Clemenger BBDO Melbourne has rolled out a recruitment programme designed to find junior recruits for its grad programme that haven't taken the traditional university degree route into the business.
The programme, spearheaded by group account directors Naomi Gorringe and Nick Campion, is part of the agency’s aim to bring in a more diverse intake of juniors next year.
'Exceptions to the Rule' launched in November and all Clemenger staff were encouraged to seek out unusual candidates who they thought fit the bill. The agency is completing the final interview stages now and will announce the successful candidates shortly.
Clemenger has long run a graduate programme and much like other big name agencies it tends to require a university degree to get a place on the interview list for a highly sought after place.
This year the BBDO network split its grad scheme up allowing each agency to put in place its own programme rather than grads moving between agencies within the group, they would move within the agency.
CEO Nick Garrett wanted to find a way to make the potential intake more diverse. By diverse, he's not talking specifically about gender or ethnic diversity – but economic and social.
Clemenger also wanted to make it broader than account service, and introduce planning, creative and strategy.
The crux of it is that while the traditional grad route yields great talent, they have all travelled the same path into advertising and the agency wanted to remove the “arbitrary criteria” the existing scheme relied on and attract people that might have been excluded before.
“Some of the greatest people in advertising I’ve known didn’t study it. They came from other things, went out and got some experince and then came in to it,” says Campion.
Clemenger Sydney ECD Paul Nagy who is leaving the agency next year after a decade is a good example – he came into advertising after being a bricklayer.
“Most grad programs are biased by default and most [grads] come from PR, marketing or comms degrees and are from nice middle class schools. There's nothing wrong with that but it's just not diverse,” says Garrett.
“I just want to hire smart, furious, brilliant people. My hypothesis is that we're missing out on brilliant people [by only recruiting university graduates].
There is a trend across the advertising industry to hire grads and juniors from marketing and communication degrees, many of whom come from white, middle class backgrounds. While there's nothing wrong with that and many successful and brilliant creatives, planners and suits hail from that background, greater diversity is shown to breed a healthier environment, different styles of thinking and better creative output.
The website for the recruitment initiative states that Clemenger is interested in people that have no background in marketing and haven’t been to university. The site outlines what it's looking for:
“We have a sneaking suspicion we're missing out on some amazing people that might have chosen a different path. People with creative minds, a curiosity about what makes the world tick, an interesting story and a life well lived. People who are ready to think, to do and to make, and to be surrounded by other inspirational creative people while bringing their own special energy to life in the agency. Some of the best, most articulate and dynamic sales people are in fashion retail or in hospitality,” he says.
Clemenger isn't getting rid of its traditional grad programme, nor is it saying that it isn't interested in the sharpest university students who have studied marketing. It's not “either or” it's “as well as”. The non-university candidates were interviewed alongside its regular grad programme candidates. The successful applicants will undertake the same programme and training as their university graduate peers. Garrett says it's merely the selection process that is different.
The potential recruits were asked to answer a number of questions that demonstrated thinking, creativity and personality. Those that impressed were invited to an interview and to complete a group project with other candidates. If they are successful in joining the programme, each candidate will rotate around account service, creative, planning and production.
Gorringe says it was a gamble, and they didn’t really know how it would go, but it has far outstripped expectations.
Applicants came from disparate backgrounds including documentary film-making, music composing, marine biology, theatre, journalism and someone who worked in retail by day but designed CosPLay costumes in their spare time. They also ranged in age from around 22 to mid-40s – a much more diverse age range than the average grad programme.
What united them was being “creatively interested” and having an interesting story to tell, say Campion and Gorringe.
“Advertising can be an echo chamber and you can see the problems that’s caused in the political space around the election when people just see and talk to people that are the same as them. In advertising, we need to be able to communicate with everyone,” says Campion.
The desire for more diversity is sweeping the industry with a number of agencies looking at how they can do more.
Earlier this year, TBWA creative director Tara Ford told AdNews ahead of a Communications Council project to tackle diversity that it is vital to get different perspective into agencies.
“If you even just look at creative department, it is crucial that we have people with different points of view, different experiences, different ways of seeing things and thinking. The more diverse we are as a business, the better our output is going to be,” she said.
The industry has also rallied to launch The Agency Circle, a movement designed specifically with improving diversity in mind.
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