“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

On Tuesday 8th February we’ll be holding the first of our ‘How I Made It’ official Q&A careers events intended to introduce students, graduates and young professionals to different opportunities and industries in the working world.

We’ll be kicking off with “How I Made It In Advertising: Brands, the Big 4 and beyond…” at 6.30pm on Tuesday 8th February at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, London – where Jimi Hendrix played his last gig.

WEXO is all about privileged access and we will be featuring a panel of advertising executives who have spent time at the world’s four biggest advertising groups: WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and Interpublic as well as ITV, Orange and Dunhill.

It will follow a BBC Question Time format focusing on pre-polled questions including: “What impact is social media having on the advertising industry?”,“What opportunities are available?” and “Why have some campaigns been so successful?”. There will be a ‘money can’t buy’ prize for the best question which you can submit when you register…

We’re continually hearing that you don’t know enough about the working world to make informed decisions so we’re trying to give you the inside story direct from the people that hold the roles you might be best suited to. Watch this space for the next events, let us know what industries you’d like to hear about below or sign up for the event now.

The idea sprang from the “How I Made it in Fashion” event that WEXO co-hosted with the LSE Fashion Society in November 2010. It featured a panel including the Retail Editor of Vogue, Emily Zak, Chloe Lonsdale, Founder of MiH Jeans and the fashion journalist, Kinvara Balfour. The event was oversubscribed and substantiated the view that young people are seeking more pertinent careers advice. A recent Ofsted survey suggested that one in three schools are failing to give good advice to students about future career prospects. A report by Deloitte said that 95% of young people want employers to be more involved in providing guidance about careers citing that they feel ‘bewildered’ and ‘uninformed’ by the career choices on offer.

The problem we’re seeing daily is that students and graduates don’t always understand the roles on offer and so aren’t necessarily focusing on the ones that they’re best cut out for. This is only exaggerated by a difficult job market. For every 2 people we place there are 8 that we don’t. We’re trying to give all 10 of you the inside story direct from the people that hold the roles you might be best suited to.

There’s always been material available from careers advisers and universities but by filming these events we’re hoping to build up an interesting online archive of enlightening content that will help you understand the career you deserve.

Robin Kennedy

Photos courtesy of Chu Ting Ng at The Qualifiedblog.

All well in WEXO Towers…

We’ve just signed up our 70th company (looking to launch to users when we get to 3 figures) but one of the comments we come up against occasionally is “Why would we want to open up our offices to more work experience students?”. The companies we talk to are generally of two types. Company X is small, dynamic and growing and welcomes talented graduates (on the cheap) with open arms. Company Y tends to be larger, more conservative and already gets quantities of applications for work experience, feels compelled to accept some (especially from clients’ children etc) but does not necessarily subscribe to the benefits.

Company X is most commonly found in the Media sector (especially PR and Advertising). Company Y typically comes from vocationally geared sectors. Company Y is more often sold on what WEXO can provide in terms of marketing, matching and managing applications through the scarily named Web 2.0 tools and STP (Straight Through Processing) techniques that we provide.

An article by Rosie Gamble in the Sunday Times last weekend picked up on this theme. Despite a tacky title, it made a compelling case for student placements not necessarily being a burden. The argument here was that in smaller companies in particular, giving students responsibility gave them the impetus to rise to the challenge - and being new to the working world they often did so with a fresh perspective. With internships in particular (placements of 2 months plus), companies could really benefit, effectively conducting long term interviews that enabled them to then hire the best students in good faith when they left their studies.

The biggest problems then came down to how you sourced and picked your candidates. The answer here of course is WEXO…