kind of feel like it’s to give up on this career. years of pushing myself at a job and waiting it out for my big “break” just to get a raise that doesn’t even move the needle. and on top of that it feels like no one is hiring. just feels defeating.

acknowledge how woe is me thus probably sounds to people who’ve been out of work for a bit so sorry

Nah feel you on everything, it’s not just you this industry is broken beyond belief. Your big break out campaign probably won’t be coming anytime soon through no fault of your own either. Clients are gonna be fine to keep rolling out ai slop and paying agencies less. Agencies won’t be able to recruit new talent and will have to rely on freelancers and senior creatives to churn out ai slop. Then when those people get too expensive to keep on the books or they quit/retire there won’t be anyone next in line to replace them because we’ve destroyed the talent pipeline and any allure this industry had trying to aggressively cost cut to deliver mediocre work on meager client budgets. Bleak.

Some advice. Get out now. As fast as possible. It’s not going to be easy, but the longer you wait the harder it’s going to be. I got laid off earlier this year and am now half way through a retraining program for a new career. It sucks and a lot of work, but the time flies by and am thankful everyday that I don’t have to go work at an agency.

I'm sorry you feel this way. A lot of people are in this boat. It has nothing to do with you. It's creative destruction. And we're the one's on the chopping block. Yes, there will still be people in advertising, but far fewer. This is no longer a career here. At best it's a job, like seasonal workers, just with a higher salary.

No point in comparing yourself against your peers or even thinking there's something you can really do to change your stripes. It was all a crap shoot anyways and there's always someone who gets the short end of the stick.

The truth is, like me, so many of us are grieving a very major loss. The loss of a livelihood. An identity. A planned future. Even in my lowest estimations of possible outcomes, I did not forecast this. No one did. It's not fair. But it is what it is.

The sooner you can move past this, like any bad relationship, the better off you will be. And if you need money hopefully you have a support system that can help out as you recalibrate and decide a new future. Maybe a technician, maybe a welder, maybe even start your own boutique company selling welcome home mats. Maybe a pool cleaner. I know it seems so sad to go from white collar to blue, but that's what's left for us until robotics really kicks in.

Personally, welding is a really cool avenue. Decent hourly wage once you figure it out and I think you could make some REALLY cool sculptural art out of it.

Again, I'm sorry.

I agree the industry is contracting, but would qualify the advice above. Don’t go be a welder if you have genuine love for the craft of writing. If you enjoy your job at its most basic level — being clever, surprising, and persuasive with words — then you will find work as a writer. Even if the future really is as bleak as “prompt engineer” or interpreting AI’s extrusions. If you’re indifferent to the actual writing part of copywriting and are instead drawn to other aspects of the biz like “ideas” or commercial shoots or whatever then yeah, you should find something new.

It’s a tough industry. I understand that feeling and have felt it myself in the past. But I’ve also done manual labour, and feel like generally have it easy (day to day) in advertising compared to most.

Maybe map out some options of other things you’d potentially like to do, and what the salary / lifestyle looks like for the average (not exceptional) person in that job? If it sounds appealing, go for it. I think a lot of the dissatisfaction people feel about advertising comes from an expectation it’ll be stable and they’ll be highly successful, both of which have been gambles for the modern history of the biz. Whatever you choose to do next, go in with open eyes.

Been hard for writers for a while. Everyone. But especially writer’s above sr. Level.

Haven’t people been saying this for like 50 years? Advertising will never go away, it will just shift. I believe there will always be space for good and clever advertising. All of this doom and gloom is based on conjecture and nobody can really say what’s going to happen. But maybe we should all abandon our careers because some of us are convinced we know the future. Recent hardships have all been based on economic and political realities. When the economy was good a few years ago, this current level of fear would be laughed at.