Visiting Advertising Agencies in Los Angeles (Industry Advice & Resumes)

I flew into LA this week to tour 7 different advertising agencies with the Texas Advertising Group from The University of Texas at Austin.

I major in advertising at UT. I go to The Stan Richards School of Advertising, we’re the #1 advertising school in the country btw. This summer I need to get an internship at an agency for class credit. I wanted to get a feel of what agencies were like out here in LA, and get insight on what agencies look for in interns.

I’m currently in a state of information overload from all the advice and information we’ve received over the past couple of days.

The agencies we visited:

-Mullen Lowe/ Mediahub

-David & Goliath

-72andSunny

-Team One

-Anomaly

-Chiat Day

-OMD

Advice from Advertising Professionals:

• Be curious, always ask questions and connect with other departments outside of your internship description

• Prepare for late nights and social life sacrifices (advertising is an intense and driven industry)

• Send follow up emails after interviews/ applications

• Connect with recruiters, HR, or people in the department of the company you desire on LinkedIn

• Keep your Linked in up to date and post regularly

• Network with people in the industry

• Be yourself in your internship application and try to sell yourself in a unique way to stand out

• Important to have a side-hustle and hobbies outside of work

• Don’t forget to experience life, going out and living increases creativity

• Practice work-life balance

• The tenure in advertising is usually from 2-3 years before people switch agencies

• They all said LA is more relaxed than New York, ahah

• You don’t have to know how to use applications perfectly, but show you’re capable of learning

• Take online certifications (google analytics, google Adsense, etc.)

• Research the agency and know what ads they’ve done, awards they’ve won, what brands they work with, etc.

• If your application has a section for you to tell your story, use it to your advantage- make them feel something

• Apply to more than one internship

• Always interview the interviewer

• Let agencies know upfront you are actively interviewing with more than one company

• Don’t talk about old work if the company does not still work with a certain brand (do your homework on who they work with currently)

• If the job is in a different city/ state/ country, make sure you are ready and have done your research on moving to the location of the job before you even apply

Resume Advice:

• Keep your bullets short but descriptive

• Cater your resume to the position you’re applying to (no resume should be submitted to two different jobs

• One page is appropriate for an intern/undergrad experience level

• Try to make yours look different

• Don’t put a picture of you on your resume, it creates a subconscious bias

• One of the recruiters at an agency we went to told me that I should edit my resume to hype myself up more! She said she wants to know what I did that made me so valuable that the company needed me.

• Structure descriptions of I did this and the result was

• Put certifications on resume

Questions to ask at your interview:

• What does a typical workday look like to you?

• What is the timeline for the application process?

• What’s been your favorite work you’ve done?

• Ask about a specific award they’ve won or work they’ve done

• What does the company culture look like?

• What is the work-life balance like?

• What skills do you like to see interns come in with?

• Do your interns get offered full-time positions?

• What is something you wish you knew before agency life?

• What resources do you provide to your employees?

• What are the perks of working here?

• Ask about team dynamics and personalities

Overall advertising is a very intense industry. Everyone talked about how in advertising sometimes you don’t go home for weeks at a time. You shower at work, you don’t sleep, etc. This is an industry where everyone feels the pressure to hustle and prove themselves in the beginning.

People in advertising are a certain breed, and we recognize that. I hope this blog post gave you valuable insight from the agency world. Good luck applying to college internships!