a Freelance strategist in Portland working on a brand strategy for the Bridgeport Brewing Company and a hot summer in New York blogging for PSFK to finally settle me in the LoneStar State. And here I am, a happy planner.

When I'm not briefing for the next pre-order incentive at GameStop, researching trends to house in the Trend Lab, or helping out with a new business pitch, I'm riding my bike as one of the only cyclist commuters you'll see in Dallas or drinking a Shiner at a local music show. Sure I miss my green, tree-filled Pacific Northwest; but heck, Oregon ain't got nothin on ya'll's BBQ.

Best strategic work of 09?

Last year about this time, I put together a short reel for our creative department here that included some of the best strategic work of 07. I mostly compiled them from blogs I'd read and maybe an AdAge Top 10 list, but I wanted to ask those of you who read this blog what you considered to be some of the best (planning) work of 08.

Looking forward to your input.
Thanks!

Why should you blog? Sensibility.

At the agency, we have had an influx of The Atlantic, tons of them are lying around, (mostly in boxes on 11, FYI). I picked one up this morning for the article titles "Why I Blog" by Andrew Sullivan.

For anybody curious about the benefits of blogging or even what a blog is, you should definitely pick up a magazine and read the article. For the quick-tip minded, here are the excerpts I most enjoyed:

• Blogging enables writers to express themselves in ways that have never been seen or understood before. It is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.
• The simple experience of being able to directly broadcast my own words to readers was an exhilarating literary liberation.
• The key to understanding a blog is to realize that it's a broadcast, not a publication. It if stops moving, it dies.
• The blogger is a node among other nodes, connected but unfinished without the links and the comments and the trackbacks that make the blogosphere, at its best, a conversation, rather than a production.
• A blogger is like a host at a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.
• People have a voice for radio and a face for television. For blogging, they have a sensibility.

The Culture Snack should be a dumping place for insights, ideas, and arguments so that we each can make our individual planning brands stronger. With an influx of the same information, we are forced to be creative, to put our own spin on things, and come up with our own opinions, validating them with links and comments, and then taking this content offline into a meeting with conviction from your likeminded community.

You can find this post and others at the Culture Snack.

moving to a new blog

I have been pulled in many new directions lately and have neglected to give JPIA the love and time it needs to be the robust resource I so want it to be. I have struggled with this for many reasons, namely:

• a blog helps me think through ideas and link them to new stimuli
• a blog keeps me in touch with the World Wide Web and all of the new cool websites that people are having fun with
• JPIA has been invaluable as a networking tool, a network I received much inspiration from and feel sad to have not been able to return the favor to in a long time

With that said, I have decided to consolidate my resources and time on a new blog to serve the functions above. My new blog will also provide me a comfortable link to my full-time job which I felt I couldn't do with JPIA because it was much more "me-centric" in nature. Culture Snack will be a collaborative effort with my colleagues to discuss the thoughts and questions we have about our experiences in advertising. I'm going to pair this blog with my twitterfeed. I think a blog for thought development and a Twitter for connecting will serve me well in my newly-busy bee world.

For JPIA, thank you for all you've done for developing me as the planner I am today. The support and advice I have received has been vital for my sanity and growth as an effective part of the the advertising industry, helping it to be better and stronger for a future of healthy consumerism and creativity.

Plan on.

planners caught in the middle

Let me know if you've experienced something similar:

your super smart insights help win the agency new business.
your strategic prowess helps position the brand within a dead category.
you excite the creative teams: they are creating Nike.
production begins.
then nothing...
some management conversations happen here and there, you hear tidbits about this and that, you "plan" for more work, etc. etc.
no "work" comes from management.
you call a meeting to "get everyone on the same page"
come to find out management has made decisions on strategy's behalf but rest assured if it's the wrong decision, strategy will be called in to save the day or we lose the business.

Agencies count on us (planning) to bring in new business with our vibrant talks of the possibilities and insights which drive them. The agency also counts on us to diagnose problems and remedy situations with a strategic sounding board when business falters along the way. But when we're not involved along the way, how can our strategy be the best?

Strategy exists for the betterment of the work. We are here to ensure results. In order to win and RETAIN business, please include us along the way. Caught between management and creative, I understand we're easily forgotten with no tangible piece of proof that we exist. Just like the brands we create every day, planning is a sense of something more - it's there to be engaged with, a smart personality with which smart agencies become associated with.

my problem with advertising

is I'm not consuming; "bogged" down with 40+ hours of work and trying to balance my health/fitness/social goals in around work, I haven't blocked off "time to be a consumer," which is completely necessary to be at the top of my advertising game. I am out of touch with how people are shopping these days. It's the little nuances when they're in the store or talking with a store employee that capture a brand's "experience" and to which we are drawing people's attention with advertising.

Don't forget to be a consumer yourself.
Buy stuff now.

Tom Carroll or TBWA Worldwide had this to say at the 4As Planning Conference this year "There is no substitute for being out in the marketplace. Get back out there and talk to people. The good data is not in your office and it's not online."

getting things done

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of David Allen's book Getting Things Done, but my podmate turned me on to GTD (i swear he gave me a link but I can't find it right now, stay tuned)...and the book looms in my mind as if it were the Holy Grail. Lately (per my previous post), I've been struggling with procrastination; it's a bitch. What the F*** do you do? And can you even put your finger on why you're procrastinating OR what procrastination exactly means? I think Type A personalities struggle with "whatever procrastination is" moreso than Type Bs. This link takes you to a Wikipedia page clearly written by a Type B persona (Type As aren't complete tightwads!) which illustrates the Type A personality traits that I struggle most with: multi-tasking takes an ineffective turn where focusing becomes random instant-gratification seeking; time-conscientiousness becomes debilitating to creativity; and stress hinders any sense of productivity. Ugh.

So back to GTD: I checked out the book on Amazon, and I'm posting highlights from a comment I feel is the most motivating (and perhaps directional, in fact negating the purchase of the book altogether). Here they are:

This book is for all those who are overwhelmed with too many things to do, too little time to do them, and a general sense of unease that something important is being missed. (THAT'S ME!)

Every task, promise, or assignment has a place and a time. Rapid progress occurs when you take large, unformed tasks, and break them down and organize them into smaller, sequential steps for exactly what to do and when.

The essence of the process is that you write down a note about everything when you take on a new responsibility, make a new commitment, or have a useful thought. All of this ends up in some kind of "in" box. You then go through your "in" box and decide what needs to be done next for each item. For simple issues, this includes identifying the action you should take first and when to take it. For tougher issues, you schedule an appropriate time to work the problem in more detail.

For the tougher problems, you start with identifying your purpose and principles so you know why you care how it all turns out. Then you imagine the potential good outcomes that you would like. Following that, you brainstorm with others the best way to get those outcomes. Then you organize the best pathway. (WHO DOESN'T LIKE BRAINSTORMS?)

The critical part is the discipline because that is what focuses your attention where it will do the most good. Many people allow a lot of time to pass without taking any useful steps because they cannot imagine what to do next. If you simplify the questions and make them into familiar ones, everyone soon finds powerful alternatives drawn from a lifetime of experiences and memories. Keep things broad, abstract, and vague, and peoples' eyes glaze over while they struggle for a place to begin. (I THINK THIS PARTICULARLY APPLIES TO PLANNING: WE'VE GOT TO BE ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AND WE NEED TO ARTICULATE AND SIMPLIFY)

THIS IS A DIRECT QUOTE FROM THE COMMENTER: "By helping [other people] gain relaxed control of their activities, you will also be able to enjoy the benefits of their increased effectiveness in supporting your own efforts.May you always get the tools you need, understand what to do next, and move swiftly through timely actions!" SOUNDS NICE. :)