Find ways to be relevant

Obviously I'm posting this at work.

It's ok. I didn't take lunch today, so this is my compensation.

Now to my point.

We are in a terrible economic crisis (this is no Great Depression, unemployment isn't even as high as it was in 90/91 let alone the recession of the 70s), it's hard to get a job in this economy and hard to keep a job.

This advice is for people in both situations.

Find a way to be relevant.

Maintain a blog, make sure it's funny, its poignant, and it has a raison d'etre (cultivate yourself and look that phrase up). Be sure to post on it regularly. Include it in your book.  It will show ways you think creatively outside of just advertising.

Not the writing type. Maintain a photojournal, same rules apply. Start a web comic, do something that shows your creativity and shows that you have stick-to-itiveness. 

I write a weekly report on my major client and send it to the entire team, from the GCD to the Account VP. I gleam message board threads that mention campaigns we're working on, things the client is doing that pisses off or pleases their customers, and their customers wish list of things.

I use the stuff I learn to write copy. When the client pushes back, my account people have research that proves why the copy will be effective. Account loves me, my CD respects me, and I amuse my team. It also gives me something to do other than surf the web when I'm between products.

One of my former instructors at CPS, serves as his agency's Creative Town Crier. He finds cool work being produced and shows it to the creative team, creating bulletin board material for his team to beat when they go into a pitch. This guys an award winning senior writer who probably skips his lunch hour to do this work, but guess what: everybody in his shop knows his name for a good reason.

Start a freelance business.

I've got a friend who's running a Freelance shop, while hunting for a job. It may turn into  something huge, it may be something to do until a job comes along. But there's always new work to show that's being paid for by an actual client.

Show that you've got the ambition to do this whether they hire you or not. Show that you know what its like to deal with clients, even if its on a much smaller scale. 

Those who can be trusted to put hard work into little things, will be trusted to put hard work into big things.

No one's going to hand you a job right now.

Sorry.

But if you find a way to show that you're harder working, more ambitions, and a creative thinker, someone will take a chance on you.

PJL