Why Agencies Should Stop Exploiting Junior Talent, and Start Investing In Them.
I’m so tired of seeing headlines like these and sickened by the idea that we haven’t made progress on this as an industry.
A healthy junior tier is critical to any agency that strives to create great work. But there is a negative cycle in place that needs to be broken—bring young talent in, pay them nothing (or very little) and make them work long hours. Focus on margin, not mentorship. When the industry chooses this approach, top talent leaves, the work suffers and the young talent that stays repeats the cycle as they move up the ranks.
6 years ago, I built a junior talent program inside the Publicis network and it was one of the most rewarding periods of my career. Even though my goal was to support my creative teams with top junior talent and give them opportunities to grow, I knew I needed to build a business model first. Nothing gets approved inside a holding company without the promise of increased margins. The model showed that the investment in year one would pay for itself by augmenting teams, reducing recruitment costs, retaining employees, delighting clients and bringing up project margins.
The program was founded on these 5 pillars:
- Pay them competitively
- Mentor them
- Give them real assignments and client contact
- Show them how they impact the agency
- Hire them if they produce great work
They called themselves Hello World and after 6 months, we saw the return on investment. They were a talented group who worked very hard and we offered them all full time contracts. They’d already recruited the next round of talent, but the program was killed before we could prove out the model. I was told the investment was just too high to continue. My response to the leaders at the agency was that there was much more at risk than they realized. Culture, innovation, new perspectives and reverse mentorship were just a few of the losses. Not to mention the fact that clients were requesting young talent to work on their brands. It was short term thinking vs. longer term vision.
A year and a half ago, I left the holding company world for good and joined EVB as the ECD. EVB is an independent shop with a strong resident program at the center. The partners value junior talent and the 5 pillars above were already in place. After I read the Digiday article referenced above I thought it would be nice to highlight one of our residents, Lea Henriot, who is from France and just wrapped up her 5 month residency with us.
I asked Lea to describe her experience at EVB:
“For almost five months, I had the opportunity to join EVB as a creative resident. Coming from France to know more about the American culture and improve my skills in a new working environment, I’m truly glad that I had this experience there.
At the very beginning of my internship, the team was really welcoming and helped me a lot to evolve step by step by getting more responsibilities through the months. My regular week was usually around 40 hours (unless we were pitching), and I worked both on my own and with the team depending on the project.
I personally never felt overwhelmed by the amount of work because I was always assigned to 1 or 2 brands at a time, but not more to really focus on what I was doing. Quality over quantity. And even for special projects that were more challenging and took more time, the team was always there to bring support. I really appreciated this balance because it gave me a real chance to learn by myself, but also to be supervised by the other designers and get advices from them at any time. I honestly feel like I had the time to properly grow in this agency, and I’m very thankful for that because I know that it’s pretty rare for an intern to have such a chance.”
Lea helped us win agency of record for Mamba Fruit Chews a few months ago and you’ll soon be seeing her work across a number of channels. She also helped us win a few other great accounts. More on that later. Thanks Lea and best of luck back in France! We miss you already and you have taught us so much in these 5 months.
Lastly, a quick shout out to all of my former Hello World apprentices, Clay Stein, Joseph Burgum, Jamie Feola, Jane Goodwin-Bell and all of the incredible junior talent I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring over the years. I’m thrilled to watch you succeed and look forward to seeing those that you mentor succeed as well. With luck, you’ll find companies that support you and recognize that our industry needs to stop the negative cycle in order to survive.
And oh…if you’re interested in a residency at EVB, contact us at hello@evb.com.
