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My names David Pullan, I work in the media industry, I work for an agency called Mindshare,
and I run the relationship globally with are biggest client which in Unilever.
It's marketing, and what we do is that we don't make the ads, we buy the space in which
the ads run. So we buy everything from outdoor to television to digital, anything that's
about getting a communication message to the consumer, we fill that space.
Marketing is changing incredibly quickly, what we need in the model organisation, is
we need a mix of digital natives, people who for whom this is just the way things have
been, who who it's natural to have three screens, for whom it's natural to be on your twitter
feed while your watching television. First it's people like me who sit there on twitter
going I don't know what to say. So I think the value of youth is, youth is closer to
where the sharp end of marketing actually is nowadays, and youth is about not just understanding
it but living it, a really important part of the mix.
When you see people come for interviews and they walk in and they've done no research
on the company, they've done no research on you, I mean social media exists so that you
can look me up, be linked in, find out what I've done and then you can walk in to the
interview and go, god I've seen you at deconstruction, I love that record that you put out in de..
And the immediately you've got a connection. If somebody walks in and says nothing, then
I'm sorry it's not going to cut it.
I think my top five tips would be, Number one, have a point of view, we are looking
for people who have a point of view, this is business about clients.
Second tip is when you present yourself, think about your account managing the person that
your talking to, you're sending a letter, you're making a phone call, you're writing
an email, think about structuring that communication really carefully because that's you demonstrating
that you know how to work with a client, because that's what our business is about
The third thing is don't expect too much, you know, you're not, if your an intern in
a business like this, you're not going to be doing big strategic work on dove, you know
you're not going to be writing a strategy for the next variant of acts or links as it
is in this country. If your smart and you listen and you contribute, you'll get an opportunity
to do more than the job description, but be patient.
The fourth thing is be patient, when you're here, you know listen, do what your asked
to do, but you know look for opportunities because it will come and if your ready and
you've got a thought, or an idea and you've listened and you've pulled it together and
you've gone what about x, it's a very meritocratic environment so if its a good idea it doesn't
matter where it comes from, it could come from me or the person from the team it's equally
valid. Think about the advantage you have as a young
person in being right on the cutting edge of digital media its transforming everything,
it's transforming the way out clients, not just my client but the whole company, how
they work, how they spend their marketing money, you've got an advantage use it, put
it together in a kind of way that can help somebody to make a better decision and contribute
that into the discussion and you know you will be a hero.
Qualifications do help, I mean there's a reason why people say to you at school to pay attention,
you know try and do well because it does matter. It's an easier way of getting noticed, it's
an easier way to stand out from the pack, but it's not the only way. If you don't have
great qualifications, if school wasn't particularly your cup of tea then my advice would be build
your CV that's not about academic success, you know volunteer, get involved in charity
work, start a website do a blog, get involved, you know do things in your community because
what people want is for you to be pro active, if you demonstrate that your pro active, no
matter what you did at school, because you got involved and you made things happen, you
got of your *** and you actually created something, that will make you stand out, because what
your looking for is people that show evidence, drive and a bit of get up and go and have
entrepreneurial spirit.
Successfully chatting someone up is about finding a connection, it's about trying to
understand something about them that gives you a way to get a connection and makes them
interested in you. You know when your trying to approach a company, you've got to take
the same kind of approach, you have to understand who they are and what they are going to be
interested in, you've got to do some research, you know social media exists to make it easier
to find stuff out about certain individuals, you know the Internet is there to find stuff
out about companies. So if you see a girl in a club that's a friend of a friend your
going to ask what's she into, what music does she like, and then your going to use that
as an approach, use the same approach for a company, find out what companies all about,
find out how it ticks, it's businesses, what the cultures like then use that to create
your approach that will be much more successful then just going over saying my mate fancies
you