Tips on landing entry-level strategy?!
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Create a blog with your thoughts on a topic of interest related to marketing and show how you think - culture, new commerce, shifting audiences, different verticals, honestly whatever you enjoy. Use this to show your wares to prospective employers. Personally I couldn't care less where you went to school, I want to see your brain in action. Craft a narrative, show your strategic acumen, demonstrate some passion and curiosity, and highlight your creativity.
Internships. Figure it why you want it. Talk to a ton of people. Show you can think, write and research. I look for people we can mold, you don't have to be an amazing strategist at entry level. Just show promise and rise to rock stardom over time
You have to network like crazy. Go to a lot of informational interviews and treat them like real interviews. Most agencies recruit directly out of programs like brandcenter so unless you want to go that route, you gotta work it real hard.
I second this post.
I would also put together a website. I really really care how junior hires write. That's the most important part of planning IMO.
@brand strategy director why does the ad industry like their junior strategists strapped with debt?
I second internships! I had four while in college and they were invaluable in making connections in a natural way. I ended up getting my entry level job because I interned with a woman at one agency, then ended up interning with her boyfriend at another agency (randomly) and by that point she had moved on to another agency with an opening and told me to contact her.
Everyone I know had told me strategy jobs out of undergrad were nil, but they definitely exist.
I also think it helped that thanks to an undergrad communications degree I was already well versed in a lot of the basic components of planning and had intentionally worked hard in undergrad to develop other skills I thought would be useful to the role. (I.e. Taught myself spss, took a grad level course in qualitative research)
Now that I'm in a hiring position, I value people who are curious, hard working (and as was said above, strong writers). Some of it also comes down to person dynamics. I have no patience to work with someone who doesn't realize how much they have to learn, who can't take feedback, or acts entitled. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a professor who basically told me that no matter how small the task to do the best damn job I could and it's something I've carried through to this day. Some of the work done by a jr is definitely grunt work, but there is something to be learned from everything with the right attitude.
All ears too 👂
I posted a job and got hundreds of applicants. You gotta stand out somehow. The best younger planner I worked with didn't go to grad school but she really stood out with her writing.
I hear it's tough because it's hard to teach someone to be a good strategist. Apply to as many job positions as possible and hope something sticks.
A lot of unpaid work on your own time. Unfortunately.
Entry level strategy is a contradiction. Strategy is a mix of expertise and experience. Build expertise in a field, and then broaden that perspective into new areas. Unless you're thinking of Strategy as a euphemism for Analytics... then I recommend an entry level analyst role.