The time of year has arrived to compete in the search for the Holy
Grail.
The Holy Grail is not a lion at Cannes, or a gold in the Campaign
awards, or even Arsenal regaining the Premiership - but being lucky
enough to gain a place on an advertising graduate training scheme.
With the job market fluctuating and increasingly competitive, the number
of us graduates vying for a place can, at times, seem like mission
impossible.
The knowledge that almost 2,000 other applicants are applying for the
six or so coveted positions can lead one to think that it would probably
be easier to land a job as an astronaut than one in advertising.
However, this is not to say that I, as a hopeful graduate, will be
deterred from entering into this process. Quite the contrary, but all
that I ask is that organisations give a little more thought as to what
they are asking final-year graduates to undertake.
The current situation of trying to co-ordinate filling in what are
commonly regarded in university circles as the hardest of application
forms, with meeting essay deadlines and course work targets, is quite a
daunting task.
And interviews, for successful candidates, are inevitably held during
January and February - the very time when students are sitting half of
their final exams.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, we then have to find the money for the
costs of travelling and, in many cases, staying over, for
interviews.
In the majority of cases (admittedly only the first interview stage),
these costs are not reimbursed and can make another hefty contribution
to a student’s overdraft.
All I ask is that when interviewing a prospective candidate, agency
chiefs pause for a moment and consider what the hopeful students have
already gone through just to reach this early stage.
