Ah, D&AD New Blood season. When Shoreditch fills with bright young things showing off their wares and trying everything and anything to get a job. 

As any creative knows, getting that all-important first foot in the door is bloody difficult. That’s why Jason and Joris, who look after our placement scheme, thought they’d do a talk that shows students that there are other ways to grab the attention of prospective employers. Thus “How to get into a creative department without getting arrested” was born.

It all kicked off with a chat from Iain Tait about advertising’s constant struggle to create the “world’s first”, no matter how ridiculous that world’s first is. He said that instead of looking at the newest tech, we should be looking a little further back at more mainstream tech and using it in smarter ways. 

Which (sort of) neatly segued into Jason and Joris’ talk. They showed smart student projects that had caught their eye, and then talked about other clever ways that people had gotten their portfolios in front of prospective employers. 

Saving the best until last, they finished with urban legends of people going to extreme lengths to land a job. Examples of ‘what not to do’ included everything from dogs testicles being posted to us here at Wieden+Kennedy (that one’s true – please don’t try it), to chickens being let loose in an office with CVs attached to their necks (again, also true) and even a team who had an agency’s logo tattooed on themselves (100% definitely true)*.

* If you’re reading this and thinking “oooh, that was me”, what were you thinking?! 

Such was the excitement that we forgot to take our own photo.