Ok. So you’ve heeded our advice and now you’ve got the job. You’re relieved. You’ve got the salary, you can afford food, and your parents are beginning to tell all their friends. Which annoys you, but it’s better than constantly being quizzed on your employment situation since you got that piece of glorified paper in the mail. But now you’re expected to do work? And you’re not being graded, but your job is on the line? Damn. Our resident mentor Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) doesn’t have sympathy, but he does have advice.

A couple of years ago, a recently returned to Australia mid-weight art director came in to show their folio to my creative partner and I.

This guy had some terrific work in his folio. His CV was impressive too, having worked in both Melbourne and Sydney, as well as overseas.

As you can imagine I was keen to get this art director on our team.

We spoke money and it looked like it would happen. However our finance director was away on some finance junket, so we had to put it on hold for a while.

So when my creative partner went on holiday for a couple of weeks I decided to get the art director in to work with me.

Now opportunities don’t come along every day in the creative industries, so if you get one you should do everything in your power to seize it.

Which is exactly what this seemingly hotshot art director didn’t do.

We took a brief for a project on a Monday morning. I couldn’t start work on the job however, as I had some urgent copy changes that needed to get done. So I left the brief with him and went and did copy changes.

This took longer than expected. It often does. So I didn’t get to sit down with the art director till late in the afternoon.

And what did the person have to show for a day’s work?

Very little. Very little indeed. They’d surfed the net. Looked at a few ideas for layouts. But in essence they had done two thirds of bugger all.

Oh well, I thought to myself. Perhaps they’re just getting settled. So I told them to call it quits for the day and said that we’d look at it together in the morning.

Things weren’t much better the next morning. I did all the talking. I had all the ideas. All the art director did was say how much they like some of my scribbles and play with a few layouts.

At lunchtime I was called to a client meeting. So I left the aspiring employee to take care of the project. When I returned several hours later I was very disappointed to see that the ideas had progressed no further than the last time I’d seen them.

Suffice to say, by the end of the week this potential employee was no longer a potential employee.

Sure they had a great folio. Yes they had an impressive CV. But the one thing they didn’t have was hunger.

Hunger to succeed. Hunger to be the best. Hunger to crack an idea on their own. Hunger to grab an opportunity and do something with it.