More Interviewing Insights: It’s a big deal to you. For the agency who paid to fly you in, you may be the least important thing happening that day.

You have been planning for days.  Set aside an entire day – or two.

They squeezed you in between client meetings, creative confabs, production, billing, personnel hiccups, phone, looming deadline creative and new business pitches. 

That CD who was twenty minutes late to meet with you?  Then only stayed seven?  Probably had three other meetings run late, was backed up for a day, still looking to make the kids’ bedtime, dinner with clients, late new business pitch and/or date night with her partner - who she hasn’t seen all week.

In small shop/small market paradise, where things mostly move slower and everyone mostly goes home at five, days get jammed, too.  The three four five people you’re supposed to meet?  Things may be as busy as in a big shop.  Albeit on a smaller scale. 

A big chunk of how Interview Madness affects you, for good or bad?  How much you enjoy staring at walls, last minute punts, roll tide and agency reality.

Too much self-focus, you’ll miss even easy questions.  Lose confidence. 

Maybe even Blow It.

That job interview may be the most important thing you do all year.  Until there’s a CD/ECD/Partner after your name – it’s not likely the same for whatever agency’s paying for the trip. 

If you’re interviewing at a big shop, with several openings and several CDs/ACDs/ECDs to talk to, consider their workday context in which your presence exists.  If you’re also scheduled with HR, ADs, Account Services - pray Mercury isn’t Retrograde.

The agency is always in a better position to punt.  In your world, If ADs don’t show, you miss a big part in your decision making.  The ADs may have zip influence on the hiring shop’s.

Why am I scaring you like this?

Like everything else in life, your interview is Prospect Centric.  To a huge extent every person you do and don’t see on interview day is your Prospect.  In varying degrees, you are theirs.

If you accept this, you won’t wonder so much why your meeting with the CD was cut short.  The paranoia it could be they didn’t like you no longer has the power of your worst nightmare.  Yes, there may be some personal glitch.  Mercury could be Retrograde.

Maybe it’s just one of those days.

You’d best know how to roll with it.

The better you know your Prospect – the agency and all its players – the easier it’ll be.  It’ll unload one s***load of paranoid stress.  You’ll be able to mold the interview – no matter what does or doesn’t happen – in your favor.  The more you’ll learn.  The more fun you’ll have with it.

The more you know about what goes on in AgencyLand, the more you’ll be able to discern if it’s always like that.  Or if the agency’s having a day.  If the CD/ECD who couldn’t do more than stick her head in the door is rude.  Or if she was dealing with the madness, doing her best to keep the machine which could be paying your salary - earning it. 

Cut her the same slack you’d cut anyone you’d like to play with.  

If you’re there, they’re interested.  Seeing their needs first – in practical terms - tells you which campaigns to highlight, which part of job life to keep to yourself.

Prospect Centricity exposes an offer – accounts, money, start dates.  You will fulfill your needs/wants/dreams/realities best by seeing them through the lense of theirs.  Even if it tells you to Just Say No.

Example: 

Their need:  A talented just-above-a-Junior Junior Copywriter willing to work with X Art Director on Y account, no matter how many hours it takes.

Your need:   A salaried job with an Art Director good enough to do great work on a great account, propelling the great book you build to your next tasty gig.

Usual Junior Approach:  I want to work on your showcase account and work with an award winning/wildly talented AD and do great work for my book, win awards for my resume.

Prospect Centric Approach:  I want to be part of a great team, contributing my absolute best to an agency’s success while I grow by working within a smart, talented group so I can raise to their level.

Which do you want to hire?

You’re much more your best self when the mirror reflects your strengths through someone else’s needs.   Even if it’s only in their eyes.

Prospect Centricity.  It's not just for clients.


This entry, along with everything else published in this blog, (c)2018, Doreen Dvorin/KamikazeCreative.