“I hope that in 2025 we’re creating roles for people outside the industry”

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.

Every week our talented roster has been answering our reader submitted questions. Now that the year is drawing to a close – we thought they’d like to take a break. We’ve taken over this week’s question to give our advice givers a chance to look back and forward to the new year.

This week’s question:

Think back on the questions you’ve answered—what common themes or topics came up? What are your hopes for 2025? And are there any areas or topics you’re excited to explore more in the new year?

Katie Cadwell, co-founder of branding studio Lucky Dip and The NDA Podcast:

It’s been an amazing year. We’ve had such a broad range of conundrums and incredible honesty from readers; some have shared really personal stories. I’m incredibly grateful that If You Could & It’s Nice That have created a safe space for us to have these conversations.

The variety of questions proves that there is a lot going on in the creative industry. We’re all adapting to a fast paced, ever-evolving world — whether you’re just starting out or classified as a veteran. It seems we’ve got some work to do.

Some topics really stood out to me, a few submissions that kept me on my toes. One of those was a practical question with very real consequences — what are agencies putting in the small print of contracts we all agree to? Are some of these stipulations outdated, and should we be questioning them before we sign on the dotted line?

We also had lots about returning to the industry. Whether that’s from an in-house role, maternity leave, or redundancy. It acknowledges that there’s this ‘exclusive’ bubble the top agencies create. And this idea that if you step away, you’ll no longer be cool, relevant or welcomed back in.

I hope that in 2025 we’re creating roles for people outside the industry – looking at people with varied life experience or a CV that isn’t ‘traditional’. Creating diverse teams in our studios will help solve a multitude of issues that we know exist. Different people bring different thinking. Let’s hope next year we celebrate that and see those hiring for prominent roles exploring outside their rolodex. Less recycling of talent amongst the more well-known studios.

I also want to see these conversations happening not just here, but everywhere. Social feeds filled with fewer self-gratifying posts and more discussions about the hard parts of being a creative. I’m feeling inspired for NDA Season 3, to take some of these stories and try to unpick them and answering more here at CCC. Let’s make the motto of 2025 ‘warts and all’ — and promise to never shy away from sharing our real experiences, so that others feel less alone.

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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