First impressions count

Over the past few weeks, people might have found themselves with slightly more time on their hands. Some will be worried about the potential risk of redundancy. Others are immediately available and looking for work and there are also people who are not proactively looking for a new position right now but starting to think about the future. Whatever your situation, we recommend taking this time to review and sharpen up your cv and portfolio… so when the times comes and you need or want to find your next career move, you’re ready!

We asked some industry experts for their thoughts and very kindly they responded with some great advice they wanted to share, to help anyone that needs it. Thank you to Michael Vines (Creative Director at RBH; Jon Sharpe (Creative Director at BigCat); David Bardell (Independent Creative Director) Sam Waterfall (Founder of the Obvious Candidate), Andy Rouse (Creative Director at Eastside Co) and Andy Herbert (Creative Services Director/Ops Director. Ex McCann).

We all hope you find the following useful and please do get in touch if you want to chat through any of this. We’re still open and working hard to support you and weather this storm with you.

Cover Letter – Stand out or be forgotten

• Andy Rouse “If you’re applying for a job, think what you could do to demonstrate this trait of graft AND talent, if you have it. I recently had a junior drop his CV and folio off in person, rather than email them like everyone else - guess what, it worked, he tried harder”.
• Jon Sharpe “Get my attention. Stand out or be forgotten. I can count the applications I recall from last year on one hand. They were all well written and creative. Either with wit or a rhyme or a story – whatever works for the individual. Anything but a basic email or worse blanket email. Send it to the person who’ll hire you and find out about what resonates with them – you’re essentially advertising and they’re your target audience.

CV – Less really is more

• David Bardell and Sam Waterfall ”The key idea is to be OBVIOUS to the READER. Don't tell them everything you've ever done. (They don't want to read it)...Do the edit for them and share with them only what is relevant (and ideally recent) for them. Include a link to your online portfolio - and/or use the image / media upload feature of LinkedIn to make a very accessible core portfolio. Leverage the work you've done with / for known brands. Leverage work that won / contributed to design effectiveness awards etc. Do showcase 3-5 MOST IMPRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENTS on your CV. Could be impressive by £value or by creativity or wow impact or world first or by the brand you did it for. (Or several of these).
• Michael Vines “I may have been a copywriter almost all of my career, but I dislike having to read too much. I find many candidates use up a lot of real estate on their CVs telling me stuff I don’t need to know. What I want upfront is where they work and have worked, what their job title is and what their skills are. Most other details can be left for the last page”.
• Jon Sharp “ Within the creative sector, I find them pretty functional not inspirational. It’s there to tell me key facts – nothing more. Don’t over design or complicate it, marketing it hard to find basic stuff. As a CD I can hazard a guess at what a creative role has entailed so no in-depth descriptions of day-to-day duties are needed. If something was stand out then fine. Use the cover letter/email to tell me all about how badass you are”
• Andy Herbert “Make sure that you don’t write a long list of skills on your CV – summarise and show what is important and unique to you. Skills are important but through your CV, portfolio and interview you need to demonstration your attitude, passion and drive…that’s what I want to see.”

Portfolio – personalise, get creative and be clear

• Andy Rouse “Personalise. How I wish I’d learned this earlier in my career. Don’t throw a load of random work together, make your folio about the agency you are approaching - showing sector or skill relevant work. It’s what we’re looking for, someone who can do our work”.
• Michael Vines “Many portfolios include work that isn’t portfolio-worthy. While people may want to show their breadth of experience, it’s far more compelling if they can demonstrate original creative thinking. I’ve hired a few people based on a single page of their portfolios. Don’t show me a 12-page brochure, show me an idea that I wish I came up with myself. It needn’t be work that’s been produced. It could just be a scamp”.
• Andy Rouse “Understand that when we advertise a job we will perhaps read dozens of CV’s and folios, if not more. Don’t make us click a link that leads to a download which we then have to unzip”.
• Jon Sharp “Keep it simple. It’s there to showcase the work not detract from it. It’s the work I care about. I’m looking for ideas and craft. However you do it, show both. Be clear about what YOU did on a project. It’s fine to say ‘we did this’ and ‘we did that’ when talking about worked created at an agency – it’s habit – but if questioned directly, have an answer! What was YOUR contribution. I kind of like the start strong, peak in the middle, finish strong approach, but every CD/interviewer is different. Just please, please don’t show me something you’re not proud of for one reason or another.