I’m sure that you’ve all visited our fantabulous job board at on talentzoo.com, right?  Well if you haven’t, I highly recommend it. It provides you with the opportunity to apply directly to the hottest advertising jobs out there. You can also send your resume into the TZ team to be considered for our current recruiting assignments. Shameless enough plug for you?(You’re welcome Marketing Dept!) If you have had a chance to visit our job board, you know that our recruiting assignment postings all provide a list of specific qualifications that you must possess in order to be considered for the job. This includes years of advertising experience, specific mediums and types of accounts you’ve worked on (ie: CPG, financial or telecom) and so on. Okay, now that you have the background info, it’s story time. One day, not too long ago, my Outlook alerted me that there was a new application sent in for an Account Executive position that I was recruiting for. The agency REQUIRED 2-3 years of agency experience with traditional mediums and a CPG/Beverage background. Easy enough, right? I opened up the candidate’s resume hoping that it would be the perfect fit for the agency, aka: my next placement.  I look at 300+ resumes every day, so at this point, I’ve mastered the art of the “quick scan.”  As I’m perusing, I come across the “experience” section, which includes the following: a 6 month stint as a sales associate at Old Navy, 1 year as a server/bartender at TGIFridays and another 2 years as an inventory clerk at Home Depot and that’s it. Needless to say, I did not call the candidate, but instead had a good chuckle and filed the resume away in my applicants’ folder.  The Account Director at the agency probably would’ve fired me if I sent him that resume.  It turns out that the candidate actually felt that she was really qualified for the position and proceeded to apply 2 additional times and contacted me repeatedly to tell me that she was perfect for it.  She further explained that she had advertising experience (Old Navy item of the week display) and CPG/Beverage experience (bartending). Come on!  I finally had to let her down and just told her that she didn’t have the right background.Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you don’t meet ANY of the criteria in the job description, it’s best to not apply. We don’t want you to waste your time.  Unfortunately, recruiters don’t get to make the rules. We just have to follow them.  Agencies give us a very specific list of qualifications for their ideal candidate.  Trust me, we would LOVE to send them candidates without relevant advertising experience. We just can’t.  In no way do I want to discredit the fine retail and chain restaurant establishments of the world.  After all, most of us have spent some of our best years folding clothes or flipping burgers. But sadly, advertising agencies don’t often find that bartenders with no advertising experience make good Media Supervisors.  I promise to let you know if those silly HR Directors ever come around.

Technorati Tags: advertising jobs, resume, job board, advertising, Account Executive, Old Navy, TGIFridays