Job hunters get help crafting their pitch
Onetime ad executives guide those launching careersBy Brian Steinberg, Globe Correspondent | August 29, 2008
Even though Elizabeth Clabby had finished her studies when she graduated from Providence College in 2006, she still had more work to do: She had to figure out how to get a job.
Her mother suggested she consult with Hayden-Wilder, a team of two executives who formerly worked at Boston's Arnold agency. After spending several years helping craft promotional messages for people, products, and services, D.A. Hayden and Michael Wilder now help young job seekers hone their selling points.
"It's really just about helping me to package my skills. I had the skills. It was, 'How do I package them in a way that helps me to land a job?' " said Clabby, who now works at a Boston advertising agency. "They really helped me to look at what I had to offer and how do I sell that to an employer."
Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Microsoft all solicit help from advertising executives; young job seekers can make use of them as well. Learning how to sell yourself can be more important these days: Workplace experts suggest today's college graduates are more comfortable communicating from behind a screen and keyboard, and not as familiar with the nuances of discussions held face to face.
And new graduates also come into the job market at a difficult moment in the economy, so polishing a presentation can only give someone a leg up. Last fall, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that employers projected a 16 percent increase in hiring, but trimmed that to 8 percent by March.
"What you find is in New England and in the United States among younger college graduates, particularly bachelor's degree holders, the share of them that have been ending up in true college labor-market jobs - jobs that typically require a college degree - has been going down," said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.
In 2005, Hayden and Wilder decided to take what they had seen during their time at Arnold and other companies - more than 3,000 entry-level candidates seeking jobs - and teach first-time job seekers how to apply a coat of promotion to the surface. The company turned a profit after being in business for about a year and a half, Hayden said.
The pair follow a long line of advertising executives who have successfully managed to parlay their expertise into other fields, including Dick Wolf, the creator of NBC's "Law & Order" crime-drama franchise, who got his start as a copywriter churning out slogans for products such as Procter & Gamble's Crest.
Each Hayden-Wilder client takes part in a curriculum of eight sessions, 12 hours in all. Videotaped interviews and feedback are key parts of the Hayden-Wilder method, and the company says a few hours of independent study are required following each 90-minute session. Some sessions teach students to get their selling points across to an interviewer, no matter what the question; discuss their core strengths; and polish their resume.
"Most of the kids that we saw, really we felt, were totally unprepared for the process of knowing how to get a job," Wilder said. "They were missing out on opportunities, not because they weren't qualified, not because they weren't smart, but because they just didn't know what to do."
Hayden and Wilder tell stories about candidates they have seen over the years while working at agencies: the young man who read a Batman comic book while waiting to be interviewed; the woman who sent Wilder - who used to work on the "Got Milk?" campaign - materials in a creatively decorated milk carton, but forgot to make sure all the milk had been washed out; and the fellow who nibbled on a baguette while being asked questions.
"You saw they had great potential, but they would do something foolish." Hayden said. "You wanted to follow them out the door and shake them on the shoulders and say, 'If you had just done this, it would have gone to the next level.' "
Before consulting with Hayden-Wilder, Georgetown University graduate Kristen Shirley was convinced she wanted to go into fashion. She had held a sales internship with Donna Karan and thought the next step was landing a full-time job at a similar firm. There were other jobs for which she might be better suited.
"They helped focus me," recalled Shirley. "I was kind of all over the place and they helped perfectly tailor me, so I got across what I wanted to get across" in resumes and interview sessions.
Making a splash at an interview isn't all that different from making one in a 30-second TV ad or a sound bite in a radio commercial for products, said Jack E. Rossin, a former Boston ad executive who now works as a consultant, teaching corporate employees the importance of presentation skills.
"Helping a job candidate find the right communication tools honest to God, is not different than selling kielbasa," he said.
Brian Steinberg is the television
editor of Advertising Age.