Subservient graduate has a future
Matthew Guy, a graduate designer, is looking for a job. It is competitive to get a foot into an advertising agency. What do you do?
You could put your portfolio online. Check. You could put a bio up. Check.
Or you could come up with something really creative.
Matthew has put cardboard cut outs of his site on advertising agency doors where he wants to walk through as an employee.
But I really like his Subservient Graduate website where you can go and command him to do your bidding (it is all pre-recorded). Showing a sense of humour, originality, persuades you to spend the time to have a look at his work, which looks good.
Very impressive!
Postscript
I have seen a few comments on the Scamp blog that say that these ideas are not new. Who cares? Little under the sun is. I generally still credit anyone who can use ideas and remould them to their aim effectively.
Still have a look at Subservient Chicken from Burger King, which is live.
Tags: graduate, job hunting
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
When it comes to graduates looking for a job, any effort is welcome. I get shedloads of letters and emails from grads that start ‘Dear Sir/Madam’. How difficult is it to look up my name? From there on in it is clear that the applicant has no clue about my business and has sent the same letter to a thousand other people. If I do bother reading on, I generally (more than 80% of the time) find the letters to be riddled with typos, spelling errors and general nonsense. Worst of all though, on a few occasions I have taken the time to respond – politely – and point out what they are doing wrong and how to improve their chances. Out of three times I have done this, how many times do you think they have responded? None. Which just proves to me that they were never going to be worth employing. Rant over.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Tom,
I think your last point is the one that rankles most. I have given advice fairly recently, not because I have the time, but because I wanted to encourage an applicant in what is a pretty dispiriting process.
No reply, no thanks. If they had engaged with me I would have been minded to help more. I wrote to Matthew who is featured above with some words of encouragement. Now I can’t help him but an acknowledgement would have been appreciated.
I remember the marketing staff saying (a few years ago) that at MMU saying that students were not even turning up to interviews with big blue chips much to their annoyance so you are not alone.
Rob