To live or die in Chi-town

October 26, 2008 11:37 AM

Asking for a friend: How might she go about finding gainful employment in Chicago? She's two years out of college, graphics design major, working for a printer in middle America, and wants the bright lights, big city. Marketing would be the dream job for her. Any advice? Recruiting agencies? Pounding the pavement? The Internet hasn't worked so well for her.
posted by cameradv to work & money (9 comments total)

The internet is a terrible place to find a job, but a perfect place for an employer. If you apply on the internet (or from classified ads) you will be one of 1,000 resumes. It is very difficult to get noticed.

The best way to get a job is through connections. You call your connections, who may have offers but probably won't. Then, you ask them if they know anyone (hence the word networking) who may have a job offer (not that DOES have an offer, that MAY have an offer). Then you call those people and say that your mutual friend X suggested that you give a call, and inquire about jobs. When they don't have any, you ask them for people to call and repeat the process.

If you don't have any connections, try your connections for connections (college prof know anyone in Chicago? any alum that you can look up? is your favorite middle school teacher from chicago? aunt sally's neighbor that you've never met but aunt sally can introduce you to?) If that doesn't yield any connections, you have to cold call and attend join professional organizations (which you should still join or attend later.) You cold call and ask for jobs, after developing a ten second script that says why you are the greatest person ever. You will get rejected a million times before you get a single list of people to call. But this is compared to getting rejected ten million times on the internet.

You can also build a network as you job search. Join a church, neighborhood civic group, etc that is full of people that you can introduce yourself to. This is obviously much more difficult if you don't actually live in the same city.

If using connections feels dirty, I'm very sorry. You'll feel dirty but get a job.
posted by Pants! at 11:57 AM on October 26, 2008

Try some of the ad agencies like Leo Burnett, DDB, Draft, Element 79, etc... Usually there is pretty good turnaround for entry-level agency positions.
posted by ISeemToBeAVerb at 12:14 PM on October 26, 2008

To follow on ISeemToBeAVerb's advice, apply to be an admin assistant or receptionist at one of those places. Yes, it's a crummy job, but high turnover and there's your foot in the door. At the NYC-based firm I worked at, this was a common path, and no one looked down on you because you started in reception or the mailroom.
posted by mkultra at 12:27 PM on October 26, 2008

As someone who has spent his entire career out of college at Chicago ad agencies and is now client-side in a marketing role, I might be able to shed some light on the industry here...

First off, good luck to her finding a job in this economy. The first thing that gets cut when the business is down is marketing budgets which affects all of the agencies and marketing departments.

That said, I'm hearing some vague things here...she's a graphics design major, but wants a marketing job? It doesn't sound like that is really her background...marketing is more the business side of things... In any event, she needs to get her feet wet and an internship is the best way to do it. So it might mean working at Starbucks and interning at a company a couple days a week to get your foot in the door and make connections.

Also, maybe target smaller companies that, due to their small size, tend to try to hire kids fresh out of college who are willing to do a lot for a little. Sound exploitative? Welcome to the industry. My first job was at a small ad agency doing account management and I got paid crap. But I did get to wear many hats that enabled me to demand much better pay at my next job. What you sacrifice in pay in the short term will likely more than be made up for by the experience you get that you can leverage in salary discussions for your next job.

I'd also recommend joining an association like the 4A's, Ad Fed, Chicago Marketing Association, etc. They all have good networking events for people breaking into the industry and volunteering at those events is a great way to make industry contacts.

One other piece of advice I'd give as someone who has interviewed people trying to break into the industry is make a decision on what you want to do and be knowledgeable about the typical roles/responsibilities. For example, I'd interview people who when asked what they wanted to do weren't sure whether they wanted to be on the creative or account side of things. Those are two completely different career tracks. One involves you using Photoshop all day, the other has you dealing with budgets/schedules/clients all day. Compare that to someone who would come in and say "I'm interested in account management, my expectation is that the job would have me do X,Y,Z and those are all skills I enjoy using and have a good track record in based on X,Y,Z experience."

Guess which one I'll bring back for another interview? The one who knows the job they want because it means much fewer surprises for them and me.

If she has design skills and is looking for short term work, she can consider companies like Creative Circle, Aquent, etc. But be forewarned, those companies will have you jump through a LOT of hoops and string you along endlessly with no guarantee of work. They just want you to sign up with them so they can brag that they have X number of people available for work.

Last time I was in between jobs I tried those companies and decided against signing with any of them because of the restrictive terms of their contracts and the fact that they were stringing me along endlessly. Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, hope that helps. Happy to answer additional questions.
posted by Elminster24 at 1:17 PM on October 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

Has she tried interning?
posted by k8t at 2:21 PM on October 26, 2008

I'm the friend in question here. Decided to pay the $5 and weigh in on this myself.

Here's some more background:

Experience:
I currently work for a commercial printer. I have learned a lot in two years working for this company and have built a fairly solid portfolio for someone with my experience. In college, I was the layout editor for a publication and had an internship designing marketing materials for a history and science museum. I also keep quite busy with freelance work. I have experience working with local customers as well as national and a few international ones. I've designed business cards, trading cards, postcards, brochures, flyers, mailers, posters, CDs, children's books, etc.

Education:
BA in graphic design, minor in marketing
Would love to go back to school! MBA (emphasis on marketing) if it would help me break into a job

Dream Job:
I really love the art side of marketing. Make sense? Bear with me.... I want to do the marketing for a product - decide the target market, how to market to them, what appeals to the audience, etc. I am not interested in being a salesperson, or organizing events (that's for someone else on the team), but I don't want to just be told "here's the audience, here's the main idea, now make an ad." I want a say in front end too. Anyone know exactly what this position would be called?!? It's graphic deisgn.... but its marketing too.


Other Jobs I'd Like:
Art Director for a magazine.
Senior Designer for design firm or ad agency (work with a variety of clients)
Anything else that will allow me to come to work and feel like I'm doing something worthwhile and making a difference

Why Chicago:
It's a bigger city with bigger opportunities and I have a few friends there. (friends, but not great connections when it comes to getting a job)
I'm not dead set on Chicago, it's just a place to start.

I appreciate any advice! Thanks all!
posted by designbyme at 9:06 PM on October 26, 2008

That sounds great but to be a senior designer you first have to intern ( or be lucky to get an entry level job), then be a junior designer first. I think it took me about 4 years to be considered and I was very lucky, fast tracked, started in a great economy and put in unpaid overtime (60+ hrs a week) to get to that point.

The reality is that as a designer in small award winning firm in Chicago I spent more of my time dealing with clients than designing. What you want sounds great but you will have to work your way up, especially coming from a printer.

If you get another degree you will still be starting from the bottom without the appropriate experience. I think Chicago is a good market because there are a lot of headquarters and businesses based here. I sent out my resume cold to firms who had work in award annuals that I liked and had to turn down offers. That was almost ten years ago. Unfortunately there's a glut of designers and wannabe designers and a bad economy working against you. Good luck.
posted by Bunglegirl at 11:22 PM on October 26, 2008

I'd like to chime in and say I'm very grateful for this thread. I'm currently pursuing a BA in advertising... with the goal of moving to Chicago and working in advertising there. There's so much useful advice in here!
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:14 PM on November 20, 2008

Thanks for all the advice for my friend. As she's now in the me-fi community, from now on I'll let her ask her own questions. Since this is a work in progress, I'll mark the thread "resolved" but I couldn't choose a best answer from all the helpful advice.
posted by cameradv at 8:52 AM on December 8, 2008