“Be passionate, be opinionated and always be a problem-solver“. So said our panel at last night’s filmed careers event and launch of WEXO TV, ‘How I Made it in Advertising‘. We were lucky enough to get an intimate and entertaining careers chat from five pros in the advertising world, jam-packed with practical advice and anecdotal lessons. The Tabernacle in Notting Hill hosted our evening in its beautiful and embellished theatre.

On the panel sat Julian Diment (Carphone Warehouse), Rebecca Robins (Interbrand), Nick Foster (T-Mobile), Tanya Hamilton-Smith (JWT) and Robin Garton (MBA). Collectively they’ve worked for and with the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, Tesco, Orange, Andrex and Reuters. A pretty impressive but instantly likeable bunch, if we ever met one.

Our audience consisted of everyone from LSE undergraduates, Masters students and careers advisers for schoolchildren to keen WEXO members who’d travelled from as far as Cardiff! Needless to say the atmosphere in the Tabernacle was rather electric, with guests in the running to win a work’s week experience in advertising particularly excited. To begin, each of our speakers zipped us through their background, and how they found themselves on their current career paths. A few central themes arose, which anyone looking to delve into the advertising should consider noting. Pens at the ready:

1. Follow your instincts. When it comes to joining a team, go with people you instantly feel you can gel with. If you’re pretending to be someone you’re not, it’ll show in no time.
2. Relationships are key. Care about the people and brands you work for. Not in a sentimental sense, but in terms of genuinely wanting to push forward their agenda. Those relationships will form the core of your contact base in time.
3. Do your research. Know the brands or companies you aspire to work with, before you find yourself in that interview you worked so hard to nab. With LinkedIn, Facebook and Google at your disposal, any failure to read up will tend to reflect badly on your preparation.
4. Don’t be a slave to the numbers. When you’ve got an idea in a creative position, it’s vital to balance both your own gut feeling and the anticipated demand from market research. You’ll sell yourself short by only responding to one or the other.

After learning how each speaker ‘made it’ in advertising on their own paths we then enjoyed the Q&A session. While I tweeted furiously throughout, our audience came through with questions on the prevalence of social media, importance of corporate social responsibility and recommended academic paths to advertising jobs.

Some particular crackers included a question on whether the panel members would have handled the John Lewis ‘freezing dog’ Christmas ad differently and a personal question about why so few of the panel seemed to be on Twitter themselves! These two are in fact our winning questions for the event: in our promo we had advertised a week’s work experience and subscription (worth £800) to The Reel. We’re happy to announce that Debra Sherman and Lucy Hine are our two winners, and more details will be coming their way today. Well done!

As the Q&A went on, similar themes started to crop up while the panel used stories of their own experiences to illustrate their points. It was particularly interesting to hear about Garton’s adventurous approach to adverts when contrasted with Hamilton-Smith’s self-described ’safe’ angle. Knowing we were sat with one of the brains behind Orange Wednesdays (Diment) was also impressive and inspirational.

All in all, the gist seemed to be: use your skills, resources and creativity to push yourself towards the department you’d work best in. Although the advertising industry is so varied, finding oneself in the wrong area could be disastrous and personally unfulfilling.

WEXO Members can watch the entire event on WEXO TV here or break it down into clips of the Q&As.

Tshepo Mokoena

Are you comfortable that you’re getting value for money? An inside account on the intricacies of unpaid internships…

For a long time now, there has been a debate raging about unpaid internships and I wanted to take some time to clarify our position. This follows both our original blog on this subject (in the words of the original protagonist) ‘It’s my work, he’d say, and I do it for pay…’over a year ago on 1st December 2009 (in response to a BBC debate on Intern Abuse) and the proceeding comments in August last year (following our failure to bring together an Internship Alliance to try and lobby the new government to incentivise companies to operate paid internship schemes).

The song effectively remains the same:

“Today, more and more actual graduates are resorting to internships and in the brave new world, it is only right that if you are adding value to a company you should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage (NMW – approx £210 a week). Social mobility is key and unpaid internships discriminate against people who simply can’t afford to work for free. But in these dire economic times, with companies struggling to make ends meet, we must be careful not to scare companies away from opening their doors to young people all together. They need to be incentivised to understand their obligation to help the youth of today; not named and shamed because they can’t.”

Many will argue that not paying interns NMW is illegal. I suspect this is probably true but so is smoking cannabis and approximately 1 in 4 16-25 year olds have broken the law and tried it. What I am more interested in is the morality of not paying interns.

An article on Business Link’s website makes it very clear as to who is and who isn’t entitled to NMW. As it infers, my mother who volunteers for the local hospice (a charity although by law voluntary workers can work for any of charities, voluntary organisations, associated fund raising bodies or statutory bodies) is not entitled to minimum wage (and nor would she want it) because she is a volunteer – and so does not have any contract (written or verbal) to perform work or provide services. Anyone who falls outside of this is entitled to minimum wage. This probably includes most interns.

What about undergraduates? Along these lines, for anyone who is shadowing a company or learning from them as in work experience, then there is not the obligation to pay them because they are not providing a service or working under contract. On occasion, undergraduates are exempt from NMW (usually if their tutors agree that the internship is related to their course and they are not performing a service to the host company). During my time at university I did 3 internships over 3 summers and each of these paid me in excess of minimum wage (one even gave me a bonus at the end). I’d like to think this was because in each case I provided a service that added value in excess of the value I derived from the internship experience.

Legally, isn’t this a grey area? Yes, but what matters for me, as I have suggested above, is that if someone adds (monetary) net value to the entity they work for (or be it future value) then morally they should be rewarded for it irrespective – and this we see as the acid test. Along these lines we are very happy to see companies offer ‘work experience’ for up to 2 weeks – and we would encourage them to pay expenses during this time. Any longer than this though and the chances are that an individual will be adding value and so should be paid accordingly.

What about the BBC and Parliament? I am not exempting these institutions that are renowned for not paying their interns but arguably the interns are deriving more value from the experience and so do not pass the acid test. If though (as is often the case with smaller companies) there is a ‘job description’ or a list of responsibilities then the logical conclusion is that the intern is going to be adding value and should be paid accordingly!

I am no socialist – I view myself as a liberal conservative, a proponent on free market economics and people ‘getting on their bike’ (albeit with the safety net of a welfare state) – but I am tiring of companies (particularly in some distinct parts of the creative industries) telling me that they used to work for free and so their interns can too. I do not see why anyone should pay their interns (especially in this day and age with student debts as they are) anything less than I pay my cleaner.

What about start-ups? WEXO is a start-up and we pay our interns. I don’t feel comfortable asking people to help me build a company for free. I am encouraged to see a number of start-ups round London doing the same thing. I’m all in favour of getting young people in to experience start-up life and entrepreneurship but not if they’re a substitute for employees. If you can’t afford to pay your interns or grads, you should probably wait until you can, question your business model, or look at some other form of commensurate remuneration via say equity or (bizarrely in an equivalent move to what Barclays Capital is suggesting for bonuses) even bonds (in simple terms, IOUs). This might not stand up legally but it probably does ethically. If as a ‘Founder’ you choose not to pay yourself (as I myself have done on occasion) then to my mind, that is your prerogative but I suspect that in your own interest, you would be advised to make an IOU arrangement via directors loans instead of just foregoing payment. Not paying yourself does not justify not paying your workforce.

Should there be a limit to how long internships can last? Timing is one issue that we haven’t visited in past writings. In economic times like these though, internships have become a temporary employment vehicle for graduates and in line with other players in this field (including STEP whose BIS and LDA programmes we helped deliver last year. Programmes that include schemes to help incentivise companies to pay interns) we strongly suggest that internships should last no longer than 3 months. After this time, companies should either ‘step’ up to the plate and commit to a giving them a job or let them get on with finding one elsewhere. Otherwise young people will get stuck in an ‘internship trap’.

What about the new £2.50 an hour proposals from the CIPD? The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development have suggested interns should be paid £2.50 an hour which works out as roughly £400 a month (see BBC article earlier this month) As far as we are concerned, all this does is reduce the inequality. In all honesty, could you live on this?

So what? I voted Conservative, was impressed by Michael Gove when he spoke at an event I attended; and on the face of it, I can’t stand Ed Balls. I believe in cutting the deficit, to an extent; (we still have less debt as a country than Japan and Italy have had for much of the last decade as per interesting Fresh Minds article) I will hold my hand up and say that I back the hike in graduate fees. What I can’t condone is slashing investment in jobs (be in the Future Jobs Fund or private sector stimuli) and basic education (literacy in particular in this country is poor). We called, some time ago, for companies to be able to recoup the cost of hiring interns at National Minimum Wage from the recent VAT hike. This could help solve the conundrum addressed herein. Last week youth unemployment reached new record highs. And young people don’t fully understand the roles that ARE on offer hence our event on 8th February. We issued a press release for this last week but as I said in another release in June:

“Existing public sector initiatives have made no dent in this crisis; it is our opinion that if the situation is to improve, the government needs to start properly backing the private sector [not just relying on it]. The VAT hike will help UK Plc raise a much needed £13Bn but figures suggest the average return on hiring a graduate is 500% over 3 years so that’s one of the main places I’d be investing it.”

Robin Kennedy

Last year, we gave one of our members the chance to grab an exclusive seat at Vogue UK’s biannual trend talk. The one and only Emily Zak (of our “How I Made It In Fashion” event panel) gave out the inspiring chestnuts of fashion know-how that will be driving all the major trends this spring. Take a look at Tamsin’s guest post on the event below, and remember: you heard it here first!

So what is in store for Spring/Summer 2011? Vogue’s Emily Zak presented an overview from the collections highlighting the key trends for the coming season.

The spring/summer 2011 catwalks were dominated by a storm of COLOUR, as opulent tones, worn in daringly clashing blocks, emerged across designers’ collections. See Gucci, below on the left.

Another key look for the season is SPORTS WEAR. Sleek, well-cut and modern looks with a glamorous edge shone through for S/S as seen (above, right) in Isabel Marant’s collection above. Whether it is just focussing on details such as zips, racer backs and hi-tech fabrics this trend is accessible for all.

As an alternative to the camel tones worn throughout the Autumn, NUDE fabrics will be a big feature this spring. Soft and gentle tones in both delicate and tough fabrics will provide a chic alternative to the season’s brighter colours, as seen in Chloe’s S/S collection below.

As in previous seasons, DENIM is not going anywhere. However, rather than skinny jeans it will be all about loose fitting, low slung cuts best worn belted. (See Elie Tahari S/S below).

Contrasting from previous seasons soft and floaty whites, this season embodies precision TAILORING. Sharp crisp well cut pieces as seen in the LiLee show above require few accessories to complete the effortlessly tailored look.

Beautiful deep BLUES and zesty ORANGES make a significant appearance this Spring. Eye-catching soft silks and satins in various shapes and forms light up the collections as seen in Matthew Williamson and Fendi below.

Tamsin Vaughan

all images © Vogue.co.uk

“Read. See. Expand“: that’s how you’ll get somewhere in fashion. And no, these aren’t my own words (I’m no fashion career expert, and certainly not the kind of girl to quote herself. Yet). They come from Emily Zak, Vogue’s Retail Editor, during her address at the WEXO-sponsored LSE Fashion Society career event last night.

So in case you’re confused, this week’s blog is a bit of a departure from the norm. Last night our offices at WEXO Towers were inundated with well-dressed hordes of LSE fashionistas eager to learn from five guest speakers. Our stylish and incredibly experienced panel included: Chloe Lonsdale, founder of MiH Jeans; Kinvara Balfour, fashion writer and London Editor of Daily Candy.com; Austique’s co-founder Katie Canvin; and Ruby Dhillon, manager of Gucci fragrances at Procter & Gamble.

Needless to say, we found ourselves in the company of some pretty driven and well-connected women.

When I wasn’t furiously flooding the WEXO twitter account with event tweets, I drew on five different routes to success that our guests highlighted:

1. Experience is everything. Put in the work at internships and placements, and you will be rewarded.
2. An artistic and culturally-aware approach will get you far. If references to ‘A Love Story’, the history of French couture houses and the difference between raglan and dolman sleeves are lost on you, you need to read more. All the fine details are magnified when it comes to a feel for and knowledge of fashion.
3. Starting a fashion company needs a business-savvy approach. Now that sounds almost redundant and obvious, but meticulous planning can hardly be stressed enough.
4. An opportunity to get your foot in the door may spring up at any point. Always be prepared, and don’t forget about the importance of nearby, untapped contacts.
5. A strong work ethic and passion to succeed in any enterprise will be invaluable in fashion. If you’re resilient, this is the industry for you.

Wow. Fashion and the military seem to have more in common than autumn’s trends of olive-green parkas and utilitarian detailing, huh? Persistence is key to making it in fashion, so we thought we’d help point you in the right direction towards building up your style knowledge. Our panel suggest checking out blogs from the Coolhunter, Jak & Jil, Garance Doré, Nowness, Fifi Lapin and of course Vogue.com. In their view, blogs are a new and exciting platform for fashion, but still can’t quite match the reach and presence of good old-fashioned print magazines.

Got more questions of your own for our panel? We’ll be collating them here in the comments section, or on the wall our Facebook fan page. Here’s your chance to unleash any burning questions of the fashion sort. We’ll also be posting video footage from the night soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

Overall if I learned anything last night it’s that hard work and a refusal to fail will be the perfect ingredients for anyone looking to break into the industry. On that note, forward march!

Tshepo Mokoena

Photos courtesy of Chu Ting Ng at TheQualified blog.

It’s been a while since I stuck my oar in on the blogging front but I wanted to share with you my comings and goings with WEXO over the last week or so.

Last Saturday, WEXO were one of the Exhibitors at The Sunday Times Festival of Education at my old school, Wellington College. This was a unique event with presenters ranging from OW Rory Bremner to Michael Gove MP, Lord Baker to Germaine Greer and the Duchess of Kent to my old economics teacher John McArthur (now at ISCO). I counted 84 speakers in total who waxed lyrical on everything from dyslexia to addiction, the disadvantages of exams (too late) and British schools preparing a world class workforce. I was busy preaching the WEXO word and getting people to guess how many sweets were in the jar (217 – well done Mark Little on 210 – your £50 M&S voucher is on its way) but I did make it to the last of these talks. John Morewood, Graduate Recruitment Manager of HSBC (my old shop), Hugh Husband (McKinseys), Sir Anthony Cleaver (nice red socks) et al discussed how poor numeracy and literacy are from applicants (please at least use spell check for starters). The audience then quizzed the panel about children not knowing what to study for specific vocations (we have just started working with www.u-xplore.com to this very end). At the end, it was particularly interesting to hear the Secretary of State for Education talk about his new ambitions including a return to traditional A-levels with exams at the end of 2 years. Bizarrely, his patter sounded more socialist than capitalist and I was particularly impressed with his ability to take 6 questions in a row and then address each in turn with no more than a glass of water in his hands. There seems to be a common view (which I subscribe to) that teachers need to be better trained and supported; and that this country needs to focus more on Science, Engineering, Maths & Technology.

On Monday, WEXO were honoured to be invited to a Gala Dinner at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate The Prince of Wales’s 25th Year as President of Business in the Community (BITC). HRH, Sir Stuart Rose, Philip Green and Stephen Howard were there to present the prizes and Stephen Fry compèred. It was uplifting to hear such homage paid to HRH. It even made me wonder whether Price Charles was in fact a force for good?! It was a shame that Sir Stuart’s Work Inspiration initiative, which WEXO wholeheartedly supports, (and as a business you can too here) was not referenced; but it was encouraging to see SMEs recognised in The Small Company of the Year Award which went to the wool company Herdy. Was it their lamb that was so delectably rustled up with the buttered spring greens and warm rosemary vinaigrette (washed down with lashings of Rothschild Viognier Vin de Pays)?

After three days of hard labour, on Wednesday evening I was due a break and got invited to go and play tennis at Buckingham Palace (pathetically childish excitement ensued). A great friend works for the royal family (now there’s a WEXO blog we’d like to read) and had been asked if she’d like to use the tennis court. The gardens at ‘BP’ are lush and beautiful and HRH has one of the biggest flower pots known to man. Sadly the only Queen in residence was of the Apoidea variety.

Robin Kennedy
Co-Founder & CEO
WEXO

P.S. As per a recent Press Release, WEXO is campaigning to let SMEs recoup the costs of a 3 month paid internship from forthcoming VAT hike. To register your support, please comment below.

Last Wednesday evening, WEXO and 5 of our members, attended one of a series of ‘Big Conservation’s’ organised by Work Inspiration at ITV studios. Work Inspiration is a campaign run by Business in the Community’s (BITC), to make work experience more inspiring. Established in September 2009, it is already on track to meet its aspirational target of 100,000 Work Inspiration placements by September 2010.

Wednesday’s event was a ‘Big Conversation’ for the creative industries and WEXO was invited along as one of the exclusive advisory partners. The forum involved 100 Chief Executives and 100 young people meeting to discuss how to improve young people’s first experience of the world of work. The Work Inspiration Campaign is led by Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of BITC and Marks & Spencer.

Watch the video below to find out more about the Work Inspiration Initiative:

Last Wednesday’s discussion highlighted the great success of the programme to date but also the huge amount of work still to do.

One young person I spoke to at the event recalled how his earlier work experience had seen him spend a week stacking supermarket shelves! Having tried unsuccessfully to secure himself work experience in his chosen field of journalism, he was left with the last pick of opportunities from the ‘catalogue book’ of work experience offered to students, ending up in a job that was completely irrelevant to his interests. This was just one of a number of similar stories I heard that night. Clearly something needs to change here.

While the majority of large companies now offer some sort of internship programme, Wednesday night’s event concluded that unfortunately these are often not structured in a way that puts young people first. In order to change this status quo Work Inspiration have come up with ideas to help employers make their opportunities more effective.

• 1. All About Me – Discover the young person’s own passions and interests as the starting point to providing an inspiring first experience of the world of work.
• 2. Look Behind The Scenes: Introduce young people to the wide variety and scope of different jobs and roles in any business.
• 3. Careers Happen: Bring alive for young people how careers unfold, and how their first job can be the start of their journey.

These ideas are all about creating a better future environment for young people and with this in mind WEXO would love to hear your feedback.Do you think they miss anything? Do you think there is more we can do? What was your work experience like? In today’s environment work experience is more important than ever, let us help you get the most out of it. We look forward to your input.

Paul
WEXO TEAM

WITH THEIR mere presence the ambassador’s were spoiling us on Friday. We invited all of the WEXO clan down to London for the afternoon – Emanuelle Ronez (at Durham), Ellie Dawkins (Bournemouth), Tiggy Grafton (Bournemouth), George Lumbers (Edinburgh), Philip Leonard (Edinburgh), Nell Fane (Exeter), Rosana Littleton (Exeter), Jack Roberts (UCL), Georgie Humphries (Leeds), Jenny Maguire (LSE), John De Graft Johnson (LSE), Olivia Flatley (Manchester) along with our original WEXO ambassador and organiser of the entire even, Emma Roberts (LSE).


We all met up at East London’s fave members club and were treated to a sort of ‘tomorrow’s world’ (anyone remember that program?!) of the way we communicate online. With plenty of food for thought we then carried our hungry tummies across to Pizza East, Shoreditch House’s sister restaurant to eat, drink and merrily chat about what we all want to do with our lives. Next was the big WEXO competition – they who cometh up with the best idea for WEXO shall inherriteth a bottle of Krug champers!. Very exciting stuff. The winning idea was to have a chat facility on WEXO so that people looking for an internship can have a natter on the site. Well done brainy Jack Roberts and look out for WEXO chat coming very soon!

Please feel free to discuss some of the other brilliant ideas from Friday, were always looking for ways to improve WEXO and who better to tell us that the people who use it!


Jack Receiving his bottle of Krug!

Since we started WEXO it has been really useful to receive your feedback – and particularly from those of you wanting to get involved with what we do here. Over the last few months we have signed some of you up to the WEXO Ambassador Programme. This initiative is designed to give you a bit of virtual work experience whilst helping us spread the word about WEXO.

This Friday we will be hosting the first in a series of Ambassador events where we will bring a bunch of you guys down to meet companies that YOU have expressed interest in. We here at WEXO recognise the importance of that personal touch.

The day will consist of an informal chat over lunch followed by a guest speaker. So after some food to eat we will give you some food for thought. On this occasion the speaker is Paul Harrison from Carve Consulting. Paul is an expert in the area of social media and has consulted for a number of multinational companies. WEXO aims to arm people with all the information they could possibly need to easily find that perfect role.

Following the talk you will then get the chance to meet companies that YOU have expressed an interest in and will be able to discuss what they are looking for and what a career in their respective fields would be like. Armed with this information and having experienced first hand all that WEXO is about these Ambassadors will then go out and fly the WEXO flag at Universities across the UK. Keep an eye out for one near you soon!

WEXO – ‘It’s not who you know, it’s who you are’