The difficulty of finding an advertising job serves as a good first test for an industry where rejection occurs daily. That’s why when parents of jobseekers call me, I ask them to have their child/nephew/friend’s amazingly creative daughter contact me directly. You have to really want to be in this business to build a career in it.

For young creatives, the typical path requires creating a portfolio. That used to mean assembling a book, but now it all happens online where any applicant with programming savvy can really wow non-digitally native people like myself.

Because that’s the job: creating interest in your ideas, your creativity, your own unique perspective and world view.

Yesterday, we launched our application for OLSON’s Summer O-tern program. We’re looking to hire three students interested in the creative side of marketing. In an inspired bit of thinking, our team of Matt Burgess and Bryan Michurski, led by Tom Fugleberg, created this unique application challenge…

Note, they created this piece using only a phone.

I love this idea. In the past few years, the widespread availability of broadcast-level technology has democratized production; smartphones with 1080p video literally put that production capability in all of our hands. And sharing through social media circles forms the foundation of modern connectivity and community building.

Of course, what you do with that capability is the real challenge. We plan to post the entries and offer constructive criticism about them. After all, if students take the time to create something for us, they deserve to get direct feedback on their work.

Learn more about the program by clicking here (recently, someone at ICF Next reached out, asking me to update this link. The Otern program is long dead: this now links to their employment opportunities. Good luck!) And if you happen to know any child/nephew/friend’s amazingly creative daughter who wants to explore a career in advertising, send the link to them.

I look forward to seeing where their imaginations can take us.

OLSON, OLSON, OLSON, OLSON, OLSNO, OLSON, OLSON…

By Dennis Ryan, CCO, OLSON

OLSON, OLSON, OLSON, OLSON, OLSNO, OLSON, OLSON…