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Buy my 6 week course for $299 /session and I will let you know
but in all seriousness, like everything else, networking and luck
This is highly subjective, but I’ve worked for 5 tech companies at this point, and here’s some things that worked for me.
1) After almost a decade of agency work experience, my portfolio was super solid. Not that awards are everything, but I had probably won something like 50-60 lions, pencils, cubes, weird angel looking figures etc. I also had worked at some pretty reputable agencies.
2) Back when just a few people had gone in-house, I was tempted to check it out. Made a list of 40-50 companies I liked, found the emails of the recruiters and cold emailed all of them. It took a long time, but I emailed one recruiter who was actively looking for someone like me. Still had to interview, but got the job. Never heard back from any of the other ones.
3) I freelanced in-house for a while before going full-time. This really helped me out as I made friends that worked in-house. The network I created back then from freelancing is still helpful to this day. Also for some companies, it’s way easier to get a contract gig and get converted to full time than to apply for that job with 1000 applicants.
4) Lots of my agency friends eventually moved on to working client side, and the ones I had great work relationships with will refer me for jobs. So be nice and work hard as the people you sit next to now might be able to help you in the future. Being referred definitely helps.
5) Your dream job/company might be out of reach now, but switching to in-house at a lesser cool company now might give you a leg-up when you apply there in 3-5 years. If you f.ex want to work at Apple or Airbnb, but can’t get in, try getting a job at a less cool place like Uber, or Salesforce or LinkedIn and work your way up to it. Being in the same city helps, as you’ll prob meet friends who work there and can refer you.
6) If you’re portfolio isn’t great, make side projects to improve it. Can’t stress this enough.
Once you go in-house you will never go back. I know probably a few hundred people who went client side, and not one of them have gone back to agencies. Just let that sink in.
The pay is better, benefits insane, lots of perks etc etc - and you work more reasonable hours.
Rising Star
In-house recruiters and hiring managers love to hire agency people. Most of the candidates for these jobs are going to be people from top agencies with really good work in their books and awards.
Your opportunities to make work for your book could really be limited in-house, for a number of reasons. But every company is different.
work for an ECD who's gonna be an ECD in those in house tech places. be friends with them so they will take u with em. or work for MAL - the apple card gets u into more places than u could imagine