“A longer wish list could narrow down your job search”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

I started my career at a small boutique branding agency, where I spent almost three years honing my craft in a hands-on, fast-paced environment. During the lockdown, I took a leap and launched my own HR-tech startup, which, despite its potential, ultimately closed its doors. Following that experience, I joined a large advertising company, on a fixed-term contract working on high-street bank account, which provided valuable exposure to large-scale projects and processes.

Next, I moved to a startup agency as the first hire. Over the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to grow the team to ten people, gaining experience in both leadership and creative strategy. This journey has been incredibly rewarding, but having spent much of my career in smaller, scrappy startups, I’m now eager to learn from the processes and scale of larger companies.

While I’ve always been passionate about digital design, I’ve recently developed a keen interest in creative strategy, and I’m excited to continue growing in this space.

After spending the first eight years of my career in small agencies and startups I have worked my way up to be a design director. However, recently, I seem to spend more time firefighting, because the agency I work at grew rapidly in two years. I feel a bit aimless and stuck in the grind of day-to-day; I need a new goal. I want to gain experience and learn from the best, I want to keep pushing myself. Am I better to target huge global agencies, maybe consultancies, or go in-house with a big brand?

Alex Bec, CEO of It’s Nice That, Creative Lives in Progress and If You Could Jobs:

Wow – that’s quite a career journey! You’re clearly not afraid of trying something new, so more power to you and your bravery to experiment and constantly push yourself into new realms.

It seems clear the scale of the company you work for next is the most important thing to you right now, rather than whether that’s in a global agency, consultancy or in-house. So if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t be thinking about the type of place to go next, but more on finding somewhere that ticked your box of something larger-scale to keep pushing yourself and learning from those around you.

My other piece of advice would be to get slightly more clear and distinct on the list of things you’re looking for. The size of the company feels clear, but what else is going to float your boat in this next career move? Is it about working in a certain sector, or on a certain type of project, or the size of the team above, or below you? The manager you’d have to help you develop, maybe? I feel like you’d benefit from having a slightly longer wish list than just the scale – and maybe that could help narrow down your search a little?

I’d also start following some people who know about current creative employment trends on Linkedin, like Ollie Scott at Unknown, signing up for alerts with jobs boards like our very own IYC Jobs, and keeping an eye on what kinds of roles are coming up and where.

The creative landscape is always changing, but I believe there are always interesting opportunities out there for proactive, curious and engaged people like yourself. Best of luck!

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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