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Wish i made moreeeeeee money...
Anyone starting at Deloitte Jan 11?!
Rising Star
Hi DI folks, how were the hikes last year??
Anyone working as Patient Recruitment Assistant?
Is LinkedIn premium worth it?
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Chat Bots and Artificial Intelligence. Ok, go!
What health/pharma agencies are in SF?
Craziest offsite ever. Go.
Going in house is the move, right?
Wendys twitter interactions are pure gold.
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Rising Star
Phrased another way: “If I take this lifeboat, does that mean I won’t be able to get back on the sinking ship?”
So true!
Agencies stopped reaching out to me about roles because they can’t compete on comp.
They try to make up for that with “cool work” but I don’t see a lot of agencies that are doing good work anymore.
Generally though, I found these posts odd. The goal should be to go brand side why would you want to go back to an agency (unless you own it)?
Maybe it’s just me but I found agencies to be extremely political, and dysfunctional. Brand side isn’t exactly nirvana but the pay is streets ahead and you don’t have to deal with client BS.
Clients don’t respect agencies anymore, and agency leadership has no desire to stand up to clients. Idk why anyone who doesn’t have to would want to be in that environment. Seriously please educate me.
The heart wants what the heart wants. And apparently what it wants is those bean bag chairs the agency bought in 2005 and the water-ringed foosball table whispering for you to come home. It is a quaint dilemma when you think about it. Of course, everyone will be remote in five years or replaced by AI, so savor these precious little moments of indecision. Soon we’ll all be taking whatever work we can get just to afford our monthly government stipend of nutritional pellets, issued after Big Daddy Trump finally tanks the economy, declares martial law, and rebrands groceries as a members-only perk for anyone willing to pay into his inner-circle paywall.
My in house experience has been “people who expect to go home every day at 5pm and do not expect to ever work nights or weekends.”
That, to me, is worth ten times more than any Lion
It does sound like a dream. I’ve been leaving at 8 pm + trying to catch up from all the emails and things piling up on me. When exactly am I supposed to build all these budgets if I’m in meetings so often.
This may have been true in the past, but these days nobody cares. Go for it.
They say the in-house work can get dull. I see creatives complain about it all the time. So can agency work if you ask me. Must be a trip to be surrounded by people who previously often squashed one’s ideas, sure. But who cares, do your art on the side. It’s advertising. These days there are less film shoots and people working on cool concepts. Mostly, we’re all trying to fill the web or social with an endless supply of stuff since no one has figured out a way to turn the internet off! 😆 in this layoff environment I’d take whatever comes your way & worry about next steps later.
Pro
Why are you scared of leaving the agency life? Go, have a real career. You should want to join a company that will likely still be here in 5 years.
Kind of agree with what’s being said.
First off, you can shift back to an agency. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen others do it.
Regarding work going stale. That can happen for sure. But I’ve seen it both ways. I worked at a global agency for 3 years (stuck on a bank client for 2) and got nothing for my book. While in-house I got 3 book pieces in 2 years. It boils down to what work you’re doing and the client/brand. Stale work can come from the agency side too.
The jest of it is, agencies have cool cultures and weird people and the work tends to be fun, while brand side the work can be boring but easy, and the culture and people are just more stuffy and granola. That’s been my experience anyways.
I also can make CD money being a senior creative brand side, with fewer responsibilities. The money and work/balance is unmatched.
Agencies right now are basically a lot of good talent fighting over whatever scraps of work is left. I went brand side because I wanted to be employable in 10 years, especially with the rise of AI.
I don’t think clients and brands value good creative work anymore.
I don’t think the old rules apply anymore. I freelanced in-house this year, and I was doing way more conceptual work than I was doing at agencies. Scripts, activation ideas, platform lines. And the brand was interesting. My agency experience has mostly been banners and social captions for really dry brands.
In house can be good. But there are some awful places. Warning, do not go to Aetna/CVS in house. Political petty divisive place to work.
Also will add — and this is gonna bum a lot of people out — avoid travel / hospitality like the plague. Conservative, cheap, only interested in clinging onto 55-year-old business travelers.
Rising Star
Go, agency land is super rocky and the future’s uncertain.
Go, but don’t stay forever if you’re book starts to go stale. If you get good book work, never look back. I’ve gone back and forth and it’s hurt my momentum a bit, but it’s been mostly fine. I did like it a lot better in-house, from a workload standpoint. I have the feeling AI will do a lot of the more below-the-line in-house work in the future though like emails, paid social, etc.
How can you pick up freelance while working full time ? Tell the agency you can only work after 5pm?
Rising Star
I’m in house and still make work I’m proud of. They love proactive thinking and will fund good ideas (truly). Everywhere is different obviously, but I hope to never ever go back to agency side.
This is so real and something I’m trying to navigate as I apply and get interviews. Knowing that I wasn’t trained for in-house but with jobs being so hard to get, being open
Once you’re an indoor dog, you will never go back out.
That’s the dream, better work life balance and pay… I would take it no question
In house sucked. Depending on industry and level, agencies can sometimes meet your comp demands.
I’ve worked both in house and agency - money and work/life balance is better in house, but with an agency you’re exposed to many different brands and networks/mediums, thus expanding your experience. Agency also keeps things from getting monotonous. But my preference is in house if it’s multiple brands/products. Hope this helps!
Leave agency life behind you. And take me with you.
It’s interesting how much the holdco and indie agency perspectives diverge on this.
i moved from in-house to agency and tbh i did love it so much i wouldn’t have ever gone agency but my hand was forced when the company closed and the only job in my area was for an agency lol
Why would you ever want to go back to agencies? Congrats on the opp. Grab it.