1.Situation

In MYPRODUCT14 I detailed how through an unpaid internship I got in 2000 my first job in advertising at Graffiti / BBDO, as Junior Account in the Client Service department.

I started the internship with the objective to receive a job offer from the agency at the end of my two months of activity in Graffiti / BBDO. This happened and so I began my professional journey in the communication area.

2.Task

But how did I get this internship? What were the motivation and stages? How simple this process was?

3.Action

The conversation with a friend who was employed in an advertising agency represented the trigger for this process. She noted that in our conversations I have a passionate approach when we were discussing topics related to the TV commercials from those times. And she underlined this fact to me.

After a deep analysis during the night I decided that my professional goal is to be hired in an advertising agency.

But I had nothing to recommend me for a job in advertising. No experience, no studies, no connections.

So I decided to work on remedying these issues.

First of all, in 1999 I joined the Faculty of Communication and Public Relations from SNSPA.

Then I analysed the departments from an advertising agency and I decided that my profile suits the responsibilities of the Customer Service department.

Later I sent CVs for employment to all advertising agencies from Bucharest. As in 1999, the internet, email, social media platforms were not developed as today, the process of finding contacts and sending applications was a tricky one, inclusively involving printed CVs left at the receptions from the agencies.

I sent dozens of CVs and I got only one meeting interview with Ms. Manuela Necula who at that time was in charge of D’Arcy’s Customer Service department. A meeting with no employment offer for me.

I quickly realized that this CVs transmission process through which I request my employment will not lead me soon to positive results, reason why I changed the strategy.

I defined my top 10 advertising agencies from Bucharest where I want to be hired and I sent letters asking them to be accepted for a 2 months unpaid internship.

I took the internship while holding the job I had at that time as an Assistant Manager at Automobil Club Roman. The fact that I was working at ACR in 12/24-hour shifts gave me the advantage of setting up in advance a very clear monthly schedule, which allowed me to go 4 out of 5 working days at internship, and during the rest of the time, including weekends, to continue my paid job from ACR.

I allocated two months for the internship because I considered that it was a long enough period to be involved in the agency’s projects, and to be notified and evaluated later based on my achievements.

4.Results

7 or 8 agencies out of the 10 approached were interested to have a meeting.

Graffiti/BBDO was the first agency who responded to me. We met, we liked and we agreed to start immediately the internship.

So in the period of January-February 2000 I run my internship as Junior Account and at the end of this period I received an employment offer from the agency.

5.Key Leanings

For me, getting the ideal job I wanted in an advertising agency was not at all simple, involving a lengthy process and many sacrifices.

If you are in the beginning of your professional career, an internship represents the way to be involved in real projects and to prove your potential and usefulness to employers. It may be a more difficult way to be hired but with determination and a clearly established plan you have very good chances of success.

Notification: MYPRODUCT reflects my real professional experience and expertise as well as my subjectivity. I do have a profound respect for all the companies I collaborated to and for all the people I worked with. It is not my intention to approach any sensitive, confidential or offending information related to companies, projects or people. If you the reader deduct or recognise companies, projects or people in my examples, I kindly ask you to respect MYPRODUCT and my professional and ethic approach and to not share any detail, information, situation, name, company.