Most advice we juniors receive these days is so predictable. It’s always the same old cliches spoken by the same old people who have nothing better to tell us than, ‘Be your best’, ‘Believe in yourself’, ‘Think big’, or, ‘Never give up’ — Goodness me! That guff helps no one. Lucky for you Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) doesn’t think that way. His advice is always practical. ‘Make phonecalls‘, ‘Have realistic expectations‘, ‘Don’t expect lots of money‘, and now some advice you’ll likely need — ‘Take the job’.

A young art director came to see me for some advice last week. After many months of job hunting and folio showings, she had been offered a position at a small agency.

Thing is, she wasn’t completely sure that she should take the job.

I asked her the name of the creative director and, as I expected, it was someone I had never heard of.

Next I asked her whether or not she had hit it off with the creative director and she said she had. She then went on to say how he had been very encouraging of her and her work.

So I asked her why she had come to see me. Turns out she wanted my advice on whether or not she should take the job.

This is quite common amongst aspiring creatives. As you can imagine, most kids want to work at big name agencies and hot shops. Can’t blame them for that.

But the reality is that creative opportunities are few and far between. So if you get offered a job at a shitty little agency no one has ever heard of, my advice is to take it.

Just don’t stay there too long.

Treat it as an apprenticeship. Use it to build your craft skills. And make good use of studio equipment to build a folio good enough to get you a job at a better agency.

Because you’ll learn a lot more actually working than you ever will sitting at home fine tuning your folio.