What's this assignment all about?
In a few short weeks .... or months, and months are made of weeks .... you'll be exiting one door and entering another. No longer a student, you'll be all set to reach those career goals you've been nurturing over the past four years. This assignment will help you strategize your next steps. Don't get caught out in May, by then you need to have set wheels in motion.
The plan is to bring in speakers from ad agencies and client companies, destinations you may well end up in, to help you understand the steps you need to take in your senior year.
You'll hear about internship schemes, deadlines for internship applications, crafting a cracking portfolio, personal journeys, and how the creative landscape has changed and is changing. You'll dig deep and create a wishlist of destinations - dream big, little fish, the ocean is vast and you can swim wherever you like.
You'll create a striking resume, and a cover letter, an attention-grabbing LinkedIn, and you'll have a strategy plan for next steps.
How do we go about this?
Well, research, of course. You'll be introduced to people and resources. Those people are resources too, actually. You'll have to do a ton of leg work yourselves. Look, find, network, discover, apply. All the research will be collected in a research folder and you will produce a report using Adobe Express. A bit like this but much more interesting and compelling!
You will have information from different agency websites and industry publications, an understanding of how the process works, you may want to interview or continue conversations with folks like our invited speakers. Collect all this material and then use it.
Deliverables?
A report (don't ask about word-count - I'm not counting, I just want it to be substantial - you're seniors now, you need to make a judgment call) in Adobe Express that includes:
- An overview of the recruiting landscape in the creative fields (don't necessarily be restricted by advertising - think design, product, production, etc)
- A strategy plan for landing an internship and/or entry level job with a timeline
- A hack list for an attention-grabbing portfolio
- A resume that does the job
- A cover letter that sells, sells, sells .... you!
- A screenshot of plus link to your LinkedIn
- A hit list of targeted industry influential folks (not influencers, actually people who are actually influential!)
Anything else?
If anything does come up - ask.
If I think of anything else - I'll brief you.