Dear Dimitri:

Mercury going Retrograde, I reconnected with Dimitri – a hot, cool, talented student from my PC Director of Copy Days. And dear Dimitri gave me my first topic, How come I can’t get a job?



“… I don't know if it's me or this economy, but I can't get hired to save my life. Please take a look at my book and tell me what the problem is (other than I have no digital/web work).”


 Dear Dimitri:


I’m fine. Thanks for asking. The fact your concerns for yourself trump any casual, getting back together chit chat says you’re desperate. You’re not alone.


I know you want to work. Crave that paycheck, those awards, concept highs and meeting lows like the ad addicts we all become. But Dimitri, how hungry are you?


Hungry enough to purge all but the best from your portfolio? To learn digital, put that learning into a showcase for the work you’ve done – and the work you can do? Not that been there/clicked that canned stuff everyone uses. The kind of comprehensive site that becomes your own digital book.


Are you hungry enough to do smart new spec showing how you’ve made the leap from Junior to Senior, filling holes in your samples? To extend the best of your traditional work into digital, ambient, yadda yadda?


Have you dug deep into social networking? Do you tweet every freelance job and quirky business strategy you find? Take advantage of college/PC alumnae, friends and family, linkedin and advertising/social networking groups?


What are you blogging about? Personal/political/fictional musings? Or to showcase your creative, strategic abilities filtered through timely experience? Do you link it to every ad blog you possibly can, ask them to return the favor?


I know Atlanta’s great, you may have family to consider (maybe not – you didn’t mention anyone but yourself). Remember Robert? He’s commuting between home in one city, work in another. He always was a go-getter (but so were you, I recall) and crazy about his wife and kids. How willing are you to go and get for yours?


Carol Vick Bynum, who knows more about getting a job than anyone I know, wrote some great stuff about turning your site into an easy, interactive slide show she can stop – and start – with a single keystroke. Maxine Paetro’s putting out a new, updated edition of How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising. (It will include my CMYK article on negotiating salary + update, How to Negotiate Up in a Down Market.) For a digital experience with another view, check out Dave Holloway’s DVD. You may think they’re for beginners, but both have info even I’ve forgotten.


Who have you mentored lately? As hungry as today’s students and juniors are to learn what we know, they were born knowing plenty we don’t. Especially if it’s digital. Hanging with the kids not only teaches new technology – it reignites the fire in your creative belly, the passion in your pitch.


And the work. Dimitri, even the best Blow Pop stuff blew back in your PC days. If your produced work doesn’t wow, find a good out-of-work-too AD and post new, current spec that shows what you’ve become.


Wish I could say Call this person, that Him, Him and Her has an opening. But this market is terrible at creating new jobs. They exist. But agencies have a very limited number of positions/very specific skill set/resume requirements. Have them or don’t make the cut – no matter how brilliantly you’ve performed elsewhere.


This economy is, however, great for finding something else. The network you’ve forgotten, spec work and risk taking creative that died in a thousand meetings, new skills you’ve never had time to learn and new ways to deliver old business, the time is Now.


As agencies scramble to reinvent themselves, it’s great for direct to client business. It won’t feed clients’ paying-agency-overhead-paranoia, you get to draw on all your experience, they pay full rate, usually on time. For employee certainty, think about going corporate. The recession can’t last forever.


Dimitri, are you ready to respond to the market instead of reacting to bills due? Not to be glib, cast dispersions on your talent, desire or thousands of calls already made/hundreds of resumes already sent. But this is a business of reinvention and we must all be re-inventors. Of what we do, sure. But mostly, of ourselves.


I prescribe two reads of the above and if we’re still talking, call me in the morning. Be forewarned – I’ll ask the same question I asked in class: Where’s your Creative Work Plan? Remember how well they work for ads? They’re even better for solving the bigger creative problem of Self.