Here’s a bit of Doreen Heresy. Recruiters are not your friends.
They're your Prospects.
Recruiters work for Ad Agencies. On staff or independent, no matter how much
they (seem to?) like you, your work. No
matter how much you have in common.
Their job depends upon your wanting their job. Whether they want you - or not.
I know recruiters who champion candidates they believe in up the agency creative food chain. Some are personal friends. Some professional friends. Some, respected colleagues I’ve developed
open channels with over the years.
They’ll go to bat for a candidate they think a really good
fit. But no matter how friendly, how
encouraging, their first loyalty is to the agency, their “client.” Not to you.
Hopefully, you know the questions they can’t ask – and you
shouldn’t answer. Marital status. Romance.
Religion. Sexual orientation. Gender Identity. Ethnic revelations. Children or no?
Your medical history? They're thinking how it can potentially
affect the working of the Creative Department or the cost of agency health
insurance.
That rotten – or golden – childhood? Unless you can discuss it in terms of why it
makes you their best option, what about it you’ve parlayed into understanding
Prospects, concepting, being a writer’s writer, etc., don't waste valuable
interview time on it?
Ego Centricity vs.
Prospect Centricity
I’m not saying turn into ME ME ME I’M
SO GREAT Ego Incarnate. No one likes
that. As my friend and very smart ex-ad
guy Marshall Pengra once told my class, “People hire people they like.” Not people who pontificate, talking only
about themselves and how great they are.
Sell your abilities and what makes you
different – ergo better – than others.
Just do it through the mirror your Prospect – the Recruiter, CD and
everyone else you talk to – uses to reflect qualities they like and need.
I’m not saying turn into a sycophant. I’m saying talk from their needs and how
something about you makes you the best qualified to fulfill them.
Prospect Centricity,
from the Job Candidate POV
Creative Strategy and Prospect Centric Thinking gives you
all the tools you need.
Research agency
work, personalities, awards and portfolios (especially of anyone you’ll be interviewing
with), accounts, account changes – recent and historically.
Find out what they’re looking for, for which clients, CDs,
ECDs, Group CDs, ADs, ACDs, account teams.
What’s the work like, both agency wide and on the specific account with
openings. What’s the culture?
Mine the web, trade magazines and most importantly, your amazing
network of Circus grads who work there now, interviewed there before you, passed
through on the way to their next job/promotion.
Mine instructors – we may have friends and freelance clients you may conceivably be interviewing with. Or who can put in a good word, put your book
in front of the right people when the time comes.
Once you have a handle on the shop, who works there, what
they’re looking for, you can see – and interact with – the Recruiter and agency
as Prospects.
Like all Prospects, you want to establish honest
relationships between people who like, understand and respect each other.
When you’re asked “What do you want in your first job,”
filter the question through your Prospect Centric training (not trained that
way? Be sure to catch my next Circus Kamikaze
Creative Strategy workshop.). Do it
right, you won’t answer your new “friend” with what YOU want. You’ll answer from your Prospect’s point of
view.
Instead of “Great work that’ll get me my next award/job/etc.,” you want to work for an agency whose work and people you can
contribute to. The team you want to help
build. The new creative spice you hope
to bring to their already well seasoned table. How your Circus training made you ready to think on your feet, hit the ground running.
Instead of “A place with good mentors I can learn from,” discuss
bringing fresh, strategic creative skills for the good of agency and client. How your unique creative point of view meshes
w/theirs and can sweeten the strategic and creative pot. How you want to get better - by making the work better.
That year you took off between college and Circus/job search? Not the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to
see Europe. A chance to study the global
market as individual and collective Prospects.
To understand what drives and motivates people with different
experiences and cultures than you.
Those dogs/cats/kids/horses/parrots you and the Recruiter
love in common? Not an invitation to go
off about the dog who’s so smart, so loving, so amazing….blah blah blah blah
Time’s Up. An opportunity to relate to
that Recruiter where he/she lives. Making the brief but unmistakable point you’ll
more than fit in.
Your job is to establish a benefit for
your Prospect.
That bubbly, personable
(and often sincere, if somewhat skewed) Recruiter is just that. Your Prospect. As is everyone else you talk to.
I’m not suggesting you stay closed and defensive, hiding
yourself in an effort to be Exactly What Is Needed. You’re not All Things to All People – try to
be, you become nothing.
I’m telling you to present yourself through the needs, wants and insights of
whoever is interviewing.
If you don’t, someone else will get the job you want.
All you’ll be left with is hindsight.
Or a whole lot of confusion – We got along so
well, I thought we’d hang out after I moved up there – what went wrong? if you’re
not.
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