Bloody students

Since we're now well into, what I and I'm sure countless others in my profession refer to as, the "student season" I thought it might be nice to explain our predicament and perhaps offer some (seemingly) much needed advice.

As soon as I get into my office I hit send and receive and look forward to seeing what lands in the Character inbox. Most of the time I'm excited about what we're about to receive but over the last few weeks, and doubtlessly into the summer months, we're hit with tens of applications from people who (if they read the copy we put together) know that they are not the right candidate for the job - and most of the time it is the recently graduated students that are the cuprites.

Now I can't blame them - after all you don't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket. The frustrating thing is though is ninety nine times out of a hundred I am never shown anything that makes me want to give them a chance.

You see we are a business and as such need to make some money (obviously). We do this by charging a fee to our clients once we successfully find them the right candidate for their role. We're not cheap either so our clients come to us to help them find very specific people – not the sort of people that would get in touch everyday. And there's the problem. Most top Creative agencies get more than their fair share of graduate CV's emailed directly to them so the chances of them wanting to pay Character (or any other agent for that matter) an additional fee for hiring are slim to none.

"But all your positions require experience so how am I supposed to get experience if no one will offer me a chance?"

A question we hear all the time and you're right, it isn't fair. But then again neither are a whole heap of other things.

The fact is that you have just spent the last 3 - 4 years at a university learning how to be a designer. Fortunately though, once you get a job, you'll learn more in 1 week than you did in the whole of that time – that's a whole other issue entirely though and not necessarily your fault either.

You've got to come to terms with this, you have no commercial experience but you should have (if you're going to make it) massive hunger, enthusiasm and a vivid imagination. This will go some way to make up for it.

Writing in your CV that you're young and enthusiastic isn't enough to persuade me though I'm afraid and neither is a couple of your "arty photos", abstract art work or the business cards you did for your mate's mum's mobile hairdressers.

Wake up and realise that you're trying to enter into an industry that is more heavily over-subscripted than any other I can think of and start thinking about what you're doing on a higher level.

This business is fundamentally about communicating. You've got to work on delivering a more insightful and better crafted message than any of your peers.

There are some fantastic resources out there for those of you that try to find it. Sign up for a student membership with D&AD, read Creative Review, Design Week, Campaign and The Drum (Vox pop in this week's issue asks, "Are graduates ready for agency life?" ) religiously. Make sure you know what's hot on theFWA.com and newstoday.com

Work harder over the next six months than you ever did during your schooling. Read reviews, make phones calls, form you're own opinions on peoples work and work harder at your own.

If you send us something that genuinely excites and shows real promise, I'll guarantee to bend over backwards to help you get onto the ladder.

Before you do send me another email though, at least find out my name first!

Good luck to all of you.

Darren