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You are now ready to take everything you have done and put it all together into what I call a personal presentation package.
As you develop this presentation package, keep these objectives foremost in you mind:
- Make it clear to each agency you are targeting that you have taken the time to learn all you could about them, their clients, and their future direction.
- Convince each agency that your thorough research has revealed a compatibility between your personal capabilities, interests, and experience and the agency's needs.
Research surveys reveal that employers will hire people more frequently who demonstrate initiative, like taking the time to research and discover areas of similarity between themselves and the company (agency). Employer surveys also confirm that people who are well prepared for an interview are much more desirable than a person with strong paper credentials (degrees, high grades, etc.) or a slick portfolio.
Being prepared means knowing what you are going to say and understanding how your past experience can be applied to the daily tasks of the job being sought.
Thus, being well prepared can be your most important asset when it comes to putting you into that upper 10 percent that gets you noticed and hired. These are the components of your personal presentation package:
- Resume
- Cover letter
- Oral presentation
- Portfolio
Imagine that you are a president of your own advertising agency. It's Monday morning, and you have just finished listening to a presentation by the creative department for three campaign ideas concerning the new sportswear account your agency pulled in last week. The concepts look great, the copy is snappy and clever, but there is a cloud hanging over your head that, until now you have been too busy to notice. Although this new account will be extremely lucrative for your agency, it will also create an unbearable workload for your staff. Although it is a real pain in the neck, you know you have to hire several new people as soon as possible. If you do not, you could risk losing that new account if some overworked employee slips up on one of the numerous details involved in servicing this account.
You may be wondering what is so difficult about having to hire some new people. Big deal! Well, it is a big deal because it involves an investment of time which is always at a premium in an advertising agency. First you will have to place classified ads in the local newspaper, several local business publications, and the local and regional editions of the advertising trade journals. Then you will have to spend time sifting through the resumes that come in, and then again spend precious work time interviewing anywhere from 30 to 50 people just to hire 7 or 8. This is die last thing a busy executive wants to do with precious time.
What are the alternatives? A quick trip to the file cabinet where all those resumes and cover letters were filed when no positions were available. If you are lucky, you might just find a good number of qualified candidates for your openings. And if you are extra lucky, some of these people might still be available. There is also one other thing you can do: call some business associates, like printers, other agency execs, clients, etc., who might be able to recommend some competent people who are looking for work.
This is why it is so important for you in your own job search to send your resume and cover letters to those agencies you are interested in even though you know they are not hiring right now. When they are, your materials will be in line ahead of those applicants who respond to die classifieds, when and if the position is ever advertised.
This is also why you need to network with businesspeople even if they are not in advertising and let them know what kind of job you are looking for in an agency. You never know when someone you have talked to will be called for a recommendation. These are the two best ways for you to find a job and the two easiest ways for those hard-edged advertising executives to cut through the time-consuming, traditional hiring route and locate people quickly.
Now, back to wearing the shoes of an agency president. You begin to look through numerous cover letters and resumes from your file, hoping to find some viable candidates. If you are in luck, you may find just what you need and save yourself time and expense.
Before we break down each aspect of cover letters and resumes, we should look at a few more to help you pinpoint specific problems you might encounter and also see some creative self-selling at work.
Review your personal presentation package
If you have worked through, you have put together a winning presentation for yourself. You should be ready to make your move. Let us summarize the elements of your presentation package:
- A cover letter for each specific agency or job
- Your resume
- A portfolio, if appropriate for your position
- Your oral presentation
Make it clear to each agency you are targeting that you have taken the time to learn all you could about them, their clients, and their future direction.
Convince each agency that your thorough research has revealed a compatibility between your personal capabilities, interests, and experience and the agency's needs.
