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I think you need to reframe how you think about this. You’re not being interviewed, you’re also an active participant in the conversation. You can ask questions about what you’ll be working on, who you’ll be working with, what the most challenging accounts are, where the opportunities lie, you can ask to speak to more people on the team (creatives, CDs, ACDs, strategists). Seeming easy going in an interview because you want a job should not be the goal, it should be finding out as much as you can about the place.
Also, if you think you’re “getting nothing out of this,” you can also be active in that . Talk to your CDs, ask if you can be put on a pitch or if you can throw in some ideas for a bigger brief (make sure you finish your assigned tasks, too though). You can talk to strategists and PMs and find out what they’re working on and whether they know about anything coming down the pipeline.
Finally, ask yourself what it is you want to “get out” of an agency. For me, the most important things I learned as a junior were time management and teamwork (more with my CDs/other departments than with a creative partner tbh) . i didn’t make a lot of stuff that I put in my book, I threw in a LOT of ideas that went nowhere on pitches but learned a lot about pitches (worked at a small agency that pitched project work a lot). I produced like one campaign, I presented to clients about once a week and owned part of the social media presence for one client. Sometimes it was boring, but that’s what most junior jobs are. As you gain more experience, you’ll get better at asking for opportunities
I usually ask something like how do you hand out briefs / assignments, how many teams do you usually put on projects, etc.
It sounds like you’re in a smaller agency? The best opportunities at your level are to get on big briefs with a collaborative ACD or CD team. Briefs with multiple teams are rough if everyone’s competing against each other. I’ve been on huge projects with multiple teams where everyone sold something and even where we all won awards for it, but I’ve also been the only writer on a team with a CD writer so precious about her own ideas that I didn’t sell or produce anything the entire 6+ months I worked on her client.
Anyway I’ve had interviews where I asked how they give out assignments and the CD flat out told me I’d be doing all the banners and they were going to hoard all the fun big budget stuff for themselves, and another with CDs who said they have a lot of sht work so they want to make sure all their teams get a fair shot when the good projects come up.
I don't think there's any way to know because I don't think they always know. A lot depends on how things are going for the company after you get hired.