The Interns
On Friday I spent my afternoon talking to recent graduates at a job fair for the New Denver Ad Club. Now, unsurprisingly, this isn’t the kind of thing Motive does on a regular basis. It’s hard enough for us to find employees with experience; finding interns who are prepared for the kind of hell we’ll put them through is another story.
To be completely truthful, I know that I can be a little judgmental when someone isn’t keen to doing things the way I have learned to do them. I laugh a little about corporate process; I don’t have any desire to wear a suit to work, even for a little heftier paycheck; I’m not all too concerned with best practices, so long as the things I do turn out relevant, original, and creative. So when I sat down at this job fair booth to interview potential internship candidates, I found myself wondering why nobody had ever told them to be themselves as opposed to trying to fit a pretty picture more suited to pre-millennial applicants.
Some of the kids I talked to were smart, ambitious, and genuinely interesting. Most weren’t. Most of these kids had no sense of who they were, and if they did they weren’t comfortable showing it off. I remember being in college and having a couple of professors who encouraged me to be myself…are these types of mentors not as common as they should be?
I’m not totally sure what I’m trying to get at here, but I think the gist is that if you’re a college grad looking to work in a creative environment, you should act the part. Be excited! Be ambitious! Be yourself, and people like the ones who work at my agency will undoubtedly be more interested in hearing about your abilities.
